When you began AA, did you ever Relapse, and for how long, or did you never have to drink again?

Just Toni · MIP Old Timer

When you began AA, did you ever Relapse, and for how long, or did you never have to drink again?

turninggrey · MIP Old Timer

Hey Toni,
I hope your friend is one of the folks who can stop once. I have slipped a couple times after long periods of sobriety. The AA progam made those slips learning oportunities where even while slipping, I knew I needed the "light" of AA.
Tom

Just Toni · MIP Old Timer

Just a quick note Tom, no he has been struggling a lot, but now has some time, thanks to GOD and this awesome Program.

Toni

Toad · Senior Member

Hello,
I have not had to drink or use drugs since I entered the doors of A. A.
I believe I have been given "God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves" gift.
I cannot say for sure why it stuck for me the first time.
I do know I had a bottom that to this day scares me. A Sufficient Bottom as of today.

Ride the Ride,
Toad

Stephanie14 · Veteran Member

I relapsed twice before I learned what to do/not to do. The first time I had 35 days, the second I had 93 days. At this point I have 3 days short of nine months. I know its not long term, but I am very proud and have learned a lot. I have learned to identify when my disease or as I call it, the bad squirrel, is talking to me. For example: when I feel bad about something my first thought, the bad squirrel, says to isolate and wallow in my pain. This had led me to the bar in the past, now it leads me to a meeting, my sponsor or to another AA.

Dave Harm · Senior Member

I admit to being an alcoholic when I was 29 years old. That kept me sober for five and a half years. But while I admitted it, I still could accept that I could never learn to drink responsibly.

So after that time, I tried to control my drinking and ended up going on a two year binge. Those two years gave me the acceptance that one drink was to many. By the grace of God and the gift of a second chance, been sober since 9/4/94...

Jerry F · MIP Old Timer

Aloha Toni and "other"...I like the thread and I understand "Relapsing" as going back out again...
drinking again. I also see relapse in part as drinking again and once I stopped I never went back
to the bottle. When I first got to AA I had stopped but not because I wanted to. I stopped
because my exwife found a need to be in AA and I was just to pissed and upset at the time to
continue on by myself. I wanted to teach her how to drink as much as she wanted and could as
she wanted to follow my own drinking habits. Neither of us were aware of differences or of
alcoholism in any sense. We were very very sick people. So I didn't want the blame of screwing
up her attempt while at the same time I wanted the glory of straightening out her drinking problem.

I hated AA when I first got into the meetings so I left. I didn't drink. My wife stopped drinking
and I helped her to relapse by answering NO to the question she rolling around in her head 24/7.
Am I an alcoholic? She went back out and then I couldn't find her anymore as a spouse. I still
didn't drink but I was certifiably insane...just as insane as when I did on this time it felt worse
because I wasn't using the anesthesia of alcohol to block out reality. I refused do and didn't do
my own assessment until 9 years later without alcohol and not being in AA.   Did I relapse?
Alcoholism isn't only a physical disease. It affects the mind, spirit and emotions also and it could
be honestly said that during that 9 years I dry drunked quite a bit. I displayed the mannerisms
and behaviors of a wet drunk even though I had not drank and was firmly inside of the Al-Anon
Family Groups working the same 12steps and Traditions and slogans and literature as AA.

What I know today about the disease and how it manifests itself within me is that I am a
chemically tollerant alcoholic. One that can overly drink without the outside evidence. I rarely
seemed drunk and then the measurements we used were pretty small huh?   There were and
are other measurements and they are revealed thru a through assessment.

Do I still have drinking thoughts? Yes and sometimes pretty often.   Do I still have drinking
dreams? Yes and still vividly and expansive (the volume of alcohol grows). Do I still have
drinking memories which were painful that I still think had a measure of fun to them? Yes to
that also.   There is more of course. There is always more and that is why our program is
a lifetime program.

I've been around a while.   Presently, the last 15+ years of my recovery, I hang close to those
who have relapsed by physically going out and drinking again. Why, because I know how
cunning, powerful and baffling the disease is. I know that for 25 years of my life it owned me
not the other way around and that it is patient, willing to wait as I practice my program for the
appropriate time and place for it (not me for it) to represent itself. Recovery is a waiting period
I choose to wait within the program rather than any other condition. I am not as immortal as I
once thought. Relapsers teach me that everyday for which I am grateful.

((((hugs))))

ljc · MIP Old Timer

I only know like 2 ppl in the program who stayed sober since their first meeting. Oneguy has like 33yrs and the other somewhere around 25.

I know many ppl with long term sobriety today who will share that it took them 10, 17, 20 yrs, or however long to 'get' the program and finally surrender.

I was in and out of meetings for 2 yrs before I realized that If I didnt stop drinking I was going to die. I havent had a drink for 5 yrs now and I pray I NEVER forget my last drunk.
Any time I drank prior to this .. it was pre-planned. And I discovered that a relapse doesnt start with a drink, it ends with one !

Today I am convinced that Im one drink away from death.

pinkchip · MIP Old Timer

I almost feel like I am jinxing myself saying this, but I haven't relapsed since my first AA meeting 14 months ago. In just about every way, AA was exactly what I needed and it continues to be. This being said, I would not hold myself up as any poster boy for AA...I would hold up a poster for AA for all of us though :)

StPeteDean · MIP Old Timer

I was in and out for two years before surrendering to this simple program. That's not counting attending meetings as a teenager as I wasn't really interested in getting sober at the time.

jasperkent · Senior Member

I am the Relapse Poster Child. Chronically stubborn and selfish, I also suffered from terminal uniqueness. At times I thought I was constitutionally incapable of being honest with myself. I was just skilled at lying.

I went to my first AA meeting in 1982. Over the years I've had 6 months, 9 months, 1 year, 2 years, and at one point 3.5 years of sobriety. I drank again under various different circumstances, but the one thing in common EVERY time was that I drifted away from meetings.

Now I am looking forward to 90 days sober and something feels different this time. I am utterly defeated and the only bottom I haven't experienced is DEATH-- and not for my lack of trying. Today I want to live. I am convinced that one more drink will kill me.

I am a firm believer that MEETING MAKERS MAKE IT.

I have no idea why God gave me so many chances, but I am eternally grateful. It took what it took to get me here.

Love ya.
Glad yer here.
Keep coming back.

Aquaman · MIP Old Timer

Hi,
Started AA July 5 of this year. Relapsed Halloween weekend and have been sober ever since. The relapse was minor; a planned, controlled drunk of three beers, all at once, with four hours until I had to drive again. Looks like "reasonable drinking" on paper; but it wasn't at all. I am an alcoholic.

What I learned was that
A) I didn't enjoy it. I got irritable, irrational, had a vicious case of heart-burn and the hang-over was on me as soon as the buzz wore off.
B) My headspace was worse that afternoon than it was before I started AA. Once again, I wanted to toggle my own OFF switch.
C) A head full of AA doesn't mix with a belly full of beer.

Peace,
Rob

jonijoni1 · MIP Old Timer

I was a chronic relapser. I built up from 30 days, then relapse, then 90 days, then relapse... etc. etc....

It took this nut a long time to crack..... hated the up and down of it all, it was almost more unbearable than just not having ever gotten sober..... head full of recovery and a belly full of alcohol sucked..... so glad I made it to this point in my life, and trying the hardest ever NOT to drink again, one day at a time. It just is not worth it. This might be the last chance I have, before I end up a dead drunk. You never know.....

Mike B. · MIP Old Timer

I relapsed for the first three years in AA. I would go 60-90 days, life would get good and I'd stop going to meetings and sobriety was no longer a priority. My diesase would convince me that I could control my drinking... after all- I have many years experience and now the AA knowledge.. LOL
Each time the obession came back, complusion just as strong as ever and the spritual loss of values were present from the first drink. I know today that I hadn't surrendered to this disease and simply was doing it for others and not me. I still wanted to drink... Imagine that.. alcoholic thinking? Yes, I think so.
Well my last attempt at controlled drinking... which was MY intention.. ending up being a disaster and a night I believe my HP put in my path to remember. I started to drink slow and the compulsion took over and I blacked out at 9:00pm and came to at 8:00am the next day in Jail. Prior to my visit to Jail I made a stop at the local hospital. Still not sure what they did there but know why I was there. This diesase is cunning, baffling and powerful.

Simple · Senior Member

When I first came to AA, I wasn't actively trying to get sober. I don't know what I was doing, I guess getting ready to get sober. So I went to meetings on and off for months while drinking. Then I "got serious" and went to meetings regularly. I tried to stop, and did, for a few weeks. Then I tried again. And again - it was like Bill's story, so freakin annoying. Then I stopped trying to stop and I simply worked the program. I've been sober ever since, 24 years.

bikerbill · MIP Old Timer

Oh I dunno. I came to A 18th October 2006. I white knuckled and faked it to make it for several months and my character defects got me through (stubbornness and pride).

I started to get it when I got a sponsor and started the steps.

So far so good. The first year was a gritting of teeth job at times, saved by fear of drink and fear of the consequences and pride and fear of failure. The second year was a bit blurry, the thrid year was challenging.

So far now i seem to be in that neutral place. Default reaction no longer is let's get drunk. Sometimes I wistfully think of a drink, like now it's winter and a whisky by the fire? But then I remember that it's been a hell of a long time since I had that level of control and these days a single malt is just the crowbar on the door of drunk.

Will I ever drink again - I dunno. I'll never be able to drink like a gentleman because I have this illness called alcoholism. Will there ever be a good enough excuse to get drunk - I dunno, but if it happens, to paraphrase another poster, it will be a concious act as it involves many muscle groups and lots of coordination.

Will I drink today? Hell no, no matter what happens, i'll not drink today. And that's as good as it gets because that's as good as it needs to be.

cooncatbob · Senior Member

I tried to quit many times on my own, when I was 28 I quit for about 3 years .
This was just drinking I still smoked pot and did other drugs.
I quit drinking again in 95 for about 9 months before I started again.
I finally surrendered in the summer of 96, I learned about the disease of addiction and how I would have to give up all mind altering substances.
If I wasn't clean I wasn't sober.
I haven't picked up a drink or a drug since then, it hasn't all been a barrel of laughs I found and lost my soul mate and I'm now struggling through these tough economic times.
I rarely have the urge to use or drink, I have 1 mantra that keeps me clean, things can never be so bad that a drink or a drug won't make them worse.
I drank and used for over 25 years and when I was done I was done, I was at the bottom of a dark hole and I'd forgotten the light or the feeling of the sun upon my skin, I was totally empty inside.
I know in the depths of my soul that if I pick up I will be back in that hole and it will be 13 years deeper and darker

FrostyJack · Newbie

Hi, i am an alcoholic and my name is Cliff. I walked into the doors of Eh Eh central office in my city on jan 17 1992. I spent a week going to meetings in Hamilton Ontario. Then I took a 5 week vacation camping in Florida. I went to at least one meeting and several times 3 meetings a day. My wife and I saw a 4 day cruise offer and asked at the meetings if i should go because i had only been on program for less than 3 weeks. The fellowship reasured me that I had nothing to worry about because they had meetings on all the cruise ships. Once onboard I frantically went from one officer to the next and finally found someone that told me that they only had AA meetings on cruises of 1 week or more. I was devastated. I didn't want to drink but I just happened to have 3 horse tranquilizers which i took before the sit down dinner party. This along with 3 gravol and a couple of prescription tranqs my doctor prescribed. I didn't drink but I count this as my last drunk. The next day we disembarked at Nassauh in the Bahamas on Feb 2 I attended a meeting ashore that night.
I count my sobriety date on this day Feb 2, 1992 but it took me at least 6 years before I owned up to that slip because I didn't want to lose any AA sobriety. I realize how foolish that was but its the way my mind worked. I'm glad i finally owned up to that slip and think how much most of us have in common. God Bless YOU and YOURS Have a great holiday season. Cliff W. S.

Carl_Sabre · Member

I got drunk after 9 months sober.

It was a 1 night thing. I gave me sufficient guilt shame and remorse to find a sponser and start working the steps... to start taking this thing a little more seriously.

I have not had a drink since then. It's been almost a year and a half.

Life is good.