honeypig

Hi, goodstitch. I think it's a relapse if he was in recovery of any sort, not necessarily only a formal treatment plan, since many recovering A's use only AA or the like and never enter any sort of rehab or treatment...just my opinion, how I would define it.

I can relate to your feeling of knowing that your senses are not betraying you, that what you perceive as reality actually IS reality. A few weeks ago, over the course of a couple of days, my A was acting very much as he did when drinking (4-1/2 months sober now, so far as I know). We argued about a couple things, very much in the pattern of how things used to be. He showed some physical quirks that he used to show when drinking. His whole being just seemed to have been taken back to the drinking days, and I thought to myself "either he IS drinking again or he's about to." Then, while reconciling our bank accounts, I found a cash withdrawal that I knew nothing about. Long story short, he denied, denied, denied and then, like your A, finally admitted that he had been "thinking about" drinking again. Would not admit to actually drinking, though, and I'll never know for certain, I'm sure.

There WAS a certain feeling of relief that I had seen the signs and correctly recognized them. In my case, not relief that the relapse had finally happened, but just that when I refused to sweep my own knowledge and feelings under the carpet (as I had been doing for years), lo and behold, I was right. I was not crazy or over exaggerating or misinterpreting facts or anything else.

I believe I do understand where you're coming from. I think it might be an important step for at least some of us to start learning to trust our intuition, to trust that we ARE seeing the facts correctly, when for so long we've been told by others (and even by ourselves!) that what we think and feel and believe we are seeing is NOT true.

Thanks for posting--this is a topic that's on my mind lately and I appreciate the chance to hear about it from others' viewpoints.