CriticalMass

Something I was wondering: If someone relapses and has one night of drinking after going through withdrawal and stopping...can the addiction begin again in just one night? Would all of that withdrawal have to be gone through again? I have no intention of relapsing. I was just curious if addiction can strike back after a single occurrence.

I'm not using this as an excuse to slip...I just wanted to know that if I ever did...it would never be as hard as this first time through.

Boleo

Sounds a bit like you are toying with the idea that you can somehow avoid withdrawals (correct me if i am wrong).

What you are in effect playing with is something known as "The Hair of the Dog That Bit Me". Something most of have tried and gotten some temporary good results with. The trouble is, the more you learn about beating your withdrawals, the deeper your addiction goes underground. The end result is you end up drinking 24 X 7.

Bikeguy

I don't know, detox scared me so bad the first time I don't ever want to find out.

Reset

Yeah, the process was bad enough once. I don't feel like going through that again.

justjo

YES YES & YES

Just my opinion

JJ

BHF

Based on the way your question is posed, my opinion (which is not based on any knowledge of medicine) is no, the hypothetical alocholic who has relapsed will not necessarily have to endure all of the withdrawal symptoms again after just one night of drinking.

If you have drank enough, long enough to experience withdrawals, DT's etc, then I belkieve that it is largely in part to the fact that your body is accusotomed to the intake of a certain amount of alcohol for a period of time. I guess it would depend on how long the person had gone with no alcohol - how far in the past the physical dependency on alcohol had been? If you'd detoxed only 2 weeks ago and then relapsed....yeah, you might have some of the same withdrawals.

FrothyJay

Physically, you are not going to suffer the same withdrawal after one night of drinking that you did after 25.

Mentally and emotionally, you might be worse than ever.

TwelveSteps

Google "kindling and alcohol withdrawal."

GG

StPeteGrad

I think it's an interesting question. I'm inclined to take FrothJay's opinion on it, but not willing to find out for myself. What's interesting is that it seems that when people "go back out" after long periods of sobriety the disease seems to get much worse much more quickly. Possibly it's just perception - again, I'm in no hurry to confirm or debunct this thought.