Corking the Bottle

Jody relapsed the other night. She confessed tearfully at A.A. yesterday. It's not the first time she wept at a meeting. I can see she tries hard, but she is in the deadly clutches most of us experience as we try to stop drinking. Several times in several ways, others at the meeting consoled her by pointing out that when we slip or relapse, we never lose what we gained. We have acquired new knowledge, new people, and new understanding of ourselves. Jody is better off now than during her last relapse because she has resources she didn't have before. She now must recover from guilt, shame, and remorse. It's a hard road back. But at some point, that road straightens for us as long as we really want it to. Plus accepting God and His will for us will keep us on that straight road despite a few bumps and potholes.

With this post, I conclude a series that I hope will enable you to recognize some symptoms of relapse. For me, I meant well and tried hard, but I kept relapsing anyway. There was often a nagging little voice telling me to go ahead and try a drink. Maybe this series of blog posts will help you or a loved one break out of the relapse pattern sooner and easier than I did. Terence T. Gorski, co-author of  Staying Sober , identified 11 phases of relapse in his book ( https://www.amazon.com/Terence-T.-Gorski/e/B001JSA9K8 ). His research involved 118 recovering patients who had four things in common: They completed a 21- or 28-day rehab program; They recognized they could never again safely use alcohol; They intended to remain sober forever through A.A. and outpatient counseling; They had eventually relapsed to drinking despite 1-3. Symptoms and Warning  Signs of Relapse Phase 11 .  Alcohol and drug use. During this phase, you return to alcohol and drug use, try to...

Take a minute. What guides your life? The correct answer here is God. But all of us -- some of the time, all of the time, or part of the time -- are driven by painful, bad stuff. If you are reading this, maybe you are being driven by alcohol or other drugs. The Self-Driven Life gives us four common things that take the wheel as we drop God off at at a bus stop in Kalamazoo. This is a wonderful book, written by Rick Warren ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ), that gives me lots of oh-yea moments. Here are his top drivers. For the next five blog posts, I will write a little about each. They are: Many people are driven by guilt. Many people are driven by resentment and anger. Many people are driven by fear. Many people are driven by materialism. Many people are driven by the need for approval. I will dissect each like a frog in a high school biology class.