FourSeasons

Congratulations on 5 Years! That is truly an accomplishment!!

Though, I must admit, your post worries me.

This is really my very first attempt at sobriety. I have never gone longer than a week/10 days in the past. I can't really count those meager attempts at sobriety as a "relapse" .... or... can I ??? ... I honestly I don't know...

I am concerned that maybe my almost 4 consecutive sober months EVER may all be for not and, as the statistics suggest, I am due for a relapse... Hope not...

Brian316

I started drinking in 1999. Didn't ever even try to quit until 2007 after being hospitalized for withdrawals. Picked up a again after a week and landed back in the hospital after a month. Tried to control it for a year or so and went back to being an every day drinker. Started trying to quit again in 2010. Went through several relapses. Now I'm at 46 days sober and really trying but it takes daily action. I am grateful to be sober today. Thank you for the thread mountainmanbob.

PhaseTwo

This is my first real attempt. Thankfully I don't have any notion of moderation being possible. When thoughts of drinking pop into my head it's always a desire to get hammered, not sip one beer: already know where that leads, and it sucks. Most of the time I don't have those thoughts.

Huglets

Started drinking whenever possible at 13, became a daily drinker at 26, knew with certainty I was an alcoholic at 30, made no attempts at sobriety until I was 43.

First go around I was sober for 9 months but hated every moment of it. Went back out for 7 months and it nearly killed me.

Now happily on the sober train for a little bit over a year, yet realize I receive only a daily reprieve. I must always be diligent and work a solid program.

Bottom line, it takes what it takes. If you fall down, get back up and keep at it.

Vandermast

got sober at 26.....stayed that way for 7 years.....relapsed for i year...rehab....sober 2.5 years.....relapsed.....for 3 years, which i got in that time, one month, a week, three months, fourmonths, etc.

sobriety date 25.10/2013.....currently in rehab.

so yeah numerous relapses.

v

MaidenNZ

Really good question... I've had three slips since April. I'm not foolish enough to say it will be my last either. But it might be, who knows. I've been winning the battle of the booze lately.

afloatsober

Been trying to quit for 17 years. Attended AA most of that time. 2 X 9 months abstinent in that time and many 3,4,5 etc.Hospitalizations, jail cells, rehabs all behind me. Fought this illness until i had no fight left. When wife,home,career,family,money and health gone i finally gave up the fight on 1/4/13.
I let go and let God because i was beat.
G

Mountainmanbob

you can be one of the ones FourSeasons
that do not relapse
another Bob in the AA Program sobered up with me just over 6 years ago now
he has never relapsed
in no way is it a requirement or recommended

(as I have had some friends who relapsed die with a bottle in hand)

keep doing what you are doing
it's all about what I do or don't do today

Mountainman

newme2day

This is my first attempt at sobriety where i have admitted to myself that i have a problem. A couple of years ago i abstained from alcohol for one year. Succeeding at that told me i must not have a drinking problem. I was able to moderate for awhile until my thoughts became obsessive again. I know now, especially after reading several threads on this site, i have a problem with alcohol. Today is day 18 and i am taking it 24 hours at a time.

Mountainman . . .five years is awesome. Hope to make it there!

jdooner

I have quit a dozen times but only once before my current was I serious and in a program. Problem was that was 20 years ago. In between there have been many 15, 20 or 30 days quits mostly disguised as Cleanses. I have never poured this much work, thought, education into a program as I am now and I am hopeful this will infect be my last but not arrogant enough to say for certain it is.

aasharon90

With a many one days at a time added
together, following the steps and principles
set down before us, encoperating them
in all my affairs, I am grateful and humbled
for each day sober for the past 23 yrs. sober
without any slips or relapses.

A program of recovery works because
I continue to live it each day.

Mountainmanbob

I usually prefer information straight from counselors who themselves are
recovered alcoholics or addicts
but
I think the following comments to be right on base
Mountainman





Relapse

Is Relapse A Normal Part of Recovery?

As a substance abuse counselor I am asked this question all the time. Because I am not in recovery myself, my answer comes from years of counseling alcoholics/addicts and processing their answers along with my own professional insight.

So, with that said...is relapse part of recovery? Yes and no depending on who you are talking about. If one has relapsed, learned from their "slip" and embraced a stronger, more formidable recovery, then the answer is "yes." However, if one continues to relapse because they have not tethered a confident and secure change in their lifestyle, then relapse just becomes an excuse for buying more time before committing to sobriety. Hence, the answer is "no."

I have befriended many alcoholics/addicts and a number of them have embraced their clean and sober lifestyle from the day they committed to it. However, the majority have had some hiccups along the way.

[email protected]

Mel12

Thanks Mountainman for starting this helpful thread which motivates me to make yet more dramatic lifestyle and habit changes for avoiding relapse. Best of luck to you and all of us!

Mountainmanbob

thank you
as I head out now for a 9:15am AA meeting
the meeting is called "Jump Start Meeting"
if we jump start our days with the good moral thoughts of recovery
such as coming to this site in the morning
chances are -- we will not drink today
and the same wished for all here
MB

YoungAndClean

It's felt like a long road of denial, procrastination, fear, acceptance, and action. I can read my diary from when I was 18 years old and a senior in high school and I was talking a lot about wanting to be sober (free from pot primarily) to have a better life. I drank alcoholically from the get go and that was my lifestyle for 10-12 years. It caused a lot of relationship,financial, school, legal problems along the way. But always I had to drink or use, and my using got worse and worse: opiates, pills, amphetamines, etc. Whereas before it was alcohol, hallucinagens, and pot.

I tried to quit on my own for years, probley from 20-24 years of age. I would switch from that to denail about my problem. I can remember telling myself that so long as I quit before I was thirty I would be okay. So I procrastinated my problem for years. Finally the hard drugs kept derailing my life as I kept getting addicted to them. And it led me to AA at age 24. I had no problem admitting I was an alcoholic but just couldn't seem to get HOW, Honesty, Open-Mindedness, Willingness. It didn't help that I was currently in college at a major party school in California.

So I got a lot of 30d, and 60d chips. But then went back out for a year, then went to rehab for 2 months, then went back out for a year, and then got on suboxone and got back in AA and got 4 and a half months then decided I missed beer to much and went back out and my last relapse was insane and nearly killed me. Now I have 4 and a half months sober again and this time is very different. I know that for me to drink again equals all the drugs and chaos I barely made it out of. For me this has been a long grueling road and I earned my seat in AA. I certainly had to have things get bad enough and go through all the stages of denial, procrastination, anger, etc. over being an alcoholic. Who wants to be an alcoholic at 28? I certainly didn't want to. But the old way kept getting worse and wasn't even fun anymore so I had to jump ship.

Mountainmanbob

not counting the typical weak attempts I made to stop drinking
thought on this morning I would test my mind just a little
come up with proxy amount of relapses
this is not as easy as I thought it would be

somewhere I think between 10 to 20 relapses

thought that I could be more exact than that

one thing for sure
shows me that
I have had more than my share of being able to sober up again

I have seen relapses kill many over the years

MountainmanBob

tomsteve

"any others out there who struggled to get some time sober ?"

boy, ive been sittin here contemplating this question.
struggle to get sober time as in stopped drinking before? no. every time I stopped before I didn't do anything to change anything. the longest I can recall going without drinking is about a week.
then I got into AA. I haven't had a drink since, but yer darn tootin right it was a struggle.
it took a while( about 3-4 months) before I made 24 whole hours without even thinking about drinking.
getting sober was the hardest fight I ever had.
staying sober has been pretty simple. well worth the struggle.

spryte

Oh, I've walked in and out of that swinging door lol...thank God it's ok to "keep coming back"!

I had a 9 month stretch, then a six month stretch, then 2 months here and there, then 1, then it was hard to get 1 month.

Alcoholism - cunning, baffling, and powerful! Or the deceptive Addictive Voice, the lying salesman, the Beast, etc etc...however you want to look at it.

I finally see where this road is taking me - if I keep drinking, it will destroy my mental health, my physical health and my ability to earn an income. It is not fun and games, I am not playing around with it anymore. I pay attention to that lying salesman and call it out for the liar that it is - I am vigilent. My life depends on it!

I went to a meeting last night and there was a new guy there who had been in the hospital on an IV drip for four days coming off the booze. And then one week after he got home, he drank and was picked up for DUI. He has a job, wife, and child.

It seems that relapses are very very common. I pray for all of us that we can figure out what will work for us before there is too much damage.

Mountainmanbob

I have been going to AA for a lot of years now
your story told spryte reminds me of a friend in AA from years ago
Travis would get some sober time over and over again
he reminded me of me
yes - Travis and I had this relapse thing in common
we kept throwing away our sober time
usually after returning to the drink
Travis would end up in the hospital
a fairly young guy in his 40s
yet his organs would shut down (liver and kidneys)
the doctors in the hospital would have to jump start his body
so as to save him from dying
I saw my friend Travis go through this at least a few times
then it happened
a man with a good job and much going for him
was found in the Lakeside river bottom dead from drinking

this saddened us that knew Travis all so very much

this thing called alcoholism is no joke - nothing to fool around with

a fool is one who fools himself

MountainmanBob

sokil

I have "quit" more times than I can count. The Mark Twain quote "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times" perfectly applies to me. The most I have ever gone is about 3 weeks about 2 years ago. Made it two weeks recently then went on on an embarrassing blackout inducing binge over the weekend and am now back on day 3. I am trying hard not to focus on the failures though and think positive.