Hi all. I'm new to the board. With humility I ask for your thoughts and feedback. I relapse after 22 years of sobriety this week. I always thought that if I ever took a drink or drug again, it would be when life got bad. I have survived a divorce, financial woes, loss of a job, and the death of both my parents from cancer - all without taking a drink or drug. Life now, is the best it has ever been. So, just when things are really going well, that's when I decided to drink. It didn't take more than a week for me to figure out that I can't drink normally. Two drinks turned into four, then six, etc. Today, I am nursing a severe hangover. I am so ashamed of myself. I can't turn my head off - those voices that tell me that I failed. Have any of you relapsed after years of sobriety? How do you overcome the shame and guilt?
I haven't drank since my first meeting five and a bit years ago but what I can identify with in your post is being human and making mistakes , and doing things I deeply regret I've done that heaps. All I can do when it happens is pick up where I left off. I admire your humilty to be honest and you have a fellowship packed full of love here and tools to move on from here. I've always said we are all on a journey and sometimes it gets bumpy, if you fell off the wagon there will always be a hand ready to pull you back up with love.
I've had the nearly identical experience. My relapse was at 17 years, 11 months and a week. Like you, not a cloud on the horizon, and I took a drink. Shame and guilt and fear kept me out of A.A. for two years. I came back in Sept. 2006. It was not easy, but here's what I did when I returned: (1) got a sponsor--my first two sponsors in A.A. had passed away, and at about 10 years sober I just never got another sponsor; (2) made several meetings a week; (3) started back at Step One with my sponsor using the Big Book and the 12 and 12; (4) got a couple of coffee commitments at meetings; (5) adopted a regular morning practice of prayer and meditation; and (6) "held on" through the pain, humiliation, fear, guilt and shame.
The guilt and shame began to lift for me at about 18 months sober, mainly because I just got tired of feeling so bad, and made a decision to replace those thoughts with some gratitude that I had been able to return to A.A. relatively unscathed.
Please know that it will get better, even when it seems it won't. Indeed, I have been able to help a lot of people since my return to A.A. Members both new and old tell me that they have been helped by my sharing of my experience with relapse after substantial sobriety time, and the path back to sanity.
Please keep posting and letting us know how you're doing. Most of all, just take it one day at a time.
Your disease has spent 22 years doing push-ups and running laps just waiting for it's chance. You are NOT foolish or evil or a failure in any sense. You have a cunning, baffling and powerful disease at work that wants to win at all cost and doesn't play by any rules. What happened is just a huge reminder of step one.
Just do the things that got you, and kept you, well again, and know that nobody else will feel anything other than the urge to help you if you want it.
Bill recovered alcoholic . They say don't drink no matter what! That's right I drank no matter what! Lisa I just celebrated 20 years on st patricks day. Gods. Grace and mercy ! This is my experience after trying to get sober Drinking against my will, the maricle happened . I will not tell you any thing. Or give you any advise .you drank no matter what. I am a real alcoholic not a hard drinker. The book that my sponsor tells me to study every day. Dicribes what the first 100 did , Easy Lin! The point would be academic.'trange mental twist. Maladjusted to live,fill flight from reality and of cource out right mental defectives. No will power knowledge character not even a better code of morals or phosophy on life, .why because more than most I the real alcoholic leads a double life. Especially after I get some time in sponsor a few guys ! Make a million dollars. Of which none is left. God has removed the problem the obsession GONE. Still having the mind of a chronic. Real hopeless hopeless drunk I follow the directions. There is no substitute for the solution! I do strange incredible things , I will become dangerously anti social incredibly selfish and dishonest 'SOBER . I will immerge from a spree . Living in the truth talking about my thinking and my feelings is mandatory. Because I got drunk on every last one. Did you take your so called will power back did you choose to pick up a drink did you in a non chalant way did you even think at all. Me I am a real alcoholic not a hard drinker .what seperates me from that is I am beyond human aid . I am one the who was puzzling you .I am without defence against the first drink . Only a spiritual awakening will conquire what is killing me God one who is bigger than me and bigger than my disease. May you find him now! I will pray for the still suffering . I suggest you do the same.
Hi Lisa, Thanks for sharing this with us. If I had relapsed I don't think I would have shared this with anybody. I would have just got resentful with the world and stayed that way. Everybody else would have to take the blame, and I would drink myself into oblivion. I thank God that I have remained sober and sane for the last 22 years, but for His grace. I pray that you will remain. Forget about the past, press on with the future. God has a plan for you that only you can fulfil. I pray that you do not miss this opportunity to help another human being. Please post every day so that I might know where you are, and pray for you. Gonee.
when someone in the room says their name after the chairperson says "anyone coming back?" and we say "welcome back" i mean it in a big way. i l have lost some people i really loved due to the disease taking them back out..and they go for many reasons and any length of time. its weirder for us to not drink than drink..we are recovering alcoholics and sobriety is a gift. The longer i have in recovery, the more i have to lose if i pick up..i had a one day relapse about 10 yrs ago on over the counter pain meds. i know whats its like to sit in meetings and put my hand up when they said "all those with a year or less" and people looked at me surprised. i felt freaked at that first meeting. second one was better cause someone else was back from a relapse that had some substantial time in and the look we exchanged spoke volumes. Bad stuff gets changed to good stuff..i dont know why, but its sorta cool how that goes..im glad u posted..(hugs)
Lisa! You are not alone! I did the same thing! It was not the bad times that tempted me off the program, It was the good times! For some reason, the bad times kept me focused, but when the stress rolled back, I slipped. The easy thing is that you know the program, you know the goodness that it does for your life, and even though things improved in your life, you do not "deserve" a drunken vacation like I convinced myself. It is great you are back and beyond giving up the silly pride of 22 years of sobriety, what is important is being sober day by day. If you stop now, in 20 years you will have the bragging rights to "42 years sober minus one week!" I do know its not about bragging rights and I know thats not what you are writing about. I just want to remind you we have a sneaky son of a bitch disease that will pounce at the slightest opportunity, and slipping is actually the norm rather than the exception and it is built into the program. Just calmly climb back on the horse and have it do a slow walk before you gallop. Keep us updated! Tom
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"You're in the right place. That's the door right there. Turn around."
Lisa, Welcome! Your very lucky to make it back. Many don't. I hope you stay with us and share your E,S & H. Your experience will be valuable to others. I need to hear things like this. I have no experience with long term sobriety and then a relapse, but I have relapsed several times in early sobriety. The guilt and shame can be overwhelming, but I'm reminded that we are Alcoholics. Regardless, of the amount of sober time we have. Our default setting is to drink. I've realized I drank no matter what. Bad times, good times & when everything seemed just fine. Excesses in either direction were my down fall. We deal with a diesase that's cunning, baffling and powerful- no matter what. We're sick people, trying to get and stay well. Not bad people. The more my life gets good, the more I have to stay vigilant. My diesase will tell me(lie) that everything is great Mike, you've done so well, you have all this knowledge, you have God, you can drink like a normal person, your not different.
I would like to hear about your program leading up to the relapse? It might be helpful for some of us. When your ready....
Hi Lisa, welcome to the board. Lots of E,S,&H here as well as retreads. I'm in my 22nd year now and your post shook me to the core, thanks for that. I qot all of my relapses (20 some) over with in the first two years. I was thorouqhly defeated and I surrendered. Don't let it qet you down. You didn't lose 22 years, you just wandered briefly from your "spiritual reprieve".
All I can say is that in the big scheme of things, you only have today. You have today to be sober and to work the program with the tools you have. Yeah...the relapse matters, but it could be what you needed to give your program the importance and the priority it needs.
Now you have to drop the whole 22 years thing and just focus on what you can do for your sobriety and how you can live the 12 steps TODAY! Nobody else really really is judging you by those 22 years...You need to be sober to be the person you need to be today.
SO...in essense, I think the key to moving on is to focus on what you have to do TODAY!
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Hi all. I am humbled and grateful that you all responded to my post. Your sharing has helped me, no doubt. I did not drink yesterday. One day at a time, right? I plan on going to a meeting tonight as well.
One of you asked what lead up to the relapse. Well, I suppose it is many things, but the most obvious is not going to meetings. For the first ten years of my sobriety, I was very active in the program, going to many meetings a week, doing service work, working the steps, etc. The last 12 years? Hit and miss with meetings. No service work. No sponsor. I do want to share that I did live by the 12 steps on a daily basis, however. Working them in my life in general (but not around alcohol). My best friend is sober. I have been in therapy for years, working on issues. And, I consider myself a spiritual person, praying every day and focusing on being thankful for what I have. However, all this was not enough.
This is what happened... my head said, "Perhaps I can drink moderately and normally like others". For the first time in sobriety, that message popped up in my head. I was watching a band play at a bar one night (which I've done before, since I am a musician and love music). But this time, I just said, "I want a beer". That's all she wrote.
I will check into this board daily. Thank you all again.
Don't I know that voice that comes up--When the going gets rough the rough go and do whatever even if it is the very wrong whatever.
Lately due to some financial, medical troubles, and not having a job for 4 years has started to take its toll every once in a while and I thought about drinking again to help ease the brain.
My Boyfriend then reminds me if I had not stopped drinking I would probably be in worse shape then I am now.
In conversations I have said; if it were not for all the years sober now I would go to the store and pick up my favorite drink and restart drinking again.
Coming up on 9 years sober this June.
Keep coming back here, a good many of us have felt the way you do right now.
Aloha LisaV...I'm so grateful for your courage and honesty by coming here and letting us know what's up with you. For me the subject of relapse is huge because it is the one "yet" for me that hasn't happened.
This is a disease...cunning, powerful, baffling and fatal if not arrested by total abstinence. Yay for the new arrest. You have a life threatening disease what's to feel guilty and ashamed about? When I hear relapse stories most of the time the shame and guilt is about broken time...restart etc. Yet for those who I know who have revolved and have allowed me to sit and listen to their stories I understand one very important thing...they left with their recovery awarenesses and experiences and really will not have to start back over again...re-experience sobriety. No I have not gone back to the bottle. My drinking dreams and thoughts have been real enough for me and on the subconscious level I have drank again or what my former sponsor teased me with "the freebie". The experience was just as real as if... I listen to relapsers for one major reason. I have learned during this journey of my own recovery that on a relapse I will restart where I left off in my drinking not where I began. For me my body, brain and spirit won't hold up as I had arrived at over dosing...toxic shock; near death experiences with a body use to toxic levels of alcohol...the body I have now has been alcohol free for decades and would not stand a toxic shock experience; it would succumb. I listen to relapsers and follow what they say that leads to relapse closely because when I find myself on that trail I change it fast. I don't have anymore power against alcoholism than anyone else. When the others who have responded to your post on this issue speak from their experience I listen and I focus on their solutions as I have focused on yours. These are the solutions I also work even while truthfully there have been times when I've sluffed off on them. When I have in the past my HP has instruments which my HP uses to get my attention...the voice of my spouse or the voices of the membership who love and care about me. I am not alone in this battle with a life threatening disease and I am grateful.
I am grateful for your courage and honesty. Keep coming back. (((((hugs)))))
I don't think anyone fails, even though this disease might try to convince us otherwise. I experienced similar feelings, 10 years ago, after my relapse -as well. The guilt and shame, back then, became too much to bear and without any real strategy in place, those feelings continued -so did my drinking.
What would cause someone -like myself- to drink again, knowing full well what the consequences would be if I did; That was a question I asked myself, time and time again. I did decide to continue my drinking ways -on many occasions, throughout the years- and the reasons why varied. Guilt and shame did prolong the suffering but my higher power and the voice of AA prevailed in the end- as always.
The urge to drink never really subsides, even over time. A good sober environment that promotes healing and wholeness will always pay dividends in the end; that other outlets simply cannot. I discovered the importance of developing a relationship with individuals we can relate with on a personal level, thus eliminating the prospect of always having to resort to my old behaviors like drinking - to quell those uneasy feelings. This was my turning point and one that set my mind straight, regardless of how guilty or shameful I became.
Taking the first step is paramount in revitalizing our efforts to reclaim our sober life one day at a time. When we talk out our problems with those in a sober network, like AA or forums like this one; we can finally move on past our problems and find the alternative solutions to deal with those frustrations other than drinking - God willing. You've taken the necessary steps towards healing and wholeness, by allowing this fellowship the opportunity of getting to know you and offer our assistance towards reclaiming your worth - one day at a time.
~God bless~
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I relapsed after many years, and it grabbed me by the throat and didn't let up until I hit my bottom, it was insidious for me because it "went so well" for awhile, but I couldn't stop, then it got bad, and I couldn't stop, it took another "bottom" for me to make it back, I learned that the door wasn't always open two ways, that I had to stand there and keep fiddling trying to fit the key in the door, now this was strange, because I had had long term sobriety, I knew what to do, it just wasn't working
It was that old saying you may decide to dance with the 800 lb gorilla but it might not be over until the gorilla says it is
Me n the gorrila danced all night and it made me it's b**** I got to learn a whole new level of the meaning of the word powerless, it was.....tedious
Once I did get that one foot through the door I had to go after it with the desperation of a drowning man again, even more so then when I got sober in the first place, then it clicked again, tenth step promises came true right on schedule
Mr Sponsorpants is appropos to this topic today, for us retreads
god's grace can come in an instant.
hang on.
some days,
(many days -- most days?)
it's only addiction tricking you,
by using your thinking to torture you;
telling you to cut and run
or up and quit.
hang on.
breathe.
pray.
god's grace can come in an instant.
hang on.
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
I had it all to gether..raised 3 kids on my own...sober......was divorced a couple of times ...no problems financially...had a good prosperous business....going..and was a DCM for AA..
One day I just got tired of being sober..and picked up a six pack...the six packs lasted for more then a year...but AA taught me what the consequenses would be...if I kept it up..
So I climbed back on the AA horse..
Guilt and Remorse? Get rid of it..
I regretted what I did...but we are imperfect human beings..
You never loose the sober days...and what weve learned..
Hi all. I went to that meeting but didn't speak up when they ask if any newcomers would introduce themselves. Couldn't do it. I heard what I needed to hear, however. No surprise. Felt less alone. Didn't stay after the meeting, but did pick up a meeting schedule. Right now the alcoholic voice is taunting me... "since you relapsed, you might as well drink again". The recovery voice is saying, "just don't take that first drink". You all know how it is I'm sure. Thanks again for sharing your experience, strength and hope.
Glad your here Lisa. Your not a failure. When I drank after having time and running my mouth about being a recoverd alcoholic, comming back felt like getting left back in 7th grade. But its not. Alcoholism is a disease that demands attention, it will get one way or the other. Your stronger then you know. Keep trudging.
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Since it cost a lot to win, and even more to loose, you and me gotta spend some time just wondering what to choose.
Hi all. Humbled to say that I have been drinking on and off for two months. Thought I could drink "normally". Well, it only took that amount of time to figure out that I am an alcholic. Thought I accepted this 22 years ago. Perhaps not.
I drank an anormous amount of alcohol on Saturday night, blackout out, fell down and bumped my head and got very sick. Has taken me two days for my body to recover. If this doesn't tell me that I'm alcoholic, I don't know what will.
Alcohol is POISON to me. Not only physically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It really took me down in a short amount of time.
By the Grace of God I didn't not hurt myself more or anyone else for that matter over the last two months. If I were to continue to drink, I am sure the consequences would be more severe.
One day at a time...
-- Edited by LisaV on Monday 16th of May 2011 05:53:33 PM
Wow, Lisa, there are a bunch of us from the class of '89 here, includinq myself. I'm two months away. Welcome and I'll read your thread tomorrow. Time for some sleep.
