Relapse
Do your best
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 67,047
(((((Foolsgold))))) 13 months isnt lost its banked like D said let it be blip not a crash & burn
I done group therapy to help bolster my sobriety & this week im starting individual therapy to help me work through some stuff
If you ever want to talk im around FG
I done group therapy to help bolster my sobriety & this week im starting individual therapy to help me work through some stuff
If you ever want to talk im around FG
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Ireland
Posts: 25,826
Don't beat yourself up, tweak your plan and go at things again!! 
Those thoughts though of "things will be different this time", for me I really needed to remove those from my thinking and recognise a period of abstinence no matter how long doesn't in any way cure or fix me!!
Those thoughts though of "things will be different this time", for me I really needed to remove those from my thinking and recognise a period of abstinence no matter how long doesn't in any way cure or fix me!!
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
I can appreciate that people may learn from their relapses, but this was not at all the case with me.
I knew before I picked up a drink after twenty five years that living sober was better than living drunk. I knew that I'd end up in the same place, or worse, when I started drinking again, that my life would become unmanageable, that I could lose my job and everything else important to me, that it would screw up my relationships, compromise or ruin myself financially and that my drinking would usurp much of my freedom. I knew that there would be medical and psychological consequences, that I'd hate myself for destroying my personal values, and that I could possibly die.
This is only one reason why alcoholism is so confounding, and is something each of us knows -- we knowingly take part in an activity that can ultimately destroy us.
I learned absolutely nothing of value from what we euphemistically refer to as a "relapse." I may have been reminded of things I already knew, but there was nothing new for me to learn in the experience. I didn't see silver linings in drinking after being sober for a time, unless not dying during my relapse was some sort of twisted benefit from my drinking. On the contrary, getting sober after drinking was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done, second only to having gotten sober the first time, but only because there was a first time. I didn't need to "learn" that.
For me, there are no rewards or punishments in drinking or in getting sober. There are only consequences, consequences that I'd lived and that I was very much aware of long before I picked up the drink. Yet I still drank. And continued to drink for three years. My relapse was not at all a learning experience which, for me, would have represented nothing more or less than a version of retroactive denial. Searching for a silver lining in my drinking comes dangerously close to giving myself permission to drink. After all, if there's some important learning experience to be had in relapsing, then why avoid it? Why not learn more and more with each relapse?
I can't rewrite the history of my relapse. I can put it into a pretty box and put a bow on it to make it appear to be something other than what it was -- a choice to forfeit my freedom and self-destruct in the process -- but that would change nothing. And this is why I do not drink and will not drink. Because my drinking remains a horrific chapter in my life that never should have been written, and there's nothing at all left for me to learn from that. I don't need any more lessons.
I knew before I picked up a drink after twenty five years that living sober was better than living drunk. I knew that I'd end up in the same place, or worse, when I started drinking again, that my life would become unmanageable, that I could lose my job and everything else important to me, that it would screw up my relationships, compromise or ruin myself financially and that my drinking would usurp much of my freedom. I knew that there would be medical and psychological consequences, that I'd hate myself for destroying my personal values, and that I could possibly die.
This is only one reason why alcoholism is so confounding, and is something each of us knows -- we knowingly take part in an activity that can ultimately destroy us.
I learned absolutely nothing of value from what we euphemistically refer to as a "relapse." I may have been reminded of things I already knew, but there was nothing new for me to learn in the experience. I didn't see silver linings in drinking after being sober for a time, unless not dying during my relapse was some sort of twisted benefit from my drinking. On the contrary, getting sober after drinking was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done, second only to having gotten sober the first time, but only because there was a first time. I didn't need to "learn" that.
For me, there are no rewards or punishments in drinking or in getting sober. There are only consequences, consequences that I'd lived and that I was very much aware of long before I picked up the drink. Yet I still drank. And continued to drink for three years. My relapse was not at all a learning experience which, for me, would have represented nothing more or less than a version of retroactive denial. Searching for a silver lining in my drinking comes dangerously close to giving myself permission to drink. After all, if there's some important learning experience to be had in relapsing, then why avoid it? Why not learn more and more with each relapse?
I can't rewrite the history of my relapse. I can put it into a pretty box and put a bow on it to make it appear to be something other than what it was -- a choice to forfeit my freedom and self-destruct in the process -- but that would change nothing. And this is why I do not drink and will not drink. Because my drinking remains a horrific chapter in my life that never should have been written, and there's nothing at all left for me to learn from that. I don't need any more lessons.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: East Coast USA
Posts: 120,867
Really fine advice above, Foolsgold.
I cried when I read your post. Hugs.
You can make this a mere blip on your radar screen. As FreeOwl said, there is much to be learned from a relapse.
Identify what went wrong; examine the situation and mindset leading up to the relapse; learn from it; shore up the holes in your plan and make it stronger; above all, move forward into your happy, healthy and sober future.
I cried when I read your post. Hugs.
You can make this a mere blip on your radar screen. As FreeOwl said, there is much to be learned from a relapse.
Identify what went wrong; examine the situation and mindset leading up to the relapse; learn from it; shore up the holes in your plan and make it stronger; above all, move forward into your happy, healthy and sober future.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 8,637
good perspective EGNYC.... I see where you're going with that.
To be clear, my comments aren't meant to excuse or dismiss relapse. Only to recognize that for many of us, myself included, relapse was a part of the cycle and the journey of recovery.
If we find ourselves in relapse, back on the dark descent, we have a choice; we can continue going down, down down.... we can choose to open up that relapse and glean all we can from it - learning, motivation, evidence of the fact that alcohol doesn't work.... or we can choose to ignore it or beat ourselves up and not really look at what we can take from it.
In my own experience, relapse and looking at relapse honestly was helpful in making my choice for sobriety.
To be clear, my comments aren't meant to excuse or dismiss relapse. Only to recognize that for many of us, myself included, relapse was a part of the cycle and the journey of recovery.
If we find ourselves in relapse, back on the dark descent, we have a choice; we can continue going down, down down.... we can choose to open up that relapse and glean all we can from it - learning, motivation, evidence of the fact that alcohol doesn't work.... or we can choose to ignore it or beat ourselves up and not really look at what we can take from it.
In my own experience, relapse and looking at relapse honestly was helpful in making my choice for sobriety.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,416
I've just felt so numb. Even though I was sober I felt I've not really been living just going through the motions.
I really had to get to grips as to why I was fundamentally unhappy & disconnected.
D
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Scotland
Posts: 780
Originally Posted by Dee74 
to be honest stopping drinking was only the tip of the iceberg for me.
I really had to get to grips as to why I was fundamentally unhappy & disconnected.
D
I really had to get to grips as to why I was fundamentally unhappy & disconnected.
D
Thank you all.
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