Relapse -- What's He Thinking When He Picks Up?

[admin]

So what goes through the mind of a recovering addict or alcoholic at the moment he or she choses to pick up the first drink or use the first time after entering recovery ? What goes through the mind as the person risks everything to pick up and use after a period of sobriety ?

The early pioneers in AA had the same questions and struggled for clues back in the 1930s. The AA Big Book shares some insight into the phenomena and gives a few stories that illustrate the condition of the mind at the time of relapse. Their discussion of the issue and their suggestion of the solution starts on page 35 in Chapter 3 of the Big Book, published back at that time and still in use today in AA meetings every day. If you're interested, here's the link. The book is available for free online. You don't have to order it -- the book text itself is online for free. What applies to alcoholics applies to addicts. Alcohol is a drug, a very powerful one, it's just legal -- like cocaine was at the turn of the last century. One of the stories involves milk -- that might peak your interest.
http://www.healingresource.org/book.cgi?Page_35

the link is to a Big Book search engine -- a convenient tool to word search the Big Book.