Yep. That’s one to think about @JasonFisher , thankyou 
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@Butch had some good daily readings yesterday, about remembering the despair and the misery and what it feels like before sobriety trying to stop .
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@Hazy thank you for asking this and
@HoofHearted @JasonFisher @Ravikamor @Girlinterrupted thank you so much for what you wrote. What you shared helps with the anxiety of fearing I will drink again and how to prevent it today, in a year, on five years. What @HoofHearted said sums it up for me: “I believe it means that you begin to neglect the work of recovery.” 
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I had a good network around me and a sponsor, had a desire and made a effort on my sobriety ,so maybe try a meeting and they might help .can get sober and stay sober without relapse, know a load of people who have been sober for decades, lift the phone before the drink wish you well
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I hate those thoughts that pop into my head. It’s like the good and bad devil. One on each shoulder arguing. Who will win. I too think after a short time of sobriety I can handle one or two drinks.no matter how hard I try, it always ends up finishing the bottle. I just cant have one and be satisfied. I wish it would be easier to just say no.
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For me its the thinking i dont have a problem that is the reminder of the troubles addiction have on me, like another person trying to take over my life. Peer pressure from the bad half of me saying its ok things won’t be as bad this time, or youve got it licked, just one will be fine. I know better than to trust that kind of thinking because i am my own worse enemy. Allowing myself to feel like im ok i can get complacent and forget that im still recovering
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For me as many already wrote it is the thoughts or the feelings I want to numb taking the old, wide paths that I walked so long. That never worked to improve or solve things in the long term but relieved for some hours. For me it’s when I start to lose contact to myself, don’t listen to what’s going on in myself, neglect stress, neglect when I need rest, silence and then when I am on the crossroads would take the shortcut instead of writing a friend, coming here, sit still and listen or release the stress doing sports.
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@Liz22 It can truly be like the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other! Whenever the thought of drinking alcohol hits me I like to say “Not today devil and not tomorrow either!” 
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Sounds good. I will definitely try to say no to that devil but sometimes he can be very persuasive 
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Thoughts drive emotions and emotions give birth to action.
The simplified way of saying what so many others have already expressed.
It all percolates internally before expressing externally.
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Yes it starts before you pick up. For me it starts with this little voice in my head saying come on Chris you can have 1. But it never stays at 1. The feeling that this time will be different, that this time you can control it. It might happen weeks or months before you even complete the relapse. Just remind yourself you are 8 months in and it really sucks to say you are back to day 1. Be strong
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Ive read all the precedent generous and thoughtful posts, and still I am part of the people who’d say it is better to separate systematically a relapse (using) from the “before”.
Because if that was true, then I’d be “relapsing” right now and I would have been for most than a year, because my struggle is always to think that I will end up drinking by the end of the day, and often try to plan it. For me it doesn’t make sense to put “struggle” and “romancing” and “planning” with actually drinking. (Although I understand what people means by this, like relapse as a process.)
But, clinically, having a substance use disorder is diagnosed with “active” using or early/sustained “remission/recovery”. I am in recovery as long as I am not relapsing, and I am an active drinker if I relapse/use.
Either way I have a substance abuse disorder and that is all what we are experiencing : we do not stop having the disease if we stop drinking and work our recovery, we just stop being active on our disease.
[EDIT: by “we all are” I mean the people who identify themselves with substance use disorder, not “everyone” on this forum of course.]
Thinking that we can drink but knowing we can’t and struggling inside with that paradox is the disease itself. The process of thoughts, emotions and behaviour preceding and sometime leading to a relapse is the disease. It is not the relapse, it’s the addiction. That is the trouble itself, that we fight against and recover from.
I totally agree that what scares the most is “when we stop having the fear of drinking” (very well said), but I’d be aware to call that being a relapse, because at this point there is still a chance of turning back and keeping your head above the water.
I can’t tell myself and I wouldn’t tell anyone that they are relapsing before it’s happening, because then why would I keep fighting ? Why would I keep fighting if, when I am starting to plan secretly on drinking, and I am having a second thought like “damn am I really doing this?” and then I go “well I am totally relapsing anyways right now so it’s done anyways”… I could totally see how not separate romancing, planning and struggling from an actual relapse could personally lead me to a total relapse.
But of course, slacking on recovery programs and lacking of self care and stuff can be signs that we are marching right to an actual relapse… But the fight is not over until it’s over.
Lacking and slacking on recovery does happen before a relapse. But lacking and slacking on recovery is not relapsing, yet.
There’s still room for change, always.
Anyways that’s how I see it. I Hope this could resonate with some.
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Yes, you are in relapse before you pick up. You have that mental back and forth before you pick up. You figure out what excuse you will use to rationalize picking up, before you pick up… You make a conscious decision to pick up, before you pick up.
I look at it like cheating on a partner. It never “just happens”. No, it’s a mental/emotional process. You cheat in your heart and head, before you actually engage in the act.
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I’m back on day 1 and glad to be here.
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Glad that you made it back.
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Hi friend! I’m sorry to see this as we are sober twins (or at least close) and I still consider that to be the case. Are you done with finals? You are working a good program, Hazy. Back at it and lots of self care while you are between semesters. It isn’t easy going back to school at age 42. I admire you.
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Thanks @LeeHawk …it’s been a bit crap since the semester finished, I have to revise for Jan exams and I’ve lost my flow with worries of Christmas day etc. I finished some step 3 yesterday morning and looked at my other step work, I pottered around and did some painting, I couldn’t get into my work, I got presents for my 3 kids and bought a fridge freezer ( I haven’t had one for nearly a month and been leaving milk outside) so just been slowly drowning in money worries, ( car, cat to vets ) all come the last month.
Drinking didn’t make it better, I knew before hand it wouldn’t, it was more like a self harm action.
Sorry to hear about the struggles youve been facing, sometimes things kind of just unravel, things can be like a rubber band just winding up til it snaps. Glad that it was nothing too serious an you can pick yourself back up from your little set back, besides some money issues and the holidays. My wife was telling me about a co worker who is a fugitive now from a incident from this past week, facing felony charges, suspended from work, probably wont be able to be rehired, loose her certification an ability to work in health care, probably wont see her children for a while, face imprisonment, be stuck with the stigma of being a felon if shes convicted, an she just chose to try and go on the run. What alcohol does is just devastating, rips families and people apart, makes me sad when i read about it all the time in the news breaks my heart when so many people are affected and so little is done to get the help we need. I wish you well and pray for your strength to get back on track an into a better head space. its great that you come right back here, ODAAT.
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Relapses are opportunities for me to take a close look at my life and recovery path to determine what changes need to be made.
It seems, from the title of your thread, that you were already sensing that something was off.
Here’s my experience. I recall two recent experiences in which I relapsed after being sober for over 240 days and over 290 days. I was unknowingly using a willpower method.
Willpower can be defined as: The ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals. The capacity to override an unwanted thought, feeling, or impulse.
The problem with this method for me is that I subconsciously placed a huge amount of value on my DOC. So when the chips were down, or if I was reaching a milestone, my subconscious self would carefully scrutinize my life comparing sobriety to this overly glamorized life of addiction. I craved a lot. Thinking that if I achieved a certain amount of sobriety, then the cravings would just naturally fall away like others have experienced. But they didn’t.
What’s working for me now is following an EasyWay path. I’m challenging the other variable that doesn’t get discussed a lot in many traditional recovery programs; which is the high amount of value that I place on my DOC. The truth is my addiction has no value. It has no benefit. It offers me nothing. As you just experienced with this last drinking session. But let me assure you, alcohol leaves the user wanting more. And if one keeps on drinking, that person will start to see it as something that offers something even though it’s all an illusion.
I no longer use a willpower method because I no longer see my drug as gratification, period. Thus, I don’t want it and I don’t crave it. Why crave something or use something that has no value? Even when life is difficult, my drug still has nothing to offer. A lot of experienced members on TS no longer associate value to their DOC. That is a big secret to their success.
Before that, my sobriety was in a constant danger of relapse. It was like an unstable equilibrium where any wrong move or event could set me rolling down that slope to using. I was sober, but I was white knuckling it, a dry drunk still on the hamster wheel with my thoughts of glamorization of porn. In that sense, I was still eventually heading towards a relapse.
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Thankyou so much for that share. …day at a time… back to some regular online meetings I think. Find some similarities and think about my stuff. Really glad to be out of the run up to picking up. It was like a heavy cloud. Need to find some better coping tools. I’ve managed 9 months with a decision to change that started it. I’m gonna put more work in to recovering than I did the last few months.
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