For most people, the decision to quit drinking isn’t an easy one. It requires strength, planning, self-control, and a deep look within to recognize the underlying reasons behind a problem drinking. If you’ve taken these difficult steps, a relapse can feel like a terrible defeat. Fortunately, recovering your sobriety after a relapse is possible. In fact, most people who suffer from alcoholism and who have beat the disease have relapsed at one point or another. It’s what you do after that matters most to your long-term success. Instead of allowing this experience to become a stumbling block in your path to recovery, use it as a jumping-off point toward a more complete plan for staying sober.
#1: Know the Warning Signs
Knowing the warning signs that precede a relapse will allow you to raise your guard and redouble your efforts to prevent a slip from continuing or another from happening in the future. According to addiction expert Carole Bennett, M.A., the six major signs of an impending relapse are:
- Erratic emotions
- Difficulty accepting life’s realities
- Believing sobriety is inevitable
- Irritability and short-temper
- Falling commitment to recovery
- Reconnecting with enabling people and places
If you find yourself exhibiting these behaviors or traits, remember that relapse is not inevitable. In fact, identifying what your personal warning signs are will make you more able to practice reliable, continued sobriety in the future.
#2: Find Your Drinking Triggers
The National Institute of Health has identified three events that trigger relapses most frequently. They are:
- Exposure to alcohol
- Exposure to alcohol-related cues and environmental contexts
- Stress
Personal triggers may fall in any of these categories. Spend time thinking about the situations or life events that tempt you to drink. Consider the social situations, moods, and stressors that you find most challenging. Be specific and honest during this process. Knowing where your weaknesses are allow for fortification against them.
#3: Build Contingency Plans
With your trigger list in hand, work with your counselor or sponsor to make a detailed plan to overcome each one. The urge to drink is strong, but it is usually fleeting. Each time you resist that urge, you build confidence in your ability to stay sober, making it easier to do so in the future. It’s helpful to divide your triggers into “internal” and “external” stimuli. Internal triggers are thoughts and emotions that you may have little control over but can challenge using cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. External triggers are things like life events and actions that can be avoided or managed.
#4: Remind Yourself of the Benefits of Quitting
As little as two weeks without alcohol can improve your sleep, help you lose unwanted weight, and improve your complexion. After a month, you could see a drop in cholesterol, liver fat, and blood pressure. List these benefits alongside the reasons you gave up drinking in the first place and keep the list with you. When you feel tempted to drink, read over it to remind yourself of why quitting is the right choice for you.
#5: Seek Out Support
When you stopped drinking initially, you probably set up support channels to rely on when the going got tough. Ask yourself, “Am I relying on my support people enough?” and “Do I need support in other areas of my life?” This process, again, is about identifying the weak points in your recovery strategy so that you can build a more solid plan for successful sobriety.
#6: Talk to Your Doctor about Medication
If you find yourself relapsing multiple times or the strain of not drinking becomes overwhelming, your doctor may prescribe drugs to help you manage the cravings. Medical options for managing alcoholism have made great strides in recent years, and are able to reduce the urge to drink for many people.
Depression is an underlying factor in 30 to 50% of cases of major drinking episodes in alcoholics. Talk to your doctor about your mental health and seek treatment if you’re depressed. Self-medicating with alcohol only deepens depression, but treating it properly can greatly increase the likelihood of beating both diseases.
#7: Start Counting Days
Whether or not a 12-step program is part of your recovery plan, the practice of counting days, weeks, and months of sobriety is a useful technique to borrow from them. According to research from the National Center of Biotechnology Information, abstinence from alcohol builds on itself. In other words, after just one year of sobriety, the risk of relapse is cut by more than half. After five years, the rate of relapse is less than 15%. Every day you go without a drink is an investment in your future success.
#8: Forgive Yourself… and Others
It’s completely normal to feel guilty and ashamed after a relapse. It’s also normal to feel resentment toward people in your life that you believe should have been more supportive. Letting go of these feelings is important because they can stand between you and a successful recovery. It can help to remember that alcoholism is not the only disease where relapse is common. Diabetes, hypertension, and asthma all have similar relapse rates. Relapses are not a sign of failure; rather, they are a signal that treatment needs to be adjusted.
#9: Recommit Yourself to Recovery
When you first made the decision to stop drinking, you embarked on a path toward a healthier life and body. This path is not always smooth, as you know, but experiencing a relapse does not mean you’re no longer on it. Renew your dedication to sobriety. Let the people close to you know that you are committed to staying clean, no matter how many tries it takes.
As the ancient proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Some of the steps on this journey may, unfortunately, be steps back. The most important thing you can do to ensure your road ends in health and happiness, rather than destruction, is not give up. Alcohol addiction is an insidious and vicious disease, but with the right support and treatment plan, you can beat it.