Marci23

Ahahahahaha! Point taken. : D

silentrun

There are just to many different words for things in recovery. I slipped after 90 days. Drank 3 drinks, got sick, dumped the bottle and learned my lesson. Call it a relapse whatever. When referring to said incident I mostly just say I used.

Grungehead

I first got sober in 1990 and I have had two "relapses" from then until now. One lasted one year and the other lasted eight years.

They both started as "slips".

I don't slip, I start drinking alcoholically again, because that's what I do. Once I put alcohol in me I lose all choice in how many or how long I will drink. It may last one day or (in my case) 8 years, but it all starts with that first drink. It doesn't matter what I call it because both can end up in my demise.

Vandermast

they are both the start of something very bad................

v

LadyBlue0527

Just realized that this is a old thread. Good one to be brought up.

As a lying alcoholic who has finally seen the light the word slip is used to make drinking again seem smaller than it really was. To make a relapse appear "meh" and ok.

How I perceive it now is a slip would be not being mindful in the moment and taking a sip of something or having a drink knowing full well that it had alcohol. Note I am using "sip" and "a drink". Then, you come to your senses and are horrified at what you did and point blank, you stop. You immediately do what it takes to get back on the path.

Relapse is when you started with a slip and then said "ah, who cares" and just kept on going.

I guess in totality the difference for me is the decision that your brain comes to when you've let it catch up to the activity of your arm and your mouth after having had a "small" amount of alcohol. At that point were you horrified and stopped or did you just keep going?

Both are equally as bad.

CAPTAINZING2000

I've never slipped relapsed or became non allergic to alcohol yet.
I read these threads as a reminder to me.
Anyone see very many people start drinking successfully let me know. I'd love to hear how they did.
My concern is it being even more painful the next time

matt4x4

Oh its planned, no one forces you to drink alcohol. You chose to drink. You believed the lie, that this time it is going to be different and heres why..........
We can minimize it all we want, that is what we are good at.
It wasnt that bad. Nothing bad will happen.

SoulSister

"The fact is that most alcoholics, for some reason yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink."

There Is A Solution

matt4x4

There Is ONE Solution......... as my sponsor likes to say.

Elisabeth888

I have never 'slipped', I have balls-to-the-walls-relapsed going 90 mph into a brick wall.

nissan99

Glad this thread has resurfaced. My GF (also in recovery) recently had a very traumatic, humiliating along with the death of a family member happen. She was accused of drinking again (I would know, I would surely smell and even more for sure taste it). I believe she wasn't and hasn't. She "lost it" and bought a bottle and drank all night into the morning, got sick, felt like crap, and was reminded of just how awful that is. All she does now is have regrets and remorse over it, won't stop praying, apologizing, beating herself up over it. I keep telling her it's not what you did, it's what you do about it. I also told her if she "burns out" on trying to over compensate for what she did it will lead to more unhealthy negative self talk and low self worth. She also knows my conviction to my own program and way of life and wouldn't tolerate an active drinker. We had a fabulous weekend, did some big book reading, step work, and had some fun.

AnyLengths

Slip = Choosing to Drink
Relapse = Choosing to Drink

matt4x4

What is the difference between a Slip and a Relapse? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

They are both the same. It is premeditated. You believed the lie the brain was telling you, you gave into an untruth, knowing full well what happens when the drink is taken. This is the insanity of the disease. The insanity has never been the stuff that happens after the drink is taken, this is normal stuff. Again, the insanity is sitting here completely sober, having a thought that I can take a drink and nothing bad will happen and giving into the thought by getting up and going to the liquor store and buying the poison. Thats just plain crazy.

RobbyRobot

That also isn't sobriety. It is alcoholic-minded thinking though, and is a great example of those who think they have sobriety but actually haven't changed out their alcoholic mind. Their psyche is unchanged. They have become deluded they are sober, and so they have no defence against that kind of alcoholic thinking.

Sobriety isn't just about not drinking. Those with actual sobriety don't just get up and have a drink because of some thoughts for drinking. Real sobriety protects against crazy alcoholic thoughts....

bluncain

So glad I read your post.

My last slip, or relapse, call it as you will, resulted in an eighteen month binder. Every day was groundhog day. I drank got drunk, blacked out. Woke up did it all again - except today it would be just be two bottles of red wine. I would sometimes buy wine I didn't enjoy, so that didn't really count. My own sweet practice of controlled drinking.


My AV ran riot. I would get annoyed by strangers reaction to me, just because I had 'drink taken'.

Any sane person keeps a drunk at arms length.

I can see more clearly now.

Stoogy

I would class a slip as having a drink and then being so disgusted with myself that I stopped in my tracks, I would regard a relapse as doing what I done for many years- not stopping till bedtime.

PaperDolls

I absolutely agree with you TheEnd.

NoelleR

I see this like theol math axiom............: if a=b, and b=c, therefore a=c.

Therefore if slip=drinking (regardless of the time), and relapse=drinking (again, regardless of the time), therefore slip=relapse.

(o:
NoelleR

huntingtontx

My thought would be a slip is an accident. Like you drank the punch and found it was spiked. A relapse would be to choose to take a drink. I will stick with, don't take the first drink no matter what. Then you will never have to worry about the rest. Just my thoughts.

LBrain

depending on who answers, how you spell it I suppose.

To some a 'slip' is taking a drink and getting back on the wagon.

Relapse is just giving up and starting right back were you left off.