Am I About to Relapse?

on Sunday, 04 October 2015. Posted in Questions & Answers

Depression increases – Your energy starts to lag, and your thoughts become darker, more intense, and prolonged. You may even entertain thoughts of suicide – feeling that your family, friends, colleagues at work – would be better off without you.

Actions become obsessive or compulsive – You find yourself acting in an out of control manner when it comes to the use one or several of these: caffeine, sex, food, work, nicotine, gambling or other compulsive actions. Or, you react to situations without any thought of the consequences, either to yourself or to others.

Cravings and urges become constant – Every waking moment becomes plagued with thoughts about using drugs and/or alcohol. You tell yourself it’s the only way for you to feel better again. Your mind tricks you into thinking that you have to have it and the voice inside your head keeps drumming it into your consciousness until you can’t shut it out. Left unchecked, these urges and cravings will become overwhelming.

Your situation appears hopeless – You start to feel like nothing is ever going to change for the better. You feel stuck in a rut and you can’t stand it. Feeling paralyzed, you find yourself resorting to wishful thinking, possibly remembering happier times when you were drinking or using, and start to imagine that if you go back to your old habits, everything will be better.

You become accident-prone – It may start with a small fender-bender in the parking lot or you back-up into a fence or utility pole. Or, you may find yourself falling or injuring yourself while doing some minor task. Burns, cuts and bruises may become commonplace as your mind isn’t really on whatever it is you’re doing. After a series of accidents or mishaps, it’s time to take stock of what’s really going on. You’re in serious jeopardy if you don’t do something to get back on track.

You suffer disturbances in sleep, emotions and/or memory problems – It gets harder and harder for you to get a good night’s sleep. You can’t seem to get through a night without waking up several times, having nightmares. In the morning, you feel as though you were dragged through a wringer. You start to lash out in angry or emotional outbursts, often for no reason. You may have difficulty remembering tasks you’re supposed to do, or what happened yesterday, or last week, or last month.

Crises deepen – You’re no longer able to deal effectively with a crisis when it happens. Even things that you should be able to handle as a matter of course go off in the other direction. In no time at all, you’re overwhelmed by pretty much everything and can’t seem to sort out what to do or even when. You just want to escape from your problems and thoughts of using come back to your mind as a solution.

Thinking becomes impaired – All the reasons you’d normally pay attention to your recovery routine, being responsible and productive and in control of your daily agenda go away. You find that your thoughts are frequently jumbled. You’re unable to figure out the answers or determine solutions to your problems. Even if the answers are readily apparent to others, you have difficulty figuring out what to do.

You avoid friends – Although when you feel like you’re falling into relapse, you need your friends more than ever, what often happens is that you do everything you can to avoid being around them. You know they’ll recognize what’s going on and you don’t want them to see you. Steering clear of them isn’t going to help you, only hurt your efforts to get it together again.

Denial becomes second-nature – You tell yourself that you don’t have a problem, that you can handle whatever is going on with you. But deep down inside, you know this isn’t the case. The more you deny that you’re in trouble, the more apparent it is that you’re most likely to relapse.

Don’t care about remaining sober – One of the most obvious warning signs of an impending relapse is when you start saying that sobriety isn’t that important to you. If you begin to tell others that you don’t care about staying sober, you’ve probably already made up your mind to use again.