What does RELAPSE/SLIP mean? To you...

Doll · MIP Old Timer

What does RELAPSE/SLIP mean? To you...

lani · MIP Old Timer

Sounds like a slip to me!
That reminds me of a girl I know who has "five years" but called her sponsee to get her some pot and then made her drive around town so she could get high! But she still claims her five years! Hmmmm.....

As you mentioned, this guy has been in/out 20 years...no wonder!!!

Rosie · Senior Member

Hi Doll, I myself had tried to do just what that guy did many times. I put together 4 yrs and along the way 2 yrs, 1 yr, 8 months and so on and so forth since I started drinking at age around 27 yrs old.

I am also a binge drinking and I would drink for a few days and a lot and then down for the count with money spent, nothing done, no personal growth, depressed, feeling like I had no hope at all toward what I want to really be doing in life, sick as a dog, ruining my health, hurting people I love, and so many other things that it astounds me as I sit here listing them.

But to me now whether I drink or not is not what I concentrate on. I want to be sober. And sober in ALL ways. I do not want to ingest that poison into my body anymore. Nor do I want to poison my mind with unsober thoughts and all those ugly things I can do to my mind in the midst of drinking.

And that means on those days I do not ingest the poison and I am laying in bed so sick and thinking ugly thoughts and having hate toward my ex or missing him, which is as bad as hating him because it is like missing the devil, and also having resentments toward people who I have spent way too much money on while I am drunk and toward the taxi cab people and even my cat who just wants to eat and get combed.

I am realizing that to get sober means to put down the poison in all areas starting with the alcohol and then the poison I have fed myself that steers me toward putting the alcohol poison in me. I feel it all goes hand and hand.

When I was taking a walk yesterday I was feeling free and happy and the thought of how I used to think that to take a drink once in a while would be okay and how I used to romanticize it and that it would be okay seemed so stupid to me.

I thanked God that now I feel that way. When I was trying to get sober before I always felt that it would be okay. I feel it was my way of assuring myself that, what I thought was my friend, would still be there if I NEEDED (????!!!) it.

I feel we romanticize alchohol. I used to picture myself sitting with a nice glass filled with wine and that I would just have the intial glow and I could enjoy that feeling and all would be well with the world.

I stopped even getting the initial glow and went straight to feeling like crap. And then into oblivion. So that fantasy is like most fantasies of that sort that the reality is hell.

I feel we have to let the alcohol lie in peace and to mourn its death from our life if need be and get on with life to get sober. It must die so we can live. And then the hard work begins. But it is so worth it.

And I feel to pick up pot or other drugs is not being sober. Sober does not mean to just put down the alcohol but to then start seeking inside of ourselves to change those things that are out of whack and to exchange vices stop that process, which I feel is the most important part.

Take care Rosie

-- Edited by Rosie at 09:02, 2008-08-17

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

S.L.I.P.

Sobriety
Loses
It's
Priority

Hi!!
Sounds like what the guy is doing is all active alcoholism, and just trying to hang on to something (AA meetings/people) for friendship or something? Dunno..... All I know is that he is a GOOD example of what "not being ready to put down the drink" is. I know that this type of thing doesn't work for me... tried it, failed at it, and no longer "searching" for the quick fix through alcohol....

I myself have to be careful with "examples" like the guy you mentioned. I know what my consequences always are, and I prefer to not take any more chances or try any more "experiments", just for today!!!

Jednorozec · Veteran Member

There was one time that I poured myself a glass of apple cider and when I took the first mouthful I realized that it had fermented but I drank the entire glass anyway. When I told a good A.A. friend about it, he told me not to consider it a slip which was a wise thing to say. If I had considered it a slip I would have said "what the hell, why don't I go out and get really drunk" because at that time I hadn't completely surrendered.

About a year ago I was out shopping and it was fairly hot. I was really thirsty when I got home and got a big glass of cider. I quickly drank two big mouthfuls and then realized that it had fermented. The rest of the glass and the remainder in the fridge went down the drain immediately. That was certainly not a slip because I stopped as soon as I realized what was happening.

The wine drinker needs to stop screwing around with A.A. and drink until he hits bottom and is willing to do whatever it takes to get sober.

In respect to drugs other than alcohol, you can't be high and sober at the same time.

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Over time, when we get into working on our character defects, we add non-drinking behavior to the list. Dry drunks (uncontrollable anger) are a big problem that can easily lead to drinking. Sex certainly can be a problem in a variety of ways. I have a friend with 8 years that had an affair with a married woman. It was brief but it had a devastating emotional affect on him. He went into a depression for over a week, lost a lot of self esteem, and may have come close to drinking over it.

For me it's the personal conflicts. We are always going to have them. I tend to get whacked out about them. It manifests itself as a paranoia (these people are out to Get Me!). I get scared and then I get mad, then I want revenge, hell I even think about paying to have some of these sob's "rubbed out" lol. Not for long thank HP.
I have to let go of that thinking and work the 3rd step. I give these people the benefit of the doubt, that they are just doing whatever they think is best for them (as selfish as that might be), say things like "they don't know what they don't know" or " they just weren't raised right" and "HP please take care of them for me". I swear that this takes care of 95% of my problems.

I just went to a Board of County Commissioners Meeting so that they could hear my Dock Variance application.
I had 4 neighbors and their attorney against me. It was on TV. I was scared, nervous, angry, fearing impending doom and the shame of losing. My neighbors spewed all kinds of misrepresentations about the facts....
I wanted to run away. In the end, the Commissioners voted in my favor unanimously without any discussion.
This process took 3 months and I've been up and down through it and have stayed grounded by using the tools of this program and never thought about drinking, but I did have a number of unacceptable thoughts concerning my troublesome neighbors evileye

-- Edited by StPeteDean at 09:10, 2008-08-17

QuikEnuf · Member

Drinking one glass of wine would be devastating for me. It would be worse than just a slip and I would probably be dead or something even worse. I know that I have never had just one drink, ever!

I had a slip in my thinking 3 weeks ago and I should have came here or found a meeting. I was out of town working in a very high stress situation. I was completely overwhelmed with the pressure of the job, working crazy hours, and not getting much rest. When I went to supper that night I passed a restaurant/bar that had a sign out front that said "Long Island Ice Tea $4". This is what went thru my mind: I was 500 miles away from home, nobody will know, I can probably have just one, and the price of long islands hasn't went up since I got sober.

That is the closest I have come to drinking in 11 years. I know in my heart that I am an alcoholic and still remember the pain. I called my wife and talked to her about how I was feeling, then had dinner and went to bed. It amazes me that I can still have stinking thoughts like I did that night.

Dave Harm · Senior Member

For me, yes, that would be a slip. I don't want even a small taste of it. With the way our thoughts can jusitfy anything we do, I can see how someone could say it was just a glass of wine, or beer, or whatever.

But for me to practice "To thine own self be true," if I said one drink wasn't a slip, than I'm not only lying to myself but also my HP.

Creating Dreams, from the nightmares of hell...

TLH · MIP Old Timer

I don't think I've ever drank one glass of wine. But yeah- one drink is a slip to me.

Doll's comment about having some downtime between binges struck me as familiar. There was a time that I didn't drink for years, and then when I got divorced I began to drink again. I'd just have five or six beers some days, which was pretty light drinking for me really. Other days I'd get just wated and pass out, and it would be two or three days before I'd drink again. But the nature of alcoholism is progressive and pretty soon I was down to just two days between, then one day between- until I was at the point where even though I'd blacked out the night before I could still manage another bender the next night.

One afternoon I'm standing at the register and I remember very clearly looking down at my couple six packs of beer and a bottle of whiskey and thinking to myself, "Wow- when did that happen?"

nmike · Veteran Member

Hi Doll. This is very interesting to me. I don't know if it is relevant. My AHsober has been sober for over 25 years. He was in AA for awhile but left the program. To me he is having a "dry" slip. He has quit working a program, he drinks O'Douls, he has started smoking again, watches TV, plays computer games into the night, and walked out on his 30 + marriage with me. I guess a dry drunk slip. Painful to watch. Don't know if it is painful to him. He says he is giving in to his disease.

In support,
Nancy

Doll · MIP Old Timer

Actually O'Douls contains a small amount of alcohol........Awesome feedback, MIP! Thanks!

TLH · MIP Old Timer

I have some sober buddies who drink O'douls (.05% alcohol?) and I have some sober buddies who give them trouble about it. It's always a laugh when those latter guys share at a meeting because they never seem to fail to make the distinction that they are "___ years sober- and that includes O'douls!"

I don't have a big problem with O'douls if that works for them. I personally don't bother playing at drinking because I know how devious my mind can be at workarounds. But my Buddies that drink O'doulls are generally over ten years sober so who am I to say they shouldn't, you know?

I read an excerpt last night from a book I just picked up called, "Addicted- Notes from the Belly of the Beast" which is really like a collection of sp4eaker meetings from all kinds of addictions. Anyhow this one guy is talking about smoking and he says that he's addicted to a game called Klondike Solitaire and plays it every morning before he begins writing. He says he's addicted to the Cryptic Crossword in the Globe and Mail. He also admits he watches Frasier obsessively. He comes clean about coffee, going sockless until December, Ritz Crackers and Peanut Butter, correcting other people's grammar, saying "gonna", writing down phone numbers without writing the associated names, flicking mindlessly through channels at 3 a.m.- all things he's certain he could stop doing should he put his mind to it.

Then he comes to the point- that these things:

1) don't really hurt anyone (aside from the obsessive channel hopping.)

2)If he were to stop playing Klondike or leaving his socks off til December he wouldn't shake and vomit and be generally wracked with shakes and aches and pains.

3)The price of these continuing passtimes most likely will not lead in some direct way to death.

I loved what I've read of his story (How to Quit Smoking) and haven't even read the whole book but really like Molly Jong-Fast's bit as well as Marnie Woodrow's story. I love books like this, where people reflect on who they were and what they became and how they got back from there- it staves off that horrible creeping feeling that maybe I'm just flawed or that I've somehow by my very nature failed (I doubt there's anyone here that hasn't at some point felt that awful feeling and thought those treacherous, self deceiving thoughts.)

Anyhow- whatever. There I go rambling again, all out of one half of one percent of a stupid innocuous liquid that can lead me by the nose like a carrot on a stick (right off a cliff.)

Aloha- Toby

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

Doll wrote:

Actually O'Douls contains a small amount of alcohol........Awesome feedback, MIP! Thanks!

not as much as vanilla ice cream, so I'm told. not that I would recommend drinking NA. I also know a group of guys that came in a few years before I did that drink NA beverages. I asked one if it makes him think about drinking real beer and he said no. He noticed after drinking them on a few occassions that he only drank 1 or 2 (never more than 2) and that he didn't obsess about it later or the next day. Didn't cross his mind at all. So like TLH said, It depends on the person. Now my other friend, who was a sponsor of mine for a year, is obsessed about the opposite. Every time we go to a restuarant he has to quiz the waiter about the salad dressing and the sauces, deserts, coffee..... with this wild eyed look on his face like "I'll kill you if you're wrong". evileye

I don't even want to go out with him anymore weirdface

-- Edited by StPeteDean at 19:41, 2008-08-18

TLH · MIP Old Timer

StPeteDean wrote:
Now my other friend, who was a sponsor of mine for a year, is obsessed about the opposite. Every time we go to a restuarant he has to quiz the waiter about the salad dressing and the sauces, deserts, coffee..... with this wild eyed look on his face like "I'll kill you if you're wrong". I don't even want to go out with him anymore

That sounds like more of a test than dating a vegan!!! wink

-- Edited by TLH at 23:38, 2008-08-18

Jolly J · Member

I think relapse means drinking one drink or even a sip, a beer was a gulp for me. I myself had a relapse after almost two years sober.I would have had 10 years but I needed to learn what I really wanted, alcohol just set set me up for other stuff. I guess it comes down to what I really want out of this gift I was given Life. I want to face whatever comes my way without a drink in my hand. I still have those two years sober because it taught me what I was missing, when I drank. I really care that you are trying to stay sober, I pray you find the answers you are looking for. Good journeys