Have you had a major life event/stressor/ situation that has almost derailed your sobriety?? How did you recover and stop yourself from relapsing??strategies?? Thought processes??
I just need as many stories and ideas as possible to help avoiding yet another frustrating relapse
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Looking back, they weren’t that major, but they sure nearly derailed me.
Things that helped were
Remembering that “there is nothing that a drink can’t make worse”
Logging onto here and having people I respect give me support / tell me some truth
Recheck my list of reasons for quitting
In the short term - take a walk / sniff some lavender / drink or eat something sweet or spicy
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Each time we overcome a craving or lurking the thoughts of relapse, our brains, each time we overcome it, it heals our brain a little more.
Slowly rewiring over the time we are sober.
Eventually you will get to a point when something goes wrong that instead of thinking to go straight to our drug of choice we go to problem solving and finding a solution.
For myslef at this time in sobriety i find when stuff pops up out of the blue i cant handle, running to drink isnt what i think about. It was for a long time, but the more i overcome the situations sober the less frequent my thought process was to turn to the drink.
I do still get cravings and some of them bring me close to feeling i want to drink but i remind myself these feelings will pass, even if takes a few days or weeks they will pass and id have learnt many coping skills whilst battling it through.
I guess in short what im trying to explain is that there becomes this moment when we start to manage the problems and solve them or even live with them without our first thoughts being to run away and drink/use.
It does get easier.
Not sure if i explain this too well as i just woke up.
I gave up whilst in the middle of a very traumayic event thats still ongoing. Its been 3 and half years ongoing. I wouldnt of been able to get through it and be here right now if i wasn’t sober.
I dont know how i stopped right while the situation was reeally bad. But i did.
I dont like to talk about it as its still ongoing and is the one biggest threat to my sobriety. But i am safe and not being harmed but i have had to learn to live with the situation, and be sober. I have days where i want to throw it all way. But i know that isnt the answer.
Coming to this community which is actually like family for me has been a life line. Letting nyself be vulnerable and reaching out for help here has saved me.
Im glad your here and reaching out too.
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Oh thanks so much. That’s very helpful, the detail isn’t important to me, I just hope you are ok and well done on getting through something that sounds very difficult without drinking.
That’s actually a REALLY important piece of info to remind myself of, about the rewiring of the brain. I forgot about that but will put it in my key notes for sobriety. I think it’s a very positive and motivating factor. Thanks.
So, I guess a lot of it is about challenging thought processes??
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‘there is nothing that a drink can’t make worse’ .
That’s so powerful and so true…love that., thanks
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Absolutely. You might want to look up common thinking or cognitive errors. They are helpful to keep in mind as you take a look at your own thoughts and what they might actually stem from. A common one is catastrophizing, or worst case scenario thinking. I’m guilty of this often. My anxious mind sometimes goes immediately to what I think is the worst that could happen without any rational thought process behind it. What has helped me the most when I feel like I might be spiraling is to take a breath and actually (sometimes out loud) tell myself “stop.” And then get curious about my thinking, check for those thinking errors and reframe my thinking. It takes work but it’s a labor of self love. Sometimes it helps to physically step out of the environment you’re in, too, find a quiet spot to sit and consider for a moment what’s going on in your mind. I highly recommend it! Has helped me more than anything else, honestly.
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Oh that’s a good idea about changing environment, so many helpful tips and suggestions on here. I can’t express how appreciative I am… Yeah, the challenging thoughts work etc is a lot of work, I agree but that’s what’s required plus I need to keep occupied and it will help me in other areas of life also. So it’s a win,win…I am also going to start learning to sew soon, to keep myself distracted/ occupied …I think learning a new skill is supposed to help with mental strength/ growth as well…??
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One thing that came to mind reading this was something that I’ve and seems to be relevant is that we are much better at dealing with the big things eg death, accident, break up as we are focused on the event, it’s when things quieten down that we need to be careful. The adrenaline/sadness etc clears and we are again left with ourselves.
Just a thought, I hope you mange to get through 
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Oh thank you so much for telling me all of this
There is much of what you have said here that I can relate to and appreciate and respect your bravery to tell me such personal things.Alsi, that’s fantastic that you are on say 24. I have relapsed many times, I do not intend to do that again but yeah I am only on day 2 again right now.So thanks again, all of this stuff helps me to push harder and stay positive,
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