Lionrock Homework, Phase 3, Step 6: Circumstances under which I am likely to relapse

Under What Circumstances Am I Most Likely to Drink Again There are several circumstances that could lead me to drink again. I’ll list them in order of impact: 1. Isolation There was a time when I would have written that this was physical isolation. It is not. In fact, it is isolation from the people who are important in my life and, upon reflection, I find that this isolation is almost always self-imposed. Physical distance from my loved ones is not that important- after all I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling for business away from my family and didn’t have a problem. The real difficulty for me is when I isolate myself. This means I don’t call people, I don’t text, facetime or reach out. For me, keeping up these contacts is like preventive maintenance. If I keep up these contacts and feel connected with my friends, support, and family, or have almost no chance of relapsing. 2. Starving Myself My last several relapses followed after I was trying to starve myself or lose weight. The last one was after an ill-conceived 48 hour fast. Interestingly, after drinking to the point of blacking out, I still didn’t eat and drank again the next day. My blood sugar drops and gives me a very strong craving to drink at a level which I never experience otherwise. 3. Worrying Over the Future I’m very good at worrying about the future- thinking about all the horrible things that could happen. I’m especially good at “if this, then that” thinking, extrapolating from failure to failure to make a nightmare scenario of how a small issue today could turn into ultimate disaster. Engaging in this kind of thinking drives up my anxiety like crazy and makes me depressed and very prone to drinking. The way to combat this is to keep it to one day at a time. 4. Not Seeking Help I firmly believe that I’ll never drink again unless I stop getting help. This may involve counseling, AA or other support systems. Thinking that I don’t need help anymore is the path to hell. Not actively getting help lets me distort my thinking into believing that my drinking really wasn’t so bad. That those were “isolated incidents” and that I can be “normal” again. I have a disease that will always need treated, for my entire life. If I stop getting treatment, it can (and probably will) kill me.