dandylion

Nival…...Like trailmix….I agree with her....to answer your question of "Is he slipping?"....and, my answer is yes, also.
I have worked along side of professionals...psychiatrists, counselors, and others who were/are long time recovering alcoholics...years and years of recovery. They were in relationships, had families, etc....
The one factor that I could identify in all of the long time recovering is that they always...ALWAYS....put their sobriety as the top priority over everything else. They still went to their meetings and did outreach work and lived their daily lives by the principles that they learn in AA. Yes, some of them had individual therapy, also....
These long recovering people were some of the finest people that I have known. I trusted them because they lived by the AA principle of honesty in all of their affairs. They were humble...they had a certain spirituality. They didn't take other people's inventory---but, always tried to keep their side of the street in order. I learned sooo much by working beside these people.
I have, also, supervised the detox of hundreds of alcoholics....
LOL....I have know a lot of alcoholics, in addition to my own family member alcoholic....

From my experience...I can say that dropping away from the Program and using any mind altering drug to "relax" or for "recreation" or "experimentation" is a forshadowing of a relapse to come....and, the down hill slide can, sometimes, happen with astonishing rapidity. This is because the condition continues to progress...even when not drinking. Who knew?

By the same token, I have seen a lot of alcoholics who had a lot of sobertime under their belt...but, when thinking that they were "recovered" or "cured".....and got lazy with their program principles...have a relapse...like, Major relapse.

While I am not an alcoholic, myself....I have heard many alcoholics say that the reason for the "one day at a time" is to remind themselves, every day that they are helpless over alcohol.

So much of this has to do with the receptors in the pleasure/reward areas of the brain for certain neurotransmitters. If you are interested in this, and want to learn more....I can recommend some good reading on the subject.

Nival,,,,,the reason that I am saying all of this to you....is because I am concerned for you and want you to really know what you are up against....You really do need to know this...because it can help you make the best possible informed decisions.....

skippernlilg

I see something in your posts that I wanted to address. You lamented about worrying so much. Will you? Maybe. Al-anon is a great place to find out how to manage what seems unmanageable. I wish you peace.