The first time I made a “serious” attempt at quitting drinking I lasted a grand total of 3 weeks. I was 22 years old and I had just earned my very first pay rise in work.
(If memory serves it was not a big enough pay rise to warrant any form of celebration)
To celebrate I went out for a meal with the rest of my team from work who had all received similar pay bumps. And I drank.
And that was that for my sobriety. It would be a few more years before I would make another serious attempt and a few more years after that before I fully embraced sobriety.
Had I known what I know now back then I think I may have stood a better chance during the first go around.
If you are in recovery you will know that a relapse is never very far away. A few wrong turns and – bang – you are right back where you started. In my case I should have known that I was not ready to be at a celebratory meal
That’s why it is so important to make sure you are doing everything in your power to recognize areas of weakness/temptation and make plans to prevent them becoming issues.
You can do this by creating a relapse prevention plan.
What is a Relapse Prevention Plan
A relapse prevention plan – as I am going to walk through – is usually a written document that details how to handle triggers + cravings. It also details how to make improvements in your life that will over time help to reduce the frequency and severity of your alcohol cravings.
Having a proper plan in place will allow you to recognize the early stages of relapse and take corrective action before descending into physical relapse.
Steps to Creating A Prevention Plan
1 – Identify key areas of vulnerability
a) Ask yourself these questions
– Was there certain times/occasions when your drinking was more prevalent?
– Did you drink more often with certain people?
– Where did you buy your booze from?
– Were you more likely to drink when you were feeling a certain way?
– What was the cause of any previous relapses?
b) Identify your triggers
Using the answers from the previous section brainstorm a list of potential triggers.
For example:
- Going to the game with the lads
- Cooking dinner alone in the kitchen
- After a stressful day in work
- After hearing bad news
c) Create a trigger treatment strategy
Using our examples above you could write:
- Going to the game with the lads – Stop going the game until I feel more comfortable
- Cooking dinner alone in the kitchen – Ask for help with the cooking
- After a stressful day in work – Take the dog out for a walk as soon as I get home
- After hearing bad news – Call my sponsor as soon as I get bad news
For all of your identified triggers come up with a treatment strategy that you can enact to help you deal with them.
2 – Manage your cravings
Cravings are the urges that you have telling you to drink again. Often they are brought on by triggers like we discussed above. But not all triggers will make themselves obvious to you. So you have to come up with ready to go solutions for when a craving strikes.
E.g.
- Take a walk
- Meditate
- Call your sponsor (or a friend)
When I first stopped drinking whenever I was craving a drink I would stop what I was doing and go for a run up and down the street. When I came back I was too tired to think about drinking (man I was out of shape back then!)
Video footage of me when I had a craving to drink via GIPHY
Now if I feel myself needing a drink I do something to distract myself. Most often this is sitting down and playing a game. After killing some bad guys the thoughts of drinking have all gone.
Write down some strategies for overcoming cravings. Try to include what you would do in different environments (e.g. work, home, out with friends, etc.)
3 – Build up a support network
Managing triggers and cravings as and when they come up is good for a start. But you can’t live your entire life by avoiding people and places. Or like me by sprinting up and down the street every hour because you are jonesing for a drink.
You need to change the things in your life that were causing you to drink. The first place to start is by building a support network.
Who is going to help you on this journey AND just as importantly who is not.
You will find that some family & friends will be very helpful, supportive and nurturing. And some. Well not so much.
Unfortunately – at least at the beginning – you need to cut these people out. If they are going to jeopardize your sobriety then they cannot remain part of your life.
You want to remove the negative influences and increase the positive influences. This means getting more people into your circle. Finding people who have been through the same thing will be super helpful at this stage.
That is why I always recommend trying out a few meetings at first. See if they are right for you. You can also try message boards online. Or a private therapist. Find those positive influences and bring them into your support network.
Write down how you will make changes to your support network
4 – Make changes to your lifestyle
“You don’t get over an addiction by stopping using. You recover by creating a new life where it’s easier not to use. If you don’t create a new life, then all the things that brought you to your addiction will catch up with you again.”
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People with alcohol abuse issues will find that alcohol has negatively affected near enough every aspect of their lives. Personal relationships, finances, career prospects, hobbies, maybe even some legal troubles.
All will have been affected to some degree.
Once you start to improve each of these areas you will begin to appreciate sobriety even more and will find yourself less likely to relapse as time goes on.
When I quit drinking for good I set out to improve each aspect of my life.
Firstly I sorted out my finances. I was pretty much flat broke so I needed to concentrate on saving money. Luckily this was fairly easy as most of my money was going to the drink. Without that I had [relatively] plenty of disposable income to put toward debts and to get my money working for me in high interest savings and investments.
Next – career. I felt that there was probably no recovering from the negative impression colleagues and bosses had of me at my job. I was always going to be known as the guy who was constantly late. Always tired and fairly unreliable. Even when things turned around and I was on time and extremely helpful and productive these negative impressions would remain. Basically I had very little chance of moving up within that company’s structure. So I moved on. In the months leading up to leaving I studied for, and attained, professional qualifications in my field and used those as a jumping off point to move into a new company with a slightly better role (but infinitely more room for upward progression).
I even found myself time to get some hobbies so that I was not climbing the walls with boredom every night
Write down how, in your sobriety, you will make positive changes to improve the key areas in your life.
5 – Set a timeframe to renew
Once you have your Relapse Prevention Plan written out in full write an expiry date at the top. When that expiry date rolls around you start again from step 1. You might find it better to call it a “renewal” date. Like insurance on your car you are renewing your sobriety insurance plan.
The second time round you will find it much easier. Less things will trigger you. You will know how to deal with cravings. You will need less support to maintain your sobriety. And you will find that your lifestyle needs less things changed to make it better.
Once your done. Compare the old plan with the new plan and just see how much you’ve grown.
Then put an expiry date on the new one.
I recommend you increase the time periods as you become more and more comfortable in your sobriety. Try beginning with a 1 month expiry. Then moving upto 3, 6, then yearly updates going forth.
Write an expiry date onto your relapse prevention plan
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