Relapse Rates
 

So I was curious about relapse rates and this was the best I could find online. Regardless of the accuracy, the point is that this is a daily battle no matter how long we stay sober. If you are sober 1 day, GREAT JOB! One month, GREAT JOB! A year or more, GREAT JOB!!! But statistically the relapse rate is high, and from experience I know it (for me) was getting loose in my thinking that "I was now fine and cured" which bled into "Maybe I can drink socially, or have just one again", and this was the terrible trap I fell into in April 2015 after 2.5 years sobriety, taking over 2 months to get sober again. My new sober date is July 10, 2015. I REALLY have respect now for knowing (for me) that I apparently am no different then the statistics, which tells me that no matter how long I am sober, I am never in the clear.

The site I found said:

Only about a third of people who are abstinent less than a year will remain abstinent.

For those who achieve a year of sobriety, less than half will relapse.

If you can make it to 5 years of sobriety, your chance of relapse is less than 15 percent.

So be grateful for every day and minute that you are sober and know that for most of us, we are just one drink away from going down that rabbit hole.

Forget the stats.

The only stat that counts is your own sobriety.

Wow, pretty grim statistics there!

Fortunately, I'm in charge of what I allow myself to pour down my throat. Relapse is a choice plain and simple. My chance of relapse is 0% because I don't drink or even allow myself to entertain the thought of drinking!
xo

Ok. My bad. Maybe the administrator can remove this post on statistics. Knowing the reality has been helpful to me but I must be off base on this one.

Well, I quit for 18 years and when I casually said one day, "A margarita sounds good," it was on.

I think it's pretty arrogant of me to think I will never have to worry about relapse. I come here to remind me of the consequences should I have that moment again: that lapse in judgement.

I didn't even have a significant "problem" with it for the first couple years into my starting up again. I would go days/weeks without a drink. Then that invisible line was crossed and I was back to dependency. Some people (so I hear) pick right up where they left off before relapse. I didn't find that to be the case, I eased back in with successful moderation for quite some time. It just took one week in Vegas to be back at daily drinking, though.

Slippery. Slope.

Whodathunk, we don't remove posts unless there's a clear rule violation.



14. Members are responsible for their own actions, what they post and who they share their information with, here and outside of SR. They are reminded that anyone can read here, people don't have to join SR in order to read what is written. Only under rare circumstances will Administrators here edit what has been written as it is not fair to other members who have taken the time and thought to respond and for the smooth continuity of running these forums.

If the reality is helpful to you, then post away! My sponsor discusses the statistics with me to remind me to stay vigilant.:grouphug:

I personally appreciate the post. I had two years sober and decided last July one Corona wouldn't be the end of the world and for about 6 months I drank "normally". Then sometime in January I was back to binging every few days just like before..... Relapse is tough.... Forgiving myself has been tough and a year later since that "one Corona" it's nice to know I am not the only one. One week sober today.

Bim....right on about relapse beginning with a lapse in judgement! That's why I have to guard my mind and what I allow myself to think about.

Whether you use a specific program, or meditation, or mindfulness or whatever we can learn to redirect our thinking and keep ourselves out of the danger zone! I personally use AVRT to recognize the beast and subsequent AV. I've learned to recognize that any thought of drinking or any thought that I WON'T or CAN'T stay quit are lies from my AV. Incredibly self empowering!

brynn - I mean after all we went through the first go-round with alcohol, we both still thought it was a good idea to give it another try.

I really thought I'd be fine. . . I'm glad I got out alive.

I think the thing about statistics is, they can lead people to believe that it's a random process, I'm sober and oops, I relapsed - well that's what the odds say should happen anyways, so I guess I'm following the usual path. It's always a choice, never a chance, and you can make your sobriety stronger in many different ways so you can "beat the odds".

That said, yes, most people who quit don't remain abstinent for long, and it often takes multiple attempts. A large fraction of us don't survive, either, they die of the consequences of their addiction. It's a serious life-threatening condition.

Nothing wrong with statistics, but we have to always keep in mind how contextual there are. We have to consider how they are compiled, from what population and what if any point of view they are being used to show or prove.
As far as relapse stats, the only one that really matters is that 100% of the people that decide to never again drink, will be guaranteed a 0% chance of relapsing. We can use this stat to prove that making the decision to commit to unconditional abstinence is not just a virtual guarantee but a real world guarantee, make the decision to never again pour alcohol down your throat and to never change your mind on that decision and be guaranteed success, statistics be damned.
Making that decision is entirely possible , millions of people throughout history have made it , though I doubt those numbers are collected and compiled.
"Never again" and "Forever" can seem daunting , at first and the AV will jump at that to lessen our resolve. But when we realize that never and forever aren't "things" we have do all at once , instead are the accumulation of living every day or Now without a change of mind in our decision, is perhaps the " magic" that ultimately defeats the AV .
Make that decision right now, and keep it in play now and then this now and now this now, see how they add up ? :)

Although stats like that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly among those who haven't totally given up on the idea of ever being able to drink again, I think the most important takeaway is to examine what usually precipitates relapse and then take action to prevent it. For me, the most frequent cause was the idea that it "wouldn't be as bad as it was last time." (It always got worse!) Sometimes I relapsed with full knowledge of what it was going to do to me. I preferred crazy to sane. That's how insane I was. Now I know, without a shred of doubt, that I can never ever safely consume alcohol again. I fully accept that.

Right, relapses are decisions made in response to thoughts, events, internal or external processes, whatever it is that drives them, and gives idea of relapse enough weight to drop. In my experience the most important aspect of staying sober through them all is actions, not thoughts or decisions - what can I do in preparation and in response to those drivers to protect myself? If I failed, what could I have done differently, and what can I do now so I'm stronger next time?

The recovery rates are bad by anyone's measure but I know you can stay sober for seven years because I have done it. Just tell an alcoholic they can't do something and then watch them do it

Yep. Grim statistics. But hey, lots of long term sober people here and in AA. I'm sticking with those guys and staying in the middle of their lifeboat. Jump on in and hold on tight. When you've got your balance you can help haul some other poor soak to safety.

Statistically some people DO make it. There's no reason it can't be me, or you. We have to just keep doing the work, and never forget what can happen if we take just one drink.

No, not your bad. The statistics are out there...but I love beating the odds ;)

honestly the only statistic I worry about is that when I put 100% effort into staying sober I stay sober 100% of the time :)

D

I know this: I've been sober 24 years and regularly attend AA meetings. With all the newcomers we should be in Yankee Stadium by now but the meetings don't get any bigger. Maybe some folks get married and moved to the suburbs but I think it's more probable that people don't stay sober.

I thought it was a helpful post, Whodathunk.

I was similar to Bim - sober for years - & without giving it much thought decided to have 'a nice glass of wine'. For 7 years I proceeded to destroy my life & become completely dependent on it. That's when I found SR & decided I needed the daily reminder. I do agree that we're never in the clear, but I don't grimly obsess about it as I did in the beginning.

Good talk. :)

I'm a poker player (semi-professional) and statistics are a big part of the game. There are plenty of times I go against the odds during a hand because the reward is worth it (pot/implied odds). The reward of living a sober life has been worth the effort despite the odds being against me at the beginning.

It seems like a lot of things in life worth striving for have low odds of achieving. I remember when I decided to become a PGA golf professional I had to play in a 2 day "playing apptitude test" in order to get into the program. On average only 10% of people taking the test would pass. I could have just never tried due to the poor odds, but instead I decided that the reward (becoming a PGA pro...a goal since childhood) was worth the effort. I worked really hard on my game leading up to the test and passed on the first try.

In my own history with alcohol I have consistently beaten the odds. This is my 3rd time sober with 2 relapses. All 3 times I have gotten sober I have never relapsed in the first year beating the odds. Both of my relapses occurred after being sober longer than 5 years (6.5 & 7 years respectively) again defying the odds, albeit in a negative way. Yet here I am...with over 3 years sober.

I guess my point is that statistics are helpful to a point, but they do not take into consideration individual circumstances. IMO the statistics of staying sober are no longer relevant to me anyway because there is no longer any conceivable downside to trying to get sober again. The downside to not trying for me was clearly becoming death.

My statistic for staying sober is either 100% or 0%.

I've been sober over two years but I am always mindful of sobriety.

I'll always be aware that I don't drink alcohol. That's why I'm here on this site two years in. And heck, what's 30 minutes a day when I used to spend 7 hours every night drunk?

That is so true the amount of time I spend staying sober is so much less than being a drunk

This assumes that the Spiritual Awakening experience either does not exist or has no bearing on life long recovery.

My experiece was that before I had it, sobriety was an One-Ardous-Day-At-Time struggle and one millisecond after I had experienced it, sobriety was a complete outside issue. I no longer had to think about drinking or not-drinking ever again. Living life ODAAT became my goal after that.

Having experienced both ODAAT abstinence and a Spiritau Awakening, I would go as far as to say that they are two completly different ballgames.
:Meditate:

Could I characterize my life as a prolonged relapse? Currently going for 7 months dry, though.

Is the article saying that these people go back to drinking permanently, or just that it takes them more than one try to quit?

Jack, I didn't read the article and we don't even have a link to it, but in my experience some people don't get that second chance. So many ways to die from this.

It really only takes one try.

I also think it's pretty hard to research, I mean even if you went to 1000 AA meetings and took a survey, that's only a very small percentage of alcoholics out there, and a small percentage of those who have either quit or attempted to quit. It's a flawed survey model on so many levels. Many people quit in their twenties or thirties and never go back to it, or only drink a couple drinks a couple times a year. It's part of growing up for most people. I think if you're taking a survey in a rehab - the subjects of the survey have already proven to have big problems with quitting. I mean if I quit on my own, I don't go to rehab or AA - ever, right?

I mean, it doesn't even say - are we talking about chronic alcoholism? Problem drinking? Once a month binges? Daily moderate drinking? There is a wide spectrum, and I don't even know what this survey was focused on.

The same numbers appear in a Psychology Today article, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ddicts-relapse, apparently based on this study: An eight-year perspective on the relationship between the duration of abstinence and other aspects of recovery. - PubMed - NCBI

This is apparently based on 1200 people who entered treatment, so it's among people who have a serious enough problem to go to rehab.

Exactly. Thanks, JeffreyAK - a percentage of them were likely not in rehab 100% on their own volition, either.

1200 people. There are 1200 alcoholics who go to my local AA clubhouse meetings just up the street in my one little small town. Imagine how many more out there who never seek help, and who don't ever consider themselves alcoholic? How about all the people who quit quietly and never admitted their problem?

That was great MelindaFlowers.

When I went through in vitro fertilization, the dr told me my odds of having triplets or more were less than 3%. Guess what? I had triplets. Statistics don't mean much unless they affect you. That said, I've read those percentages elsewhere and wondered how accurate they were. They sounds pretty reasonable.