If you are an addict in recovery following a structured program then relapsing soon is unlikely. Once you understand how to stay clean, and the mental maintenance required to stay clean, it then becomes a mental decision to get “loaded”. However addicts get loaded all the time after sobriety right? They lack mindfulness of their program and forget. Being mindful of old patterns can prevent a relapse. I don’t think it was possible to be mindful in addiction. I ran from mindfulness when I was an addict. I remember once someone explained mindfulness to me when I was a deep junkie and I thought it was laughable! Try and feel my feelings?! WTF?
In addiction the addict does not have a weak will but is powerless regardless . The addict is powerless because the process that determines what he thinks is corrupted at biological level. An addict does not have thoughts that belong to him. His thoughts are machinations of goop. An addict is powerless to be himself authentically. His thoughts are just synapses burning in chemical fire that obscures self awareness. 
Thoughts determined by the chemicals bludgeon mindfulness from the brain. Being mindful is not needed if you can “control” feelings. The addict attempts to “control” his brain by ingesting chemicals. Drugs become like a cheat code for the brain. They make you think you won the game without living the experience.
Drugs can give you a feeling that you have a 4.0 GPA and are “winning” at your life. At a chemical level your brain thinks it is gathering resources, building a shelter and starting a family. A family that you feed a protect from bears and provide for. It stimulates primal reward. Heroin in particular affects the reward pathway of the brain. Your brain is tricked. That feeling of doing well in school is stimulated by heroin. The time you made that winning point for the big game is stimulated by heroin.
Heroin makes you think that you mother coddling you like a sick infant, and stimulates a primal sense that “everything is ok”. Heroin is not your mom though… Heroin is not a 4.0 GPA. However at a chemical level your brain cannot tell. The brain talks to itself through “neurotransmitters” that get released during certain experiences and influence the thoughts that are formed. The “self” is made up of millions of these reactions. They transport messages in the brain . A feeling you should have climbing a mountain is released in a Honey Bucket nodding out in drool.
Therefore mindfulness in addiction is impossible. It is important to be mindful of those old biological pathways however. Old shortcuts of the brain. The old shortcuts to the shimmering tower. Pathways of illusion. I am grateful to be able to have my own thoughts today. I am grateful that recovery has enabled me to be mindful of myself and watch old habits.
crunchymindfulness 