Evoo

One thing that keeps me vigilant is the knowledge that I could relapse at any time if I had another drink. I am 600 days sober - I know that in one year, 10 years or 30 years - I should never drink.

My question is for folks who had relapses after really long stretches - what are some warning signs? What changed? I am confident in my position now, but I want to protect the strength I feel now, the resolve I have to never go back. What would recommend folks look out for?

zoobadger

I'm four years sober this past July, and some episodes of intense anxiety have really tested my sobriety recently. You can never take sobriety for granted, even if there are long periods where it feels completely natural and the idea of picking up a drink is unthinkable.

I remind myself all the time that without sobriety and recovery I have nothing.

I haven't ever relapsed. I quit drinking when I was 57 and I'm 61 now. But, for me, I feel endangered when I can't imagine escaping from the bouts of anxiety that I'm prone to. That is, the idea of returning to a peaceful emotional state seems impossible. I do find that exercise helps, especially running, and honestly sharing my feelings with my family helps. Not bottling it up and suffering alone needlessly.

Tailai

For me the danger was my mindset. My relapses were all about messed up thinking. After 11 months and then after 7 months and then after eight months I thought I could moderate. That was dangerous. Hand in hand with that was I thought the drinking life was better for me than the sober life and that was dangerous. Once I got my mind right it was about never drinking now and that’s where my energy was focused. Once drinking was not an option and I was totally sold on this I have remained vigilant and stayed the course for 4 years, “always never drinking now”.

Dee74

I don't have a relapse after a long time story, but for me continued living in recovery is kind of akin to a car.

You've got to maintain it regularly, you've got to put the right kind of fuel in it...and ...keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel...

If that sounds like an ordeal or an unhappy existence. its really not.

My 'car' takes me wherever I want to go, over all terrain, all weathers, and all manner of fellow travellers, and I know it will never let me down.

D

zenithboy88

Hi, when I was 22 I quit.
my son got married to his fil and mil when I was 40 and he was 22.
Did I hear you right Zenith?
Sigh... Yes....I don't think he loved her at all. It's like he married her manipulative parents. They divorced a few yrs later.
Well..... I drank at his wedding after 18 yrs sober.... Cuz I was unhappy with what was going on.
Then I had two 1 year periods of sobriety in past 18 years.
My dear wife died 14 yrs ago, I dated. Felt I should have wine with new girlfriend.
Ended badly.
A few yrs later had another year sober.
Retired. Went to France for a month.
saw wine in French supermarket. Talked myself into it.
Stupid on all 3 counts.
Super hard now to give up
The end

least

I relapsed after 20 yrs sober. Started with one glass of wine in the afternoon so I'd be calm and not engage with my teenage daughter when she came home from school. Within six months I was drinking all day, every day.

Finally got free again and will never go back to that life.

Colin1

I relapsed after 3 years sober, 2 years, and a couple of times after a year. I don't consider these very long periods of sobriety, but FWIW I have noticed a common theme to these relapses. None were sudden, they all took at least a couple of days to happen.

This article explains very well what I experienced. A short intro from the article:

"People with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) often describe relapse as a sudden occurrence. For example, someone who has a relapse may find themselves drinking in a bar with no memory of how they got there and why. Although this “relapse” experience may seem unexpected and abrupt, actual relapse occurs in multiple stages and begins long before the physical drink. Because of this, it is important for a person with AUD to understand all the three stages of alcohol relapse, so they can be aware of and take action before they find themselves drinking again."

What I do now when I have a thought of drinking is I acknowledge it and then kill it as quickly as I can. I don't drink any more, ever. If drinking thoughts last more than a couple of minutes before I can reign them in, I remind myself what happens when I drink and why I made the decision to never drink again. So far this has worked for me.

Introvrtd1

1 year, 8 months now….in the past few years, I’ve had 5, then 7 months sobriety. During those times I didn’t exactly relapse…I made a conscious decision to drink because I wanted to….I felt like I was missing out on that feeling of relaxation and euphoria. Stimulating that pleasure center in my brain was like saying I could handle drinking again, and in moderation….but soon found out that the hangovers and withdrawals were progressively getting worse and took longer to recover from. Each one feeling more damaging than the last…

Finally decided that was it for me….not only that…I felt I owed it to my family to be there for them and not be sick and absent when they needed me most.

I pray I stay the course from here on out. Thanks for reaching out.

Sober45

I'm 2.5 years sober. I haven't relapsed and don't plan to. I had many failed attempts before I finally quit though and the feeling of missing out combined with thoughts that I can moderate was what caused me to fail each time.

I never EVER allow myself to romanticize alcohol. Instead, I take time every day to appreciate what sobriety has given me and I look around and focus hard on the reality of how alcohol destroys lives. You don't have to look very far.

Hodd

After 3.5 years, I’m 100% sure if I had a drink right now, I’d leave it at that and carry on with the rest of my day as normal. But tomorrow, I’d then think I’d been OK yesterday, so I’ll have another. Within a week, it’d be a bottle of wine a day and deep s***.

I’m constantly amazed (and saddened) by constant relapsers. None of us here are “normies”, and we’ll all be screwed by that first drink regardless how long we’ve been sober.

DriGuy

Yes, this seems to be such a common theme in relapse after long periods of sobriety that I tend to believe it is universal. It's a monumentally huge trigger to understand and avoid. It seems to be neglected in many of us.

Mizz

I dont know what qualifies as VERY long periods of sobriety?

Ive had multiple relapses. 8 months sober. Relapse. Almost one year sober. Relapse. One week shy of a year sober. Relapse.

What were the warning signs for my relapses? Stress. Anxiety. The thought that I could drink and moderate. The thoughts that I did not have an emotional based addiction. The thoughts that I wanted to be like everyone else. The thoughts that I could be sober, because I was, and therefore I could get sober again. It was all a really hard learning process.

What changed? The wine drinking became something very detrimental and a bigger issue than it was previously. I had crossed a line somewhere. I was having suicidal thoughts. This was a whole new development in my drinking career. Those thoughts did not exist before. I also think that with the use of alcohol, I exacerbated the anxiety, and it created a raging inferno of a mental health issues that I could not handle. So, I decided to get a handle on it.

I think we are unique in our journeys of life, but the one thing we have in common is that we desire to maintain sobriety and to be healthy. If I participate in some form of recovery/ recovered daily, then I am honoring my life and living true to my purpose. I do not stray too far away from the tools that have saved my life. I stick with the things that keep me sober. Running, sleep, eating regularly, prayer, this forum, podcasts, writing, supplements, tackling stress immediately, processing my emotions. Structure keeps me level.

Look out for stress. Anxiety. Emotions. All the things that make a person want to escape a situation. At least that is what I do.

nez

When I stop or put off to later, the recovery actions that have gotten to this point in time. RED FLAG

Excuses or justifications. RED FLAG

This time it will be different. RED FLAG

brighterday1234

I know it is essential to live recovery on a daily basis; to engage with recovery and other alcoholics via AA or SR or any other means. To live in the spiritual way that AA and indeed any other decent recovery method will suggest E.g. being a decent human being. I always know to my core and accept my alcoholism and I realise that if I don’t maintain my recovery then a drink would eventually materialise.

Grateful to be sober 🙏

Zebra1275

I once relapsed after 5 1/2 years sober. We were on vacation and having dinner with some friends in a nice restaurant. One of our friends is a doctor (who I looked up to) and he ordered a couple of beers with his nice dinner. Later that evening when we got together I noticed that he had switched to drinking bottled water. So I thought to myself, maybe that's how successful people manage alcohol.

When we got home I tried that method. I drank a couple of beers and then switched to a clear liquid. Unfortunately, my choice of clear liquids wasn't water but vodka.

It took me a year of drinking on and off, really struggling to get sober again. That was over 12 years ago. Never again.

advbike

I have relapsed a couple of times from multiple-year periods of sobriety. Sobriety that was gained by acknowledging drinking was "no longer an option", and sticking to it. In both cases, even after 2-3 years my sobriety was not always smooth sailing. I have a lot of anxiety and emotional pain that goes back to childhood, and had not addressed a lot of that. I was sober but not always in a calm place. I have a very active and judgemental ego. Sobriety opens the door for further work on ourselves, like practicing gratitude and acceptance.. but we have to do the work.

My relapses were not a sudden thing. I had become lazy about my program of sobriety maintenance, and my ego was back in control. But times of stress always come along and my active ego would ramp up with dissatisfaction, and a constant litany of complaints. Resentments is the AA term for it. My head would be in a bad place. Eventually I would get that little thought in the back of my mind that maybe I could drink again someday. Not even a plan, or a defined date.. just the possibility of it. And just the thought of it at some future date brought relief. In both cases, I did not actually drink for months. But at that point the AV had won. It had opened the door. Because I was no longer thinking in strong terms that it "was not an option". And in both cases I did drink again. I could have stopped it if I really wanted to but at that point I didn't want to.

As others mention, this thing requires constant vigilance, a program to maintain it and keep the ego in check, and constant work on other aspects of our emotional health. Of course those behaviors are beneficial to anyone, not just the alcoholic.

dustyfox

Great question and great thread Evoo - I recognise much of what has been written from my previous sobriety attempts and relapse. Relapse for me has always been precipitated by stress, anxiety, a feeling of being overwhelmed, that I have lost control, being hurt, fearfulness and/or anger from those feelings. Sometimes even being overwhelmed by happiness has caused a relapse.

So now at 15 months sober, my longest time sober ever, I see my sobriety as a work in progress, one where I want to learn more about what makes me tick, what I can do to help keep myself regulated. I liked Dee's car analogy - so to answer the OP question - I try and get the measure of my emotional state and work to keep it balanced and to learn my early warning signals. The outlet for stress can never be alcohol because I already know that it doesn't work. Finding things that do work is important - that is what we must all learn to do.

Kejun

I first gave up drinking when I was 21.

Figured it would be for a few months, but, was going well so kept the sobriety thing to the one year mark, then two. Finally, I made the decision that I had been doing so well, would go for five years of sobriety. My failing was that although I knew I was a 'big drinker', I did not know or believe I was alcoholic. I was always going to return to drinking. I had watched my friends having the time of their life and missed being part of that party scene.

Convinced that I had grown up, matured and would be able to control the drinking at the ripe old age of 26(!), I went back to it. But, it did not have the same draw it once did. I remember reading a post about this not that long ago. The body was not so primed for alcohol as it has gone without for so long. So, what did I do? I worked hard at trying to get that feeling back. What was wrong with alcohol? Why was it not working the way it should?? So, I chased that feeling.

Didn't take long and I was drinking very unhealthily and life was a mess.

So I guess my answer is a little different from those who knew they had a genuine, full-blown problem. I was always going to return to it. But, one of the big benefits for me is knowing without doubt, alcohol and me don't mix. Oil and water. I cannot and will never be able to moderate. I have firsthand knowledge that irrelevant of the time away from drinking, I can never get enough of the stuff. Everything in life becomes secondary, I do not care about anything, anyone or myself. So long as I can get that next fix, that is what my life becomes.

Perhaps somebody reads all this and might be on the sidelines or dither in and out of acknowledging their alcoholism, if anything like me, trust me when I say, you cannot 'learn' to be a normal drinker. It doesn't work that way. Have the intelligence, courage and strength of character to be totally honest in so much as knowing alcohol is not going to help you. In any situation. Ever.

Sober53

I relapsed after three years, my trigger was I was out “celebrating” a big family milestone at a restaurant and a pitcher of sangria was ordered for the table, I had more than my share. That episode triggered six months months of drinking and hangovers. I know I can drink, it spirals out quickly.

Great thread, reading it I realize I need to be more active here or try AA or more other support group

Em92

I have had two long periods of sobriety and relapsed. The first was 10 years. When I quit that first time I wasn’t drinking a lot but made some really dumb decisions with my kid with me so I quit. One day out of the blue 10 years later my husband was having a drink and I decided to join him. I didn’t think much about it but it started a several years long binge. after that I quit for almost six years but the end of last year started again. This last time I know I was depressed and lonely and had been flirting with drinking for a while. I was in a lot of physical pain and knew alcohol would take it away. Before long I was drinking every day and couldn’t stop. I think it is important to remember that at some point you may think it will be ok to have a drink. Just one. But it isn’t. It will only lead to misery and pain. I think if I would have told someone I was thinking about drinking I might not have given in but truthfully I wanted to drink. So I think my biggest piece of advice would be ask for help. If you start to think a drink isn’t a big deal and you can have one tell someone who knows your history. If you do AA go to a meeting. Something. Anything to remind yourself what happens when you drink. I’m only on day 3 and fighting every minute but i know every time I give in it is harder to quit the next time.