#the guilt spiral never ends and the guilt spiral pertains to the everything <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[ohsweetflips]

today has been so emotionally weird it’s like 6pm struck and pandora’s box 2 opened

[hollygopossumlovesj2]

Collide, Part 11

Characters: Dean Winchester x Reader, Sam Winchester; mentions of John and Mary Winchester, Bobby Singer and Rufus Turner, and the CEO of the CW.

Rated/Warnings: PG-13; AU; Mentions of a possible anxiety issue, cursing, violent/angry Dean Winchester, Impala abuse.

Word Count: 1,670

Summary: Dean Winchester is an actor, today’s James Dean, and by some horrific mistake of the higher powers of your employer, the CW, you’ve been thrown into a fake relationship to gain the attention of the press. Or so you thought. You never could’ve expected what would happen next and what your life would become.

A/N: Its been a while since I updated this fic. I got bullied into updating by a couple of people over at Ao3. So, if its crap, you have them to blame. It was surprisingly easy to jump back in. My muse is being kind for once. If you guys don’t like it, I’ll just post it over at Ao3, let me know what you think.

Also, because it’s been so long, I wanted to point out that the original request ‘Dean Winchester and Reader are actors. They get set up together and they start out not liking each other, only to fall for each other in the end.’ Came from the brilliant @dancingalone21(The request was paraphrased) I just can’t write awesome one shots like she can. I gotta stretch it out into a series. Sorry, not sorry?

If you need to catch up, Collide Master List!

Master List

Sam’s POV:

“Sam!”

 I’d been having a very satisfying dream, probably about my girlfriend Jessica, which was surprising even in my subconscious. With everything going on, my nights were mostly filled with nightmares about finding Mom’s body over and over.

 Or on really bad nights, I dreamt that I was the one who found her right before she died and could do nothing to stop it. I’d never actually seen her that night like Dean had, so my mind conjured up morbid picture after picture to torment me with.

 “Sammy, goddamnit, wake up!” My brother’s panicked voice finally reached through what had been a very heavy sleep. So heavy that I felt dizzy and slow as I sat up to see just what the hell Dean’s problem was.

 “What the hell, Dean?” I grumbled, my vision clearing to see that he was frantically throwing my stuff into my duffle.

 “We gotta get back into town.”

 “What? What for?” Despite the fifty questions shtick, I stood up and started to throw some clothes on before they all got packed away in a wad never to be the same again.

 “Y/N’s missing.” Dean’s tone was perfunctory, but I could tell he was on the edge of panic as he tossed the now packed bag onto my bed and stomped off into his room where he began packing in the same way he’d thrown my bag together.

 Not that I didn’t appreciate Dean’s help, especially when I was swamped at school, but I wondered if he ever got tired of running around like he was still in charge of a toddler.

 “You mean she went for a walk because you pissed her off missing or…” I questioned, just to make sure we covered all of our bases, as I sat on the end of his bed to pull my shoes on.

 “I thought that at first, so I followed her tracks in the snow, but then there were more tracks and then some tire tracks and…” I noted that Dean was starting to breathe heavier than was strictly necessary, holding a hand to his chest like someone who might be having a heart attack.

 “Hey,” I jumped up once I had my shoes on to put a hand on his shoulder. “Dude, calm down, Dean. We’ll find her. Maybe she had someone pick her up?” I’d never seen Dean lose composure so fast, noting the bright red flush that was shining like nuclear waste. “And why would they just take her when we were here, too? Where’s Cliff?”

 “There was blood in the snow, Sam. I don’t know who’s it was or why they would just take her or why Cliff decided he HAD to have a goddamned espresso at four fucking a.m....!” He swallowed loudly a few times before he zipped up his bag. His chest was still heaving when he threw his bag over his shoulder. “Cliff’s already dealing with the police. He said it would take them a little while to get out here, but that we should get back into town in case they’re still hanging around.”

 “What about her stuff, is it still here?” Something wasn’t adding up, a sick feeling settled heavily in my gut. But, between my brother’s strange behavior and the mystery of Y/N’s sudden disappearance, I wasn’t sure what to concentrate on first.

 “I already packed it, let’s get the fuck out of here.” He shouldered his way through the door way, his body hunched like he had just come back from running a marathon. There was definitely something going on with Dean that he wasn’t telling me, but it would have to wait.

 “Okay, but I’m driving.”

 Dean had reluctantly given over the keys after a few snarky remarks. The entire drive to the house my attention was split between the road and keeping an eye on Dean. Not having anything to do wasn’t doing him any favors as he bounced his leg nervously, but about halfway to our destination, he’d stopped heaving. Now he was just rubbing his chest periodically. It was kind of like the time we’d wrestled until Dean had pulled a pectoral muscle. My best guess was that now he had an anxiety issue.

 He had always been bad about internalizing everything, Mom’s death and Dad’s downward spiral included. He just never opened up about that stuff and usually blamed himself. It didn’t matter how many times our father himself had told Dean that he didn’t blame him for Mom’s death. He’d always feel like he’d been the reason no one was home to help her. It was a shame because he’d been so good at it, but he’d stopped playing baseball after that. Partly out of necessity because Dad was in no shape to foster a love of sports. But also because Dean went through a period of not speaking and went through child psychologists like ice cream flavors.

 So, it made sense to me that it could all have been bottled up and chose right now to surface. It wouldn’t have been triggered by his own wellbeing having been threatened. It was only because of my involvement and now, Y/N’s. I think it had snuck up on him. How much he cared for her, even if she was far from perfect. Even though I was incredibly worried about Dean’s issue, it would have to wait because Y/N was missing and if anything happened to her Dean’s problems would only be compounded.

 This entire time that things had been going wacky, I’d had this odd sensation that we didn’t know everything. Which, of course we didn’t, it was a mystery unraveling fast. However, the puzzle pieces that we had to fit together this morning weren’t fitting right. Why had Cliff left? He’d been told to watch the house. We didn’t set him up with a shot gun at the front window, but the instructions to keep an eye open had been quite clear. We’d trusted him because he’d never let us down before, but what would make him leave his post midmorning, long enough for the shit to hit the fan?

 “Maybe we shouldn’t go straight back home. I mean, the house is kind of burned to a crisp right now. It can’t be safe.”

 Dean who hadn’t said a word since we’d left, jumped at the sound of my voice in the otherwise quiet car. Startling easy was yet another symptom of anxiety and I filed that away for a future discussion. “What, why? Cliff said he’d meet us there.”

 I could tell Dean’s worry for Y/N was clouding his judgement, but I had a really bad feeling about all of this. With our history, I’d learned to trust that intuition. “Okay, but why not the police department, huh? Why go somewhere we’ll be isolated in a house we can’t secure?”

 I could see Dean sifting through the information that we knew for certain, his expression becoming more and more troubled until 3… 2… 1… “Son of a bitch!” He punched the glove box with a hard right swing, then cursed in a screeching voice as he cradled his wrist to his chest as he kicked futilely at the dashboard.

 Only able to shake my head at Dean’s behavior, I turned down the road that would take us away from home and closer to the police station. Our only hope now if Cliff had gone over to the dark side was an outside source. Possibly even the two grumpy old detectives, Bobby and Rufus, who’d done nothing but doubt and question every word we said. And still, there was a possibility that they’d been compromised as well. We were just finding out the reach of the CEO’s influence and it didn’t bode well for us.

 “Fuck!” Dean shouted again, keeping his fist and feet to himself this time. “God, why does that make so much sense now, huh? We let him in her apartment! He found those bugs so quickly and I just thought he was good at his job… He’s been with our family for fucking years! Since before Mom died!”

 Dean’s face was getting red again, so I hurried to control the situation. “We don’t know anything for sure, Dean. But I think we ought to be at least cautious when it comes to him. First we have to file a missing person’s report.”

 He shoved his good hand through his hair roughly, “They’re gonna wait until she’s been missing for 24 hours, Sammy. She can’t wait that long.” There was a desperation in his voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time and it had never pertained to anyone outside the family before. That’s when it dawned on me.

 At first I’d thought Dean’s fascination with her had been one born out of guilt and the need to protect someone from the fate that our mother had suffered. She was easily attractive and Dean had always had trouble resisting a pretty girl with innocent eyes. But, from Dean’s reaction, it had progressed when I hadn’t been paying attention. The severity of his reaction pointed towards their relationship being more than just convenient. Don’t get me wrong, I liked her. She was cool, if not a little crazy, but Dean didn’t fall in love. He’d been burned too many times. Too many responsibilities, real or imagined, rested on his shoulders. I felt horrible for my brother, knowing for a fact that Dean couldn’t afford to lose someone else. “We’ll find her Dean.”

 He rolled his eyes dramatically at my tone. After a quiet moment of only the sounds of Baby, his expression morphed into something of determination. “Okay, we’ll tell the police. File a report or whatever, but then we’re gonna park the Impala and go scope out home. If he’s got her there, we may be her only hope. And I swear to God…” His green eyes sparkled like flint sparking a fire, “If he’s hurt her in anyway, I’ll fucking kill him.”

 Tagging: Forevers: @perpetualabsurdity, @maileann, @daydreamingintheimpala, @gecko9596, @gemini75eeyore, @jotink78, @dancingalone21, @winchesterprincessbride, @sandlee44, @exploratiionist, @arryn-nyx, @littledarlinhavefaithinme, @boredoutofmymindstuff, @feelmyroarrrr, @raeganr99, @ruprecht0420, @anokhi07, @letsgetyourdeanon, @sis-tafics, @jensen-gal, @theoneandonlysaucymo, @27bmm, @callmesatansprincess, @hbenth, @keepcalmandcarryondean, @sea040561, @just-another-busy-fangirl, @spn67-sister, @uniquewerewolfsuit, @ria132love, @mrswhozeewhatsis, @tas898, @butiaintgonnaloveem, @atc74, @tiffanycaruso, @ryansgirl5509, @mysteriouslyme82, @notnaturalanahi

[bobbiejwray]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241842 http://ift.tt/2DmkAUa

[alyssamanson5]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from http://www.spiritualriver.com/alcoholism/crawl-back-alcoholic-relapse/

[violetsgallant]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241844 http://ift.tt/2DmkAUa

[haileyjayden3]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from http://www.spiritualriver.com/alcoholism/crawl-back-alcoholic-relapse/

[journalingthisjourney]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

[jaylazoey]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241844 http://www.spiritualriver.com/alcoholism/crawl-back-alcoholic-relapse/

[alexdmorgan30]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://ift.tt/2DmkAUa

[roberrtnelson]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241843 http://ift.tt/2DmkAUa

[emlydunstan]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://www.spiritualriver.com/alcoholism/crawl-back-alcoholic-relapse/

[pitz182]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

[bobbiejwray]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241842 http://ift.tt/2DmkAUa

[alyssamanson5]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from http://www.spiritualriver.com/alcoholism/crawl-back-alcoholic-relapse/

[alyssamanson5]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day” and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from http://www.spiritualriver.com/alcoholism/crawl-back-alcoholic-relapse/

[bobbiejwray]

How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse

So you are in addiction recovery and maybe you are going to AA meetings or therapy of some sort, and you happen to have relapsed.

You started drinking again.

What do you do?

Here is my recommendation for how you can best crawl back from a relapse, if that should be your fate in recovery.

One, don’t panic. This is not the end of the world necessarily, especially if you still have the ability to contemplate coming back to recovery. There is hope and you need to grab that hope and hold on to it.

Second of all, you need to make a decision, and quickly. There are times in your life when it is pretty much okay to procrastinate.

This is not one of those times.

Why not?

Because you are playing with an enormous risk when you relapse on drugs or alcohol.

The people in recovery and the people at AA meetings will give you the wisdom on this: They will tell you that every time a person relapses, their disease gets worse. It always gets worse.

It may be difficult to really conceptualize exactly what they mean when they say this. It may also be difficult to believe that the bad news they are telling you about will really pertain to your situation. Somehow, all of us believe that we are magically immune to the law of averages, that we will be the one exception that does not fall back into chaos and misery after a relapse, or that somehow maybe we will be able to control our drinking a bit better now that we had some sobriety under our belt.

Our brains trick us into believing that the whole “it gets worse every time you relapse” thing somehow does not apply to us.

But it does. And if you go to enough AA meetings, and you hear enough people come back from a relapse and tell their tale, they all say the same thing.

Let me repeat that: Everyone says the same thing. Not just most people, but everyone. They all say that their disease had got worse after they relapsed. As in, worse than it was in the past.

Therefore, being armed with this information, you have a choice to make when you realize that you have slipped: You can continue onward into the madness and the chaos of addiction, comfortable as it may be, or you can “man up” and dive back into the world of recovery, and admit that you need more help than what you had in the past.

And make no mistake–whatever you did in the past for your recovery was simply not enough. I am not saying that to be overly dramatic; that is what your results are telling you, loud and clear. If you relapsed then you missed something, or you lacked support, or you needed more help. Period. When you climb back on the horse you need to double down. You need to regroup and then double your efforts. Doing the same thing you did last time is probably not good enough if you want better results.

This is evidenced by my own story in which I went to rehab for 10 days or so. I was still in denial pretty heavily and after leaving rehab I relapsed quickly.

The next time I went to treatment I stayed for 28 days. Again, I was just proving to myself that I was really still in denial, and I relapsed again very quickly.

The third time I went to rehab I was in a state of what I would call “total and complete surrender.” This time, I was willing to put in the work. This time, I was willing to go the extra mile. Therefore I lived in long term recovery housing following an inpatient treatment program, and that was what allowed me to finally find real recovery. I have been clean and sober even since, over 16 years and counting.

My point is that if you have tried and failed repeatedly at getting and staying sober, then you probably need one of two things (and possibly both): A deeper state of surrender, and a higher level of treatment services.

In other words, don’t just go to therapy for one hour each week and think that will “cure” you. It may take much, much more effort than that (and probably will for any real addict or alcoholic).

So the real key following a relapse is that you not beat yourself up and use that self pity as an excuse to drink more. This is truly an illogical cycle of madness–you feel bad about the fact that you drank, so you drink even more in order to drown your sorrows. The alcohol is depressing you, so you drink even more to try to medicate the depression. None of it makes much sense and none of it really fixes anything, which is why the alcoholic spirals further and further into madness at the hands of their disease.

The only way to arrest the cycle of chaos is to ask for help and take positive action. The easy and quick way to do this is to simply go back to rehab. Sure, some people might play around with the idea of somehow skipping inpatient treatment and going straight to AA meetings, or going straight back into sponsorship, or somehow reconnecting with their recovery program outside of a treatment center. For the most part, however, such examples are a fringe case at best, and downright dangerous at worst. In other words, do not try to be a hero and pretend that you already know how to recover, and therefore you don’t need rehab.

I have heard many people who were struggling post-relapse say things such as “I’ve been to treatment before, they cannot teach me anything new.” Oh really? How would you explain the fact that many struggling alcoholics and addicts, much like myself, went to rehab 3 times or more before we finally got it?

I can tell you what is happening–it is not about hearing just the right message, because the right message can be found at pretty much any treatment center or AA meeting. It is about hearing the message at just the right time. When it comes to successful recovery, timing is everything. If the person is not in a state of total and complete surrender then it makes no difference what rehab center they attend, or how much supposed effort they make at their recovery. It takes surrender, willingness, and positive action. Anyone can walk into rehab. And nearly anyone can sit there and listen politely at all of the groups and meetings and therapy sessions. But how many people can be in a state of total surrender, such that they take all of that new knowledge and apply it in their lives? Very few.

So the key is that you not only crawl back from a relapse and ask for help, but that you do so as quickly as possible. The reason that it has to be done quickly is because of the progressive and fatal nature of addiction itself. Too many alcoholics and addicts have declared that they would sober up “some day��� and obviously that never comes for something like 90 plus percent of alcoholics.

You may be feeling shame or guilt about your relapse.

Ignore those feelings. Completely dismiss them. They mean nothing.

There is no shame at all in going back to rehab. There is no shame at all in giving recovery another chance.

If you are to be a gift to the world, then you need to be clean and sober. Give yourself a break, go back to treatment, and become the better version of yourself that you know, deep down, you are supposed to be.

You deserve sobriety, happiness, and freedom. And quite frankly, the world of recovery needs you. Make the call today!

The post How to Crawl Back from an Alcoholic Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

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