allthatsgood

Son has been clean since last year. Doc - heroin. Since July there has been 3 episodes where he has gone out and gotten drunk. Is a full blown relapse far away because of this alcohol use? Is it his way of trying to fit in to social situations or are there underlying issues that are not being addressed and the alcohol is a way to cover up the pain? I'm just trying to understand what might be going on here. I know it's his journey.

MIRecovery

I can only speak for myself. I identify myself as an addict because I am capable of abusing anything but mind altering drugs are my favorite.

In my case I really make no distinction between drugs and alcohol and that is why I choose to live clean and sober

Latte

I am like MIRecovery. I don't drink because it leads me right back to drugs.

DoubleBarrel

Drugs lead me right back to drinking, and when I drink, my inhibitions are lowered and I end up doing drugs.

Total sobriety is required for me to be in recovery.

finaltime

I tried to allow myself to drink, eventually it led me back to using drugs. It is his journey, all you can do is pray.

Marcus

In my book and many others using any mind altering substance is NOT recovery. For many of us it is not the drug itself it is the desire to alter reality and drowned our feelings because we just can't deal with life sober. No it is not one size fits all, but time and time again addicts have been proving this point.

OpioPhobe

I got clean from H in February and recently fell into the alcohol trap. Luckily, I was able to stop after a relatively short period. For me though it skipped the whole social drinking thing and went straight to all-day everyday. Over a lot of that time I was thinking that if I was going to be that miserable anyway I might as well go back to the H. At least, I would feel OK for some of the time.

I agree with Marcus's point about either being able to face reality as it is or not. When I was drinking it was to drown out stress and just get numb.

As far as your question about why your son is drinking - what does he say? He may just be drinking to try to fit in to social situations. It could be other reasons. I am not sure how much the 'reason' matters though, because I had endless 'reasons' for using/drinking.

allthatsgood

Thank you all for your responses. It helps me to understand what he may be going through. Opio, to answer your question the reason he gave for the last drunken episode was that he was feeling anxiety - we were at his sister's wedding. Prior to that, it's was his birthday. I understand now Marcus' post about being able to face reality sober and your post about drowning out stress. As Finaltime said, all I can do is pray. Thank you everyone.