Relapse – Just One Drink – Beware!
After I had completed my treatment, I felt good. I left The Haynes Clinic and felt it was time to start work again. I found some work in London and was attending AA meetings 3 times a week. Life was good and I felt good about being sober. I was working hard and doing the meetings and I was making my family proud.
However, my working hours started to finish later and later each day and they were starting to prevent me getting to meetings. My addiction recovery wasn’t as strong as I thought it was because I didn’t ask for time off work or to leave early enough so I could get to the meetings. I had no excuse at all because it would have been so easy to have been given the support from my boss as he was my step father and would have understood!
Relapse – Danger of not going to Meetings
I carried on working without attending meetings and things were still going ok. This made me think I was ok and I didn’t need the support from the fellowship because I hadn’t picked up an alcoholic drink or any mind altering chemical. Was I an addict? I wasn’t feeling like drinking or using which made me question this. My illness started to play games and made me think I didn’t have a problem.
I was also working with a group of lads who went to the pub every night and enjoyed talking about the good times they had the night before. I couldn’t take part in this which made me feel left out and not part of the team!
Mind Starts Playing Tricks on You
After a couple of days of mind games I decided to go for a drink after work. My relapse stated off only having three pints a night and was able to go to work the next day and put in a good shift. This made me feel like I wasn’t an addict and that I was normal just like the work lads. This went on every night for two -three weeks. Then my drinking accelerated rapidly and I began going to work in the mornings smelling of alcohol and turning in late making excuses like the transport was late.
I stopped ringing people from the fellowship and totally abandoned going to meetings. My new friends were the people I was drinking with and everything I had learnt from treatment had gone out of the window. Some days I would ring in to work sick and then one day I did not ring in, I just didn’t bother going in again.
My family had fallen out with me and wouldn’t answer the phone. I was back to square one – waking up in the morning having to have a drink to function again and to stop the shakes. I was alone again and couldn’t believe the situation I had got myself in. My job was lost and my family’s respect gone and most of all my self respect. All the money I had saved through working hard was being spent on alcohol. I then came across a lad who sold cocaine and was soon back sniffing that every day. My life was a total mess waking up in strange houses from parties and not being able to remember how I got there in the first place never mind who the people were.
Self Will and Relapse
I needed help again but my self-will wouldn’t get me to meetings. All I was doing was just getting hammered all day long. I had become my dealer’s drinking partner and friend which wasn’t good at all. Once I’d had a few beers the cocaine would follow. One day I decided to get in touch with a friend who I was in treatment with. I told her how I was and she suggested me going back into treatment.
Deep down I knew that was the only place to turn to because I couldn’t do this alone. I went to stay with her for a few days until she took me up to the clinic. The clinic helped me big time by offering to take me back into treatment and help me in the best way they could. I jumped at the chance and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. Looking back now it is just a horrible memory and would hate to ever go back to that place. This all happened because I wanted to have just ONE DRINK!! Relapse Beware!
