Hope1989

Hey guys,

So maybe you can clarify something for me. (I have not drink nor plan to, I am just curious).

I have heard several schools of thought on what constitutes a relapse. What is the threshold?

E.g: If I am a daily drinker, and I stop for three days and drink, is it really a relapse or just a short time off the booze?

I have got 1,2,3 months sober and I am a binge drinker. That means that I drink I don't know, 15 times a year max. But I drink it all.. if you can put alcohol in the rain, I'll open my mouth to it. And when I drink again, I feel weird calling it a relapse because I have not really completed a sober life and put everything into pieces.

In my own perception, a relapse happens after you have put all your life back on track or advanced a lot (however long that could take), and you go down to drinking again.

What do you think?

Sober Saturday everyone!

August252015

One drink, for me. Even if it was just the one, or one night, I'd be relapsing from 1366 days today.

And, honestly, this kind of "what is a relapse" thinking is a way of letting the "what if I drank, how bad would it be..." so on crack of deciding to drink start to wiggle in. I would shut it down, asap, if it started for me.

D122y

I was told here by someone that any intentional ingestion of booze is a relapse.

For example...1 tsp of whiskey is the same as drinking the whole bottle.

That is a trigger. Right?

Like saying if you are going to gamble $1 you may as well gamble $1 million.

Pure insanity to me. Almost criminal mental abuse.

That is how some folks roll. Not my circus.

Thanks.

ReadyAtLast

For me if i have a few days off drinking then drink again it's not a relapse just a few days off drinking.

For me relapse is a term when someone is committed to sobriety has a period of sobriety the picks up again. You have to be in recovery to relapse.

C0ntr0ls

My 2 cents, if I am actively trying to maintain sobriety and I drink, that is a relapse and my days go to zero.

biminiblue

One drink, taken intentionally.

Kaily

When I was in the depths of drinking every day I would very occasionally find the strength to try and stop. Even if I only managed to stop a day and then drank again I still classed it as a relapse as I had made an effort towards recovery but failed.

I have been having loads of drinking thoughts the last few weeks and even that feels like a relapse of sorts. I know it isn't but it feels wrong that I am even considering it as an option to numb bad feelings. Thinking drinking is not a healthy path.

nmd

If i take a drink intensionally, even just a sip, i'd consider it a relapse. Its the state of mind that matters. Relapses are planned in advance, fanticized about, obsessed over, and in hindsight justified with a armful of excuses. Been there and done with it.

I find it more productive to think about what sober is: freedom, strength, living the best life possible

nez

If I start spending time trying to discern what is technically a relapse as opposed to a time off of booze as opposed to a slip as opposed to I only had a little I didn't get drunk as opposed to whatever, that is time that is taken away from exploring the wonder of recovery. Kind of like trying to nail jello to the wall, not a good use of my time.

I was enough of a prisoner to alcohol, that my soul knows the answer to the question already. My mind needs to find another question to entertain it in the mean time.

Anna

I would consider one sip of alcohol a relapse when you have decided to stop drinking.

Zebra1275

If I have a drink today, it's a relapse. Even if by some miracle I stop at 1.

But why are you asking the question?

Here's another question.

What technically is denial? How do you measure it?

DriGuy

One of those things that's not clearly defined I guess. I will guess that most people define a relapse to be drinking after one has an certain length of success after quitting. But it starts to get fuzzy when one asks how long the period of success needs to be, and I don't think I've ever seen a specified length of time listed anywhere.

Did you start to wonder after I posted someplace else that "I relapsed every night until I quit." Because I just mentioned that this morning. Previously I believed I had never had a relapse. What I was trying to get at is my nightly "relapse" relied on the same mechanisms as a relapse after a much longer time period. But I may be wrong about that too. I don't know if there is a medical definition of an alcohol relapse to agree upon. And I'm not heavily invested in the definition I used in that other thread, either.

Along the same lines of thought, one might want to question my definition of "quit" also. I often, but not always, think that if a person quit for 5 years and started drinking again, he never really quit. That's probably subject to even more debate, but I'm not heavily invested in that definition either.

I was interested in that you asked how to measure a relapse. It sounded odd, but interesting, because I don't think anyone has ever tried to measure one before.

Epictetus

I get where you are coming from, probably as we may have similar experiences/be coming at this from the same angle. I was more of a binger too rather than someone who drinks every day/night.

In fact I would say that during the last five years, at least three (at a conservative guess), were "alcohol free". So when I first discovered the "recovery movement" and it's lingo, I guess it was the first time that I counted "days" (the "sobriety" clock). I no longer bother with that as it seems obsessional (and I believe it kept me trapped in the last binge longer than I would have been).

"Recovery" and even the word "sobriety" are simply recovery movement speak. Take the word "sobriety". It literally means to not be intoxicated. So if you take a weekend binge drinker who doesn't drink during the week but binges terribly at the weekend, he is literally "sober" Monday through Thursday and then he binges at the weekend. So if he decides to quit for good, would Monday be his "day 1" even though he wouldn't be have been drinking the Monday any way. So days that he wouldn't normally be drinking he is now counting as "sober days" adding to his "sober clock" and becoming obsessed with a game of snakes and ladders, crime and punishment. Guilt and shame for wrecking the "sober clock".

The word sobriety was literally hijacked by the recovery movement.

I think you are perfectly valid asking questions like this and sorting the jargon out in your own head and deciding whether the recovery movement speak (jargon) fits with your own experience and frame of reference. I don't believe it means you are inviting the boogey man in if you ask the meaning of such words. Like saying the devil's name seven times and he will appear!

I no longer choose to drink so I don't use the label "alcoholic" as it makes no logical sense to me. Somebody who does not drink alcohol yet calls themselves alcoholic? Whatever each to their own, but the destructive behavior is gone. The alcoholic behavior is gone. Personally labelling oneself an alcoholic will keep the majority in a perpetual state of em dare I say it....."relapse"! After all, an alcoholic drinks alcohol!

A sober alcoholic is move recovery movement jargon. According to the English language this would be an oxymoron.

It's simply a psychological frame that's at play (see NLP). A Matrix if you will. Why do folks choose to remain plugged in you probably will ask?

Ego investment (this must be real, I have invested so much!!!). The ego will not allow them to break free so the mind stays locked in and the Matrix will be defended to the hilt (any of that talk means you are contemplating a relapse! shut her down! shut her down!!)

You always have choice

thomas11

I just had one so I feel I can comment. Grabbing a bottle of booze and sitting down to drink it to get drunk is a relapse IMO. I am thankful that I did not let it spiral out of control, which I easily could have done.

SoberRican

For me relapse is if you got some sober time under your belt that means no alcohol whatsoever and you take a drink you relapsed. Period

faith823

In my own opinion . I agree- I was in and out of AA a few years ago! I would pick up after a few days or a week and claimed to the group through tears "I relapsed". I did not relapsed I just kept continuing to chose to drink even when I did not want to or have to.

brighterday1234

zerothehero

A couple of things:

First, I had periods of sobriety on and off for years, but I considered them "cleanses" and hadn't decided to stop forever, so when I would start drinking again it was a conscious choice and I wouldn't consider it a relapse. I haven't relapsed since I finally said never again.

Two, SMART Recovery distinguishes between a lapse and a relapse. A lapse is after having committed to sobriety, consuming a small amount of alcohol, maybe just for a night. A relapse would be returning to alcohol abuse. They make this distinction to prevent the attitude of well, I slipped, so I might as well get hammered. Lapses and relapses are seen as learning opportunities, not reasons for shame.

NessunDorma

For me, the turning point was genuinely understanding, fully believing that I cannot drink any alcohol at all. For a long time I believed that 99% but that 1% of denial kept me on the horrible cycle we all know. That certainty was wonderfully, life-changingly liberating.

A relapse for me would be deliberately consuming even the smallest amount of alcohol. I would rather drink a pint of urine randomly collected from the pathology lab in a hospital for infectious diseases.

Delilah1

Hi Hope,

Glad you posted here. I know you said you’re not thinking about drinking, which is good. However, often when someone posts wondering about what constitutes a relapse, or do you ever miss drinking... they end of drinking in the near future.

You may want to add a few things to your recovery plan if you think this might be happening, or even just have an awareness about it.

❤️Delilah