A word about kindling
 

I heard about this phenomena some time ago by someone who posted about it on SR.
After much careful deliberation and a hell of a lot of practice and it's disastrous consequences I now firmly and fully believe in kindling.

Each and every single time I pick up a drink - after a time of sobriety - I experience exactly the same behavior. Period of sobriety. Think:"mmm just a little glass". Absolutely fine. Take another little glass, say a few days later. Take 2/3 glasses now. Thinking: "I'm fine!!!!!!" 😂😩😂😩😂😩. Very very shortly now: BANG......huge bender. Every. Single. Time. Xxx

There's an excellent anecdote in the Big Book about a fellow who managed to abstain for a length of time and stay sober until one day he decided to try a shot of whisky in milk thinking it would do no harm.....There is no such thing as "just one drink". When you think you got it licked it comes back and knocks you for six. :D

Yep - 4 years sober. The 'just a couple of beers'. It took me nearly a year to get back on the wagon )-:

Never again.

Although that does sound like the case for you, I don't think it's true for everybody. Toward the end, my slip-ups got lighter and lighter as my health continued to improve. However, when I relapsed due to underlying issues (like anxiety, for example) it was so much easier to overdo it.

On the flip side, maybe I'm just the freak of nature who doesn't experience it. It seems like a lot of people do, so I blame some kind of deficit for my lack thereof.

Same thing happens to me. I'll be sober for about 3 months and think one drink won't hurt. I manage to control my drinking for several days and then it just turns into one looonng bender.

The thing is, for me, alcoholic drinks just have no other purpose than getting messed up. That may be the silver lining of my past behavior -I didn't start out drinking for the flavor, only to end up slipping into a problem. Alcohol was always a tool for me to change how I felt. Now, if I could find something that was tasty also, well great.

With this set-up, I'm not likely to relapse thinking I'll "just have a few". -Who wants a few anyway?! -Ha! That's just not how I roll. No use trying that.

As far as jumping right back in, I estimate I would be drinking at my old levels within a week of picking up. Yuck.

I am a firm believer in kindling. The withdrawals were one of the main reasons I quit. I couldn't handle it anymore. There were other reasons I quit, but the withdrawals were affecting too many days of my life and I couldn't justify that.

Just to point out that "kindling" refers to withdrawal symptoms which worsen dramatically after repeated detoxes, not to the tendency to resume drinking at previous rates after a period of abstinence, but the two phenomena are often connected.

I'm glad you've made a realization to help you stay quit Lily, that's what's most important to you, right?