I put up my first post today about starting AA and being sober for six days. So....my parents are out of town and I go by their house to feed the cat. There was a bottle of Absolut in the freezer. I took one swig. Then, I felt so guilty, I almost put my finger down my throat to free myself from it. I regret it deeply. Does this constitute a relapse?
Tomorrow can be your first day back,and feel blessed you can make it..a lot of us don't Check your process for reservations(something your hanging onto you don't want to let go)See ya tomorrow!!!
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
Sure that's a relapse, many of us have experienced them, especially in early sobriety. Congrats on immediately feeling guilty, not drinking more, telling your sponsor and wife, and us. Keep coming back! Hopefully this was a good learning experience about how powerful alcoholism is, and what it takes to be sober. Keep us updated!
Hey JB3 ,,Hows it looking today!!The illness is cunning,baffling and insidious (a disease developing so gradually as to be well established before becoming apparent)having a gradual and cumulative effect,awaiting chance to entrap!! Looks like we got to pay attention and do some work huh!! Hope you are back on track JB3,let us know how its going okay.In support!
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Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles.
At least ya drank some good vodka, lol. And you stopped before ya got falling down puking straight up in the air drunk.
Your will won out over Gods. When Gods will wins, then and only then will you experience the type of sobriety talked about in our book.
Keep coming back, be honest, work the steps with your sponsor and when you do all of these things, you will be able to pass it on to another sick and suffering alcoholic.
Bad news: like the Big Book says, we alkies at certain times have no mental defence against the first drink. Our defence must come from a higher power. In other words, there is no amount of my own thinking that is going to keep me off the silly sauce. Just isn't there (anymore, if it ever was).
Good news: keep coming back, keep working this program with a sponsor and you'll find that higher power.
Well hell yeah, Be grateful you had that feeling rellly quick, and didn't pull off a spree. Cause boy those things can an usually get pretty ugly. Just jump back up and get involved all over again! God loves you all we all in the A.A curcuit loves you too.
Thanks for sharing you may have save another person from that first sip!!
In my book, you're not a "Real Alcoholic" unless you have at least a few white chips.
Well I'm not going to disqualify myself on that alone.
I think I got a Big Book, meeting schedule, and some phone numbers at my first meeting. I don't think I got any chip or token until 30 days, I got a coin. I got a 1, 3, 6, 9, month coins and then yearly coins after. Don't think I've ever had a chip of any color just the bronze coins. And somewhere I got an aluminum 24-hour coin, which is the most common equivalent to a white chip around here, but it was definitely not at my first meeting. We have some groups who give a 24 hour coin to anyone attending their meeting for the first time, that's probably where I got it.
I'm carrying a 21 right now, and carrying a 15 to give to my daughter. Her anniversary is tomorrow but I probably won't get to give it to her until Thursday.
Re. the one swig relapse: Well, it's my opinion that if you choose to take a drink of alcohol, that's a relapse.
I've tasted alcohol twice in my sobriety, both times inadvertently. Once was a dessert I ordered that contained some sort of liquer. One taste was all it took, and I just gave it to someone else at the table. The other time was at a trade show, I was talking to a friend at his company's booth and I picked up a hard candy that was in a bowl and was sucking on it, then I bit into it and... surprise! It had some kind of liquor inside it. Just a drop, but it was real obvious. I said shit, you didn't tell me it had booze in it, and the guy says well you didn't ask! I got some coffee to get the taste of my mouth and that was that. I thought for a second, "Did I relapse?" but then something else popped in my head, from the Big Book:
And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.
Hot flame is right. Biting into that candy was like biting into a live wire. My reaction to it was exactly as above.... not guilt, or a temptation to go sneak off somewhere and raid the airline booze bottles in the hotel fridge. It was like getting my fingers smacked in a mouse trap, even though I hadn't actually stuck my fingers where I shouldn't have - not intentionally anyway.
However, we can't count on getting this "electric doggy fence" correction any and every time we are tempted or inadvertently encounter alcohol. Being spiritually fit is the only answer. I feel unqualified, arrogant even, to call myself spiritually fit then or now - I feel so full of my defects at times. But, when something like that happens and I can see the promises coming true in my life, that I indeed "reacted sanely and normally", the quantity and quality of change that has come over me becomes apparent and I am humbled and grateful.
In my book, you're not a "Real Alcoholic" unless you have at least a few white chips.
I haven't read your book. What is a 'White" chip?
A "white chip" aka a "24 hour" chip is given out to newcomers or those coming back after going out and drinking. "picking up another white chip" would be going back to your group and admitting that you relapsed and picking up the chip. There are "one night wonders" that come in and never drink again, and then there are those of us who struggle to get sober. I struggled for 2 years, I won't make excuses, it is what it is.
NO--one cannot relapse if one is not "in recovery".
Recovery (as a clinical concept) is not just abstinence---it is a distinct progression of physical healing, personal growth and changed behavior over time. There are identifiable stages to the recovery process, just as there are known stages in the progression of alcoholism, and known stages, or phases, in the relapse progression. This is research-based treatment info/education, not my personal opinion.
A relapse in alcoholism is happening long before picking up the drink--it is the unraveling of the recovery process, over time. Someone just not drinking for a few days/weeks is not technically relapsing when they drink again, in the clinical sense of what we know about the dynamics of addictive disease, recovery and relapse. If interested in the subject, Hazelden books has current material, and Terrance Gorski's Phases and Stages of Relapse is well worth reading. It's a little booklet you can order.
The terminology is very confusing when co-mingled with 12 step lingo, so, to some extent, it does not matter what you call it---what matters is what you do about it.
