Relapse Prevention Advice

What are some of your best relapse prevention techniques? Let me know!

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One thing I do is I drink club soda and cranberry juice instead of alcohol.

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Keep busy. Volunteer (service) work is great. Nothing like helping others.

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Replace alcohol with exercise - running is my new vice. Good luck mate.

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Believe that you don’t need to drink. Believe in yourself!

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For me a big factor was staying away from bars for the first six months. In the beginning I did not have the strength or resolve had I been confronted with temptation. Drinking buds can be very pushy and I could not risk being around that pressure early on. I had to leave work on Fridays before the drinking crew came through.

And once I had Friday nights on my own, I had to learn how to do things that did not involve drinking. I began walking to local parks on Fridays to watch the sunset. Then I slowly began to cultivate other interests: picking up old passions I had left by the wayside when drinking became my favorite thing. I tried a couple of new activities and rekindled old ones: like going to see theater and dance, things I loved to do a long time ago.

Relapse prevention for me had a lot to do with reprogramming my brain as to what constitutes reward, enjoyment and stress relief. This part was really hard. Going to a bar was my definition of fun for so long. I had to really break it down and look at what I was doing and why. My idea of how much fun it all was contrasted significantly with the realities: fights, money wasted, not remembering whole evenings, waking up in pain and hating myself for what I had said or done the night before. Much of it was so unfun, it’s hard to understand why I kept it up for so long.

Another huge motivator for me was weight loss: I got a Fitbit at six months sober and am incredibly consistent with it. I lost a lot of weight as a result and that weight loss then became a big reason I didn’t want to drink again: because when I drank, exercise went out the window.

I read a lot of sobriety books: autobiographies of people who quit drinking and this was very helpful for me in the beginning.

And finally, the mere time accumulation becomes a reason. It became satisfying to see time add up, first days, then weeks, then months and now years. My sober time is something precious and clean and gleaming that I don’t want to tarnish or destroy.

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Build a solid foundation, stay busy, stay away as much as possible from dangerous, people, places and things that may trigger you. I get up and start my day with a daily reading, 15 minutes of easy exercise. Then breakfast, shower, ready for the day. I am 4 months 13 days clean, this simple program has worked daily for me, get to a meeting and work the program. ONE LOVE :+1:

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I go to AA and pray

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Amen brother :pray:

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  • I remember why I decided to quit;
  • ask myself if relapsing is worth it: I think it through (how I would feel after that “one” drink I’m craving for);
  • go for a swim… vent;
  • try to keep myself busy (it sounds like a corny commonplace, but it helps)…

I think it’s a good idea (at least in the first “phases” of sobriety) to keep away from places/people etc. who act as triggers. You’ll deal with them later.

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Just wanted to say, "Welcome @Stephen_Clark!

Just keep on plodding away. One foot in the future and one foot in the past, we’re p------ on the present. We all only have one day. ONE LOVE MY PEOPLE. FINNY

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Keep your guard up my people, cunning and baffling. Surrendering to your chemical of choice is paramount, but attacks on your serenity and life come in many forms. Unhealthy obsessions. Don’t take your foot off your recovery. ONE LOVE, ENJOY THIS GIFT OF RECOVERY​:+1::facepunch:

Honestly…fear…knowing that if I relapse I know where it will lead , I remind myself every day of that place …dont ever want to go back there

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