I totally agree with this, a person needs to focus on their own recovery. If I gauged my success on stats then I would still be drinking because I would have used it as an excuse. Just because the stats are low doesn't mean I am destined to fail. The only person or thing who can make me fail is me, not the stats. Keep it simple, if you want recovery you CAN have it!

I don't know if it pertains exactly to alcohol, but I heard about a study on the radio, and people who were trying to quit smoking often had many many attempts. The people who kept trying to quit got better at it and many eventually succeeded at long term abstinence.

Relapsing is going to teach you what works and what doesn't work, but it's an awful process.
I know that after relapsing, there were long periods of time that I woke up each day, determined to quit, and by later that day, sometimes mere hours, I was drinking again. It's like I had no willpower whatsoever. But I finally reached a point I could not endure it.

I didn't sign up to SR to Relapse! I signed up to Quit! If all us collectively didn't think we had a problem we would not be in this forum!

Statistics reflect a group, not an individual. It's like the marriage statistic. Just because 50% marriages fail doesn't mean your specific marriage has a 50% chance of failure. It could be 90% in a couple that got hitched after knowing each other for a week, or 5% for a couple who got married later in life. Don't let "statistics" get in the way of your own personal journey. I am of the belief that it doesn't matter how many times you fall because if you have the strength to keep getting up and not let your past failures weigh you down, you have as good a chance as someone trying for the first time.

In any case, you give yourself a greater chance at success if you believe you can do it. And why shouldn't you believe in yourself? If we in our toddler years had the mental faculty to think about all the times we kept falling down and then start to doubt our ability to walk, we might as well still be crawling. I assume you had the strength to keep trying over and over until you did succeed all those years ago, so don't sell yourself short on your ability to persevere. We were all born with this will to overcome.

Exactly. I'm not sure why focusing on statistics like that helps.

If more people spent more time actually doing the work in recovery instead of debating it, and confining themselves to statistics, they'd be a lot more productive in their journey.

Everybody can turn their life around. Pointing to statistics as a possible reason for failure is passing the buck. Taking the next drink is just dumb - sort your life out and take the time to find out why you actually feel like drinking.

Serper, not to be negative... but the first thought that came to mind: why are you thinking like this? It sounds a bit to me that such thought process WILL set you up for relapses. Why not try to be focused that you are not going to relapse anymore, no matter what, because you want to stay sober and not struggle for years?
Just an idea...

Exactly. I have concerns that this question, in and of itself, could serve to discourage someone who is struggling and possibly in a moment of weakness or self doubt. It places the focus on an expectation of failure and could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I sure as heck hope not because if it does there is no hope for me. :headbange

If your number of relapses remains = 0 then your chance of permanent recovery = 100%, so I suppose the answer is technically yes.

Further, if your number of relapses continues to climb, your mortality rate increases along with it. I'm not sure how we count death in this situation. It's either very good for your chances of recovery, i.e., you can't drink when you're dead, or we count it as a failure -- you have effectively lost the war, game over, full stop.

For those two reasons I think this is kind of a silly question.

This is a great thread on a great topic. I really appreciate all the posts, especially the grizzly analogy by LBrain. I couldn't agree more. It's subjective, at best. Each of us have come to our stopping point for different reasons, and with different levels of resolve. In some ways, it's much like a religious conversion. Somehow, though, each of us has had our eyes opened to the dangers of alcohol and other substances in our lives, and we've realized there is better out there, and its up to us to find it. Like any journey, there are hurdles, and some turn out to be insurmountable in the moment. We are human, and we are prone to failure at times. How we respond to failure is up to us, and whether and when we find the strength to pick ourselves up depends on our resolve and experience. And, then, we can reach sober nirvana, after we've worked through and evicted the mental demons that so pervaded our thinking while drinking. Even then, though, we are subject to relapse, as we can forget the painful consequences that caused us to stop. This is where cognitive behavior techniques can reinforce our new, positive lives. And, this is where I've faltered, after significant times of sobriety.

What we do is not a natural act in this world. But its what we must do. And, yes, when we relapse and stop again, I agree that its a symbol of our will to live. Drinking is just a symbol of slow suicide for me.