Five Little Known Reasons for Alcohol Relapse

I bet you can readily recall the most common reasons for relapse for an alcoholic. We all know that boredom, peer pressure, availability of alcohol, other drugs, and parties are some of the most common things an alcoholic should avoid. But there are other things that you probably weren't aware of. These five things can often be overlooked and can cause problems for a recovering alcoholic. And as anyone who has been or has a relative who is an alcoholic, you can never let your guard down. Those five things are listed here.

1) Suddenly you have a lot of cash. In the past, you probably thought that you had extra cash to buy your alcohol with. Chances are you bought the more expensive stuff if you had extra cash.

2) Positive feelings about oneself. Let's give an example. You have tried to get that job at the plant for a couple of months. Finally, you get the phone call telling you that you are hired. In the past, you always used alcohol to celebrate. There is a chance you will fall back into the same habits this time.

3) Physical Pain. Many people try to justify using alcohol as a means of dealing with pain. You will find people that claim that using alcohol diminishes the pain they are dealing with

4) Believing you are over the illness known as alcoholism. Many people, even those with a substance abuse problem, and don't realize that once an alcoholic, always one. So you can easily fall into the trap of using if you assume you are well. Any twelve-step program encourages their participants to be aware of this trap. Peers in AA call this the Wellness Syndrome.

5) Exhaustion. Follow the connection here. You are feeling horrible. Things are not going well. You begin to think that things are about as bad as they can get and you feel terrible, so a drink or two can't hurt. You reason it might even pull you out of the dumps and make things seem normal. I suppose you could substitute the word depression for exhaustion also and end up with the same results.