Flowing

Hi all.
I am in the first few days of recovery and I have a question....

I always find it relatively easy, uplifting even, to get to around 90 days sober but then carrying on from that becomes very hard, my mojo is gone, my obsession with drinking comes back with vengeance and then it's just a slippery slope before I pick up again.

Can anyone relate to this? If you can I would like to hear why you think you relapsed at this stage?

Many thanks.

MantaLady

It’s quite a common thing for relapses to happen on or just after major milestones in sobriety (30/60/90 days, 6 months. 1 year). Personally I think that a factor is as addicts we like a rush of dopamine and reaching one of those milestones definitely gives us that. It’s a great accomplishment but once we have passed that celebratory day the dopamine crash is palpable and we’re looking for a way to create that feeling again, which makes us vulnerable. Also depends on what you’ve been doing to stay sober. Having a proper plan and doing the hard work on ourselves is the key, but white knuckling through it inevitably leads to overwhelming urges or it did at least for me x

Dropsie

I also think that I sometimes forget the bad and over remember the good.

That is why I keep coming back here...

C0ntr0ls

I try to only think about today and NOW if the thought pops into my little brain but luckily it doesn't happen that often now.
If it does, I don't want that mental discussion/debate so I kick it out and grab a drink of water and/or something sweet to eat. Those two things, SR and not thinking past today and NOW has helped me a lot.

Good Luck!

theVman31

Oh Yes I can relate too.
I think similarly to Manta in that doing the work and having a rock solid plan are vital.
You cannot leave your guard down...
Stay safe

brighterday1234

AAPJ

I think this is somehow related to the human condition for many people. Someone said that change is easy but staying changed is hard. Look at how many people struggle with dieting, or going to the gym. Starting is easy but keeping it up... not so easy. Harvard Medical group has a good article on this topic titled:

"Why it's hard to change unhealthy behavior - and why you should keep trying"

Look it up if you have a few minutes. It's a good read and it discusses a method of change discovered by some alcoholism researchers.

Be123

DriGuy

I just looked for this and found:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-...ld-keep-trying

I believe there is some merit to this. It involves some thinking and planning. PLANNING being something we talk about here all the time. I think it's easy to slack off on planning. It's tempting to think, "I want to get better," as a plan, but it's not. There's more to it than that.

You are failing somewhere around the action/maintenance stages talked about in this artical. You might want to start at the beginning, or make plans for the action phase (what do you do when this or that hits before you relapse).

I'm going to sit down and write some of this stuff out that applies to myself in another part of my life.

Quitting drinking is much more than just quitting. When you watch others do it, it almost looks like it's that simple. I don't think it is. I think there is a lot going on inside a person who changes. Try to avoid spinning your wheels, and sit down to do some actual planning. My own recovery was fun, life altering, and surprisingly rewarding. But it was all consuming. For a while everything else in my life took a back seat to recovery. Many of those things are now automatic, but I still think about them. They are now part of me.

FlyAgain

Robbie64

I used to be a member of a stop smoking newsgroup on usenet (alt. support.stop-smoking if anyone is familiar with the group) and one of the regular posters there used to post about "the terrible threes", the points at which relpases were common. These were three days, three weeks, three months and three years. And for many people it was true and I suppoose it's the same for any addiction.

MantaLady has probably hit the nail on the head, that once a milestone is reached it's easy to relapse. Again this was linked to me quitting smoking (I relapsed right after 3 months) and it was because as the three month mark approached I was watching the "clock count down" (I had one of those Quit Keeper programmes on my computer, this was back in 2003 but the programme is still available to download). Once the three month milestone had been reached I had nothing left to aim for - and started smoking again.

Roll on to 2010 and this time I stopped drinking - and again faltered after three months (3 months and 1 week to be exact). Then I did the same again in 2015. That three months problem seems to happen to me each time. It's possibly psychological but it feels very real to me.

anxiousrock

I have no idea why but for me its 30 days or 60 days....something about those numbers make me feel like it's okay to drink again. Like I earned it for being good? No idea but I need to get it out of my head.

Rsanchez920

Interesting thread... I tend to agree with the first comment about the brain of an addict and the dopamine... Also forgetting how bad it was after a while.

Abraham

For me its like drinking sucks. I felt like **** when I was drinking. So after 90 says. or now 10 months I still know and remember how it sucks to drink so I dont go back. If I still yearned to drink or had fun drinking I would still be doing it I'm sure. I guess it depends on why you quit and what situation you were in when you did. I quit because I wanted to, and I still want to, because I know how much it sucked to be drinking. In fact I spent alot of everyday for over 10 years thinking about not drinking and wishing I was not drinking. So drinking or not drinking? Why would I ever want to drink. That would suck.

Abraham

I have not had that problem but then again I did not pay to attention to how many days it had been. Maybe there is something to not counting days that might help.

Gottalife

For the longest time drinking sucked, but sobriety was worse. I managed a reasonable stretch dry one time. It started in hospital - read loony bin - and the first few weeks were quite good/ Then I had to return to the world and I became progressively more unhappy until a drink looked the better option, and away I went again.

After that I tried quite a few times but usually did not last even the one day. The memories that should have saved me were no where to be found when it really counted.

I was in a place that I think Einstein talked about " A problem cannot be solved by the same mind that created it in the first place." All the talk of triggers and strategies and plans means nothing if the mind cannot retain them. Mine could not. At certain times I was without an effective defense against the fatal first drink. It only takes a thoughtless second or two and it's all on again.

My solution was to sincerely work through a program. "If tempted we recoil as if from a hot flame" was one of the many promises made. "Recoil" is an involuntary act, a reaction much like much like jumping if an unexpected loud bang occurs. That is what happens with me now. It is not so much temptation, but even the prospect of an accidental drink provokes a strong adverse reaction. I don't have to think about it.

Another benefit was the sober life got pretty good so the drinking life today looks more unattractive than it ever did.

Thrillhou

I've never gotten anywhere near 90 days so unfortunately I cannot answer this question. lol

ciowa

I used to make it to 60 days all the time before drinking again. The thing was, I had no intention of being permanently sober. 60 days was just a period of time for me to "dry out" a bit, let the chaos die down, improve my health etc. But once those 60 days were up I was preparing to go back out and drink.

The way I finally got passed those 2 months was this time, I made up my mind that I was going to embrace recovery and live my life without alcohol. I don't think in time periods and I don't even keep track of my sober time but its been months by now.

fini

after a while sober, it hits that this is reality, and that without booze, it has to be lived in, somehow.
if we don’t learn how to do the somehow pretty well, chances for relapse are good.

Santi27

It seems from the number of posts in this thread that this is something that lots of us have experienced.

I very much identify with Ciowa. I think that I always saw giving up drink as a temporary thing so that I could show that I could beat alcohol. After 3 or 4 months I would go back to drinking once I'd shown it who was boss. It became a familiar cycle, I'd drink again and moderately for a few weeks/months and then one day.....

This time (not sure how many days I'm at, it was late-ish November so must be coming up to 5 months) I've finally admitted to myself that I can't beat alcohol and that it isn't worth the fight as I've got too many things going on in my life and just haven't got time for mega hangovers that just are a waste of a day.