Slip vs relapse
 

I hear people talking about slips and relapses. What's the difference?

I am in AA in Australia and we don't use the term "slip" that I have ever come across. We say someone "busted" or "picked up" if they drank, whether it was one drink or a two year bender. I'll have to pay more attention to see how people use the term "relapse" but it's not common as far as the meetings I have gone to.

Where I live a slip is a one night event, a relapse goes for whatever length of time. Being a binge closet drinker, I relapse......have never slipped as I can't control anything and it only takes one beer to set me off.

Different people have different opinions about this. To me, if you intentionally drink, that is a relapse...whether you have one drink or 30. A relapse begins in the head before we ever take a drink. We think about it, then do it. In my way of thinking, that's a relapse. But, like I said, that's just my own personal opinion.

Same thing Tiger:) if you've slipped, you've relapses

A slip is simply a relapse with a "feel good" marketing spin.

Right...it's all semantics.

I'm kind of hardcore.
If I resume drinking, I "failed".
I take total responsibility for my successes AND failures.

To me a relapse is something that happens, say, like when cancer returns. A slip is a temporary lapse in good judgement.

A "slip" makes drinking sound accidental, as if the drinker was an innocent bystander in the process. There is nothing accidental about putting a bottle to your own lips. Bottom line is that anyone who "slips" made a conscious decision to drink. Period. It's not unforgivable by any means, we are all human and we all have struggles. However, I do think it's best for the alcoholic if they own up to their mistakes, rather than trying to hide behind frilly terminology.

I am also of the mind that it's purely semantics. Either you drink or you don't drink.

All of these are right.

As far as Bill W and the Big Book it is typically agreed that Bill was indeed a wordsmith and used many synonyms to express thoughts, not wishing to be redundant. His use of the word shortcomings and defects are one such example, although I've have been told meeting topics have surrounded these words.

"Thanks for your inquiry, requesting to know the difference between ‘defects of character’ and ‘shortcomings’ — as those words appear in the Steps. Actually I don’t remember any particular significance in these phrases. In my mind, the meaning is identical; I guess I just used two ways of expression, rather than to repeat myself. It’s just as simple as that."

According to G.S.O.’s archives Bill W. commented about his use of “Defects of Character” and “Shortcomings” interchangeably in the Steps in a personal letter he wrote dated March 7, 1963.

It seems likely the same is the case for the use of both words - slip and relapse in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Simply synonyms.

Perhaps much like shortcoming/defects we choose to differentiate the two words.

'slip' is minimizing, a little 'oops', and 'nothing serious'.
and so, if it's just an 'oops', and so small, it hardly counts at all. it's not like it really matters.
whereas relapse, wow, that's serious!

i find it more useful to leave these labels alone and just describe the behaviour/action: someone returned to drinking. they drank.

I have to disagree.

I do think there is a difference between a one off event and a full on return to drinking.

And if semantics help people who have erred by drinking stop turning it into a life style change back to old habits, I am all for it.

Personally, like Al said, I am all or nothing so have never had a slip, but for someone who has, a little semantics can go a long way to limiting it, me thinks.

But I understand the points on the other side, just putting it out there.

slips happen on ice.
relapses happen on race tracks.

30 years ago we never heard a slip called a relapse. 30 years from now they will probably call it something else.

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

-allan

Either one has been known to kill the sober spirit.

Mountainman

I see no difference.
Both are planned.
Both are preventable.

No difference! Relapse is a politically correct way of saying slip, which means a person chose to drink again.:herewego

+ Jeffery height Quote "I keep slipping into a relapse , or I create my on stumbling blocks into tripping blocks or Maybe I'm just a little pregnant '
If you don't drink..You will not drink"

Cheers