I Relapsed

I feel like a real idiot. I relapsed on Sun. and drank for 3 days straight. I'm now in pretty bad withdrawal and feel really awful.

I hate this stupid disease.

And I can't just stay home and stay in bed, which is what I'd like to do. I need to go to the pharmacy to pick up my meds.

Good thing I already have an appointment with my addictions Dr. booked for Fri.

So it's day 1 again.

splitimage

(((((((splitimage)))))))))

ugh .....i struggle too...keep tryin

Thanks JunkDNA and Introvrtd1,

The thing that kills me, is there was no good reason for it - I just wanted to get drunk and gave in.

I felt like hell yesterday - made it to the pharmacy and a farmers market for fruit, but couldn't keep anything down, and my stomach is still feeling queasy.

Mostly just tried to sleep yesterday.

Today I have to go down to a tax clinic I volunteer at and do taxes for people with psychiatric and addictions problems. At least doing that will make me feel a little better about myself. I just hope I don't have to throw up when I'm in the office.

I see my addictions Dr. tomorrow - not sure what I'm going to tell her.

I feel like such a failure.

splitimage

Sorry, splitimage. You're not a failure, just an alcoholic. Recovery doesn't always follow in a straight line. Just get back on the horse & ride!

Relapse is part of recovery. It's just the disease telling you that you are a failure. It wants you to drink again and it wants you dead. Keep plugging away one day at a time.

Don't beat yourself up, split. It happens.

You came a long way from where you were before getting sober the very first time. I think I remember that this was the longest you had had ever, but remember, that time doesn't go away. You still got there.

Yes, day one sucks. But you know that you can stay sober, and you know how good it can feel once you get past the crumminess of the first week or so. Hang in there! I know you can do this, even if it doesn't feel like it to you!

I'll be thinking of you tomorrow, when you see your addiction doctor. Please, let us know how it goes, okay?

(((split)))


chaos

Hang in there, splits.

Thanks everyone,

Well yesterday was rough. I was still in withdrawal so my body was screaming for alcohol, but I toughed it out and drank lots of non-alcoholic liquids..

My meeting with my addictions Dr. was good. She was really nice about it, and asked if I needed more treatment. I said no, as I've been through rehab a half dozen times already. I know what I need to do to stay sober, I just need to do it.

Wed. I'm going to go downtown to a hospital that offers free accupuncture to alcoholics / addicts to help reduce cravings. And I'm going to stick around downtown and then go to a Double Recovery meeting in the afternoon.

So onto day 4. I usually start feeling normal around day 5, so hopefully I'll start feeling better soon.

(((((((splitimage))))))))

I hope that you start feeling better, physically and emotionally, very soon.

We were talking about this last night at a SMART Recovery meeting. Slips are (or can be) viewed a little differently. If you don't start back and it is an isolated incident, it is just a slip. So there are people who quit drinking/using 5 years ago but have had 2 slips. You don't lose credit for all the hard works you have done. There are some abusers of this that "slip" a little too often IMO, but it makes more sense to me than saying it is day one all over again for one slip after keeping clean a long time.

That's an interesting perspective. I agree with it to some extent, although my AA brothers & sisters would disagree 100%. The only problem with these slips would be, for me at least, that there's be no guarantee I wouldn't black out & do something stupid (perhaps criminal - vehicular manslaughter), or get nailed with a DUI...The list goes on. For me, there are no guarantees once I take even one drink. My suicide attempts all came when I was blind drunk, too. There might as well be a skull & crossbones on bottles of booze for me. Thanks for sharing!

SMART is a lot less rigid than AA. They provide a good framework for dealing with addictive behavior but (at least in the meetings I have attended) not much pressure to complete the worksheets. In one meeting, there was someone there who I felt really abused the looseness of the rules. He was (supposedly) trying to quit by slowly decreasing frequency. In a year, he had gone from having two days between days that he smoked weed and drank to having 3 days between. And he bragged that several months ago he had gone a week once. So that meant he had no physical detox issue. In my mind, he had not started quitting at all. There is very little doubt in my mind why he was at SMART and not AA.

Stay the course, dear lady.

To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any SMART meetings around here. I'd be interested in learning about their views (I'll Google, duh!). While it's true, many AA's do wind up doing a lot of paper work..."You take what you need & leave the rest." I go to AA because I have no problem finding meetings...& my sponsor isn't a hardline "Step Nazi." I've worked the steps, but the books' approaches surely weren't strictly adhered to when I did them.

There is a lot of paperwork in SMART Recovery but I never see it at the meetings I have been to. There are worksheets. if you found the site for info, you have likely seen them. I bought the kindle version of the book and it is mostly common sense stuff, but it's a nice logical path through an inventory of your life circumstances, identifying the areas/items of concern and developing a plan to address them. i can get to 2 different meetings, one very near me and the other about 1/2 hour away and they are very different.

The nearby one is smaller and very free form. We go around once with a short status and people can say nothing or as much as they want within reason. If they go too long, the moderator interrupts to finish going around for short status from everyone. Then it is a pretty open discussion. About all the moderator does is contribute, make sure we stay on recovery related subjects and interjects a query about others needing to discuss anything if on discussion goes on more than a few minutes. I have been to this one a few times and will continue to attend when I can.

The further away one is much larger and more rigid. They don't always get around to everyone for status and the moderator "preaches" a bit (not religious in nature) about something to do or avoid in recovery and then manages a discussion on it, cutting off people who speak too long or that he disagrees with. I had the not so good fortune to mention something he disagreed with. He was pushing the idea that as long as you didn't use you would be rational and if you made rational decisions taking your history into account you wouldn't use. Simple. Except when I told him I cannot count on waking up rational every day. I had explained that I have bipolar disorder when I introduced myself and he said he understood that adds some challenges, but it seems he didn't completely understand. He went into a rant about not giving yourself permission to fail. I have not been back to that one.

So much like AA there are meetings with different character.

One downside to the free form one is there have been a couple of people there who are not very serious (IMO) about recovery. One hasn't quit at all but is working on slowly tapering and the other tries but not too hard; he slips every couple of weeks and always feels terrible about it. But during discussions they will take the floor and talk like experts offering others advice on how to do things they are failing to do. they would get shut down in the other meeting or most AA meetings I have been to. I went the AA route several years ago when I quit for about 18 months.

Thanks everyone for the support.

Emgreen, my addictions Dr. supports your view that I haven't lost my sober time, and says it's totally up to me if I want to say I have X days, or X months sober with one slip. I haven't made up my mind yet.

And we have SMART recovery meetings 3 times that I'm aware of here in Toronto. I may try one as it seems like a good compliment to women for sobriety.

But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing because I'm scared.

I had an appointment with my addictions Dr. this past Thurs. and I told her the worst part of my detox was the tactile hallucinations I experienced on day 4. I told her it felt like bugs were crawling all over my skin and it felt like a million mosquitoes were biting me. She said that was the DT's - something I've never experienced before. She said if I ever relapsed again and experienced the same thing I had to go to a hospital post haste because I was at increased risk of seizure or some other life threatening complication. That blew me away. I thought only skid row drunks got the DT's. It scared me that I'd reached that place. I don't ever want to be there again.

I'm really scared now, because I'm afraid that drinking will lead to my death. I've got to stop it, even if part of me really doesn't want to let it go.

All I know is I need to stay stopped.

splitimage.

Dear Splitimage
Thinking of you and sending healing thoughts and prayers xo

Something that scared me was reading about someone who died mixing prescription opioid pain killers and alcohol. The article mentioned he had taken just one extra oxycodone and the equivalent of 3 glasses of wine. He went right to bed and quit breathing. The hair on my neck stood up when I read that. I had taken more oxycodone mixed with more alcohol a number of times. I usually did it early enough to stay up and enjoy the buzz, watching a movie or arguing with people on the net, but there were a few times I went to bed soon after. I quit opioids back in Feb.

Well I drank again on Fri. Horribly overdid it, and spent yesterday passed out, so naturally I was awake all night last night feeling yuck. Today I'm feeling really shakey, and all I want to do is drink to stop the withdrawal symptoms, but that's a non starter because I'm hosting a dinner party tomorrow night that I really don't want to cancel. So I'm gutting it out, and spending the day in bed with my books and my computer.

I really need to get back on the antabuse. Just can't seem to bring myself to start it.

I hate how hard this is.

splitimage

Hate it all you want but you've got to get sober and stay that way.

You can do this, splits!

Just an opinion, but I think antabuse is an artificial crutch. When you get tired of the pain (emotional & physical) you'll be able to stop again. As I recall, you had a few years sober before going back out, so you know you can do this! Keep posting...we're here for support.

Well I blew it - gave in and ordered a bottle on Sun, and canceled my dinner party, drank Sun. mon. Tues. morning, then stopped when I finished the bottle, spent most of yesterday afternoon and night throwing up. I'm over the nausea but still feel horible. The good news is I know this has got to stop. I'm determined to get back on the wagon.

I was sober for 14 months before relapsing, so I know I can do it. I've just got to be disciplined with myself. Going to a double recovery meeting this afternoon.

splitimage