Phase 1: Internal Warning Signs of Relapse.

            During this phase recovering people experience the inability to function normally within themselves. The most common symptoms are:

1-1. Difficulty Thinking Clearly. Recovering people often have trouble thinking clearly or solving usually simple questions. At times, their minds race with rigid and repetitive thoughts. At other times, their minds seem to shut off or go blank. They have difficulty concentrating or thinking logically for more than a few minutes. As a result, they are not always sure about how one thing relates to or affects other things. They also have difficulty deciding what to do next in order to manage their lives and recovery. At times, they are unable to think clearly and tend to make bad decisions that they would not have made if their thinking was normal.

1-2. Difficulty In Managing Feelings and Emotions. During periods of recovery, many recovering people, at times, have difficulty in managing their feelings and emotions. At times, they overreact emotionally (feel too much). At other times, they become emotionally numb (feel too little) and are unable to know what they are feeling. At still other times, they feel strange or “crazy feelings” for no apparent reason (feel the wrong thing) and may think they are going crazy. These problems in managing feelings and emotions have caused them to experience mood swings, depression, anxiety and fear. As a result of this, they don’t trust their feelings or emotions and often try to ignore, stuff, or forget about them. At times, the inability to manage feelings and emotions has caused them to react in ways that they would not have acted, if their feelings and emotions were properly managed.

1-3. Difficulty In Remembering Things. Many recovering people have memory problems that prevent them from learning new information and skills. The new things they learn tend to dissolve or evaporate from their mind within twenty minutes of learning them. They also have problems remembering key events from their childhood, adolescence, or adulthood.. At times, they remember things clearly. At other times, these same memories will not come to mind. They feel blocked, stuck, or cut-off from these memories. At times, the inability to remember things has caused them to make bad decisions that they would have not made, if their memory were working properly.

1-4. Difficulty In Managing Stress. Many recovering people have difficulty in managing stress. They cannot recognize the minor signs of daily stress. When they do recognize the stress they are unable to relax. The things other people do to relax either don’t work for them or make the stress worse. It seems they become so tense that they are not in control of it. As a result of this constant tension, there are days when the strain becomes so severe they are unable to function normally and feel about to collapse physically or emotionally.

1-5. Difficulty In Sleeping Restfully. During periods of recovery, many recovering people have difficulty sleeping restfully. They cannot fall asleep. When they do sleep, they have unusual or disturbing dreams. They awaken many times and have difficulty falling back asleep. They sleep fitfully and rarely experience a deep relaxing sleep. They awaken from a night of sleep feeling tired and not rested. The times of day at which they sleep change at night they stay up late due to the inability to fall asleep and then oversleep, because they are too tired to get up in the morning. At times, they become so exhausted they sleep for extremely long periods, sometimes sleeping around the clock for one or more days.

1-6. Difficulty With Physical Coordination and Accidents. During periods of recovery many recovering people have had difficulty with physical coordination that result in dizziness, trouble with balance, difficulty with hand-eye coordination, or slow reflexes. These problems create clumsiness and accident proneness that cause other problems they would not have had if their coordination were normal.

1-7. Shame, Guilt, and Hopelessness. At times, many recovering people feel a deep sense of shame, because they believe they are crazy, emotionally disturbed, defective as a person, or incapable of being or feeling normal. At other times, they feel guilty, because they believe they are doing something wrong or failing to work a proper recovery program. The shame and guilt cause them to hide the warning signs and stop talking honestly with others about what they are experiencing. The longer they keep them hidden, the stronger the warning signs become. They try to manage these warning signs, but fail. As a result they begin to believe that they are hopeless.

Phase 2: Return of Denial.

            During this phase recovering people become unable to recognize and honestly tell others what they are thinking or feeling. The most common symptoms are:

2-1. Concern About Well Being. The internal warning signs of relapse make many recovering people feel uneasy, afraid, and anxious. At times, they may be afraid of not being able to stay sober. This uneasiness comes and goes and usually lasts a short period of time.

2-2. Denial of The Concern. In order to tolerate these periods of worry, fear, and anxiety, they may ignore or deny these feelings in the same way they at one time denied addiction. The denial may be so strong that they are not aware of it while it is happening. Even when they are aware of the feelings, they are often forgotten as soon as they are gone. It is only when they think about the situation at a later time that they are able to recognize the feelings of anxiety and denial of those feelings.

Phase 3: Avoidance and Defensive Behavior.

            During this phase, recovering people don’t want to think about anything that will cause the painful and uncomfortable feelings to come back. As a result, they begin to avoid anything or anybody that will force an honest look at self. When asked direct questions of well being, they tend to become defensive. The most common symptoms are:

3-1. Believing “I’ll Never Drink Again.” Recovering people often convince themselves that they will never drink or use again. Sometimes, they tell this to others, but usually keep it to themselves. They may be afraid to tell their counselors or other A.A. members about this belief. When they firmly believe they will never drink or use again, the need for a daily recovery program seems less important.

3-2. Worrying About Others Instead of Self. They may become more concerned about the sobriety of others than about personal recovery. They don’t talk directly about these concerns, but privately judge the drinking of friends and spouse and the recovery programs of other recovering persons. When dealing with the issues of sobriety, the recovering person begins to focus more on what other persons are doing rather than upon what he or she is doing. In A.A., this is called “Working the other guy’s program.”

3-3. Defensiveness. They may have a tendency to defend themselves when talking about personal problems or their recovery program, even when no defense is necessary.

3-4. Compulsive Behavior. They may become compulsive (“stuck” or “fixed” or “rigid”) in the way they think and behave. There is a tendency to do things over and over again without a good reason. There is a tendency to control conversations either by talking too much or not talking at all. They tend to work more than what is needed, become involved in many activities and may appear to be the model of recovery, because of heavy involvement with A.A. Twelve Step work and chairing A.A. meetings. They may be leaders in counseling groups by “playing therapist.” Casual or informal involvement with people, however, avoided.

3-5. Impulsive Behavior. Patterns of compulsive behavior begin to be interrupted by impulsive reactions. In many cases, these are overreactions to stressful situations. High-stress situations that lasted for a long time, generally resulted in impulsive behavior. Many times, these overreactions to stress from the basis of decisions which affect major life areas and commitments to ongoing treatment.

3-6. Tendencies Toward Loneliness. They may begin to spend more time alone. They usually have good reasons to excuses for staying away from other people. These periods of being alone begin to occur more often and they begin to feel more and more lonely. Instead of dealing with the loneliness by trying to meet and be around other people, their behavior becomes more compulsive and impulsive.

Phase 4: Crisis Building.

            During this phase recovering people begin to experience a sequence of life problems that are caused by denying personal feelings, isolating self, and neglecting the recovery program. Even thought they want to solve these problems and work hard at it, two new problems pop-up to replace every problem that is solved. The most common warning signs that occur during this period are:

4-1. Tunnel Vision. Tunnel vision is seeing only one small part of life and not being able to get “the big picture.” Many recovering people look at life as being made up of separate, unrelated parts. They focus on one part without looking at the other parts or how they are related. Sometimes this creates the mistaken belief that everything is secure and going well. At other times, this results in seeing only what is going wrong. Small problems are blown-up out of proportions. When this happens they come to believe they are being treated unfairly and have no power to do anything about it.

4-2. Minor Depression. Symptoms of depression begin to appear and to persist. They may feel down, blue, listless, empty of feelings. Oversleeping becomes common. They are able to distract themselves from these moods by getting busy with other things and not talking about the depression.

4-3. Loss of Constructive Planning. They may stop planning each day and the future. They often mistaken the A.A. slogan, “One day at a time,” to mean that they shouldn’t plan or think about what they are going to do. Less and less attention is paid to details. They become listless. Plans are based more on wishful thinking (how they wish things would be) rather than (how things actually are).

4-4. Plans begin to fail. Because they make plans that are not realistic and do not pay attention to details, plans begin to fail. Each failure causes new life problems. Some of these problems are problems that occurred during drinking. These usually include marital, work, social, and money problems. They often feel guilty and remorseful when these problems occur.

Phase 5: Immobilization.

            During this phase the recovering person is unable to initiate action. He or she goes through the motions of living, but is controlled by life rather than controlling life.

5-1. Daydreaming and Wishful Thinking. It becomes more difficult to concentrate. The ”if only” syndrome becomes more common in conversation. They begin to have fantasies of escaping or “being rescued from it all” by an event unlikely to happen.

5-2. Feelings That Nothing Can Be Solved. A sense of failure begins to develop. The failure may be real or may be imagined. Small failures are exaggerated and blown out of proportion. The belief that “I’ve tried my best and recovery isn’t working out’ begins to develop.

5-3. Immature Wish To Be Happy. A vague desire “to be happy’ or to have “things work out’ may develop without their identifying what is necessary to be happy or have things work out. “Magical thinking is used.” they want things to get better, without doing anything to make them better, without paying the price of making things better.

Phase 6: Confusion and Overreaction.

            During this period recovering people have trouble thinking clearly. They become upset with themselves and those around them. They become irritable and overreact to small things. The most common warning signs experienced during this phase are:

6-1. Periods of Confusion. Periods of confusion become more frequent, last longer, and cause more problems. The recovering people experiencing this often feel angry with themselves, because of their inability to figure things out.

6-2. Irritation with Friends. Relationships become strained with friends, family, counselors, and A.A. members. The recovering people may feel threatened when others talk about the changes they are noticing in their behavior and mood. The conflicts continue in spite of their efforts to resolve them. They begin to feel guilty and remorseful about their role in these conflicts.

6-3. Easily Angered. They experience episodes of anger, frustration, resentment, and irritability for no reason. Overreaction to small things becomes more frequent. Stress and anxiety increase, because of the fear that overreaction might result in violence. The efforts to control themselves adds to the stress and tension.

Phase 7: Depression.

            During this period, the recovering people become so depressed that they have difficulty keeping to normal routines. At times, there may be thoughts of suicide, drinking, or drug use as a way to end the depression. The depression is severe and persistent and cannot be easily ignored or hidden from others. The most common warning signs that occur during this period are:

7-1. Irregular Eating Habits. They may begin overeating or under-eating. There is weight gain or loss. They stop having meals at regular times and replace a well-balanced, nourishing diet with “junk food.”

7-2. Lack of Desire to Take Action. There may periods when they are not able to get started or to get anything done. At those times, they are unable to concentrate, feel anxious, fearful, and uneasy, and often feel trapped with no way out.

7-3. Irregular Sleeping Habits. They nay have a difficulty sleeping or may restless and fitful when they do sleep. Sleep is often marked by strange and frightening dreams. Because of exhaustion, they may sleep for 12 to 20 hours at a time. These “sleeping marathons” happen as often as every 6 to 15 days.

7-4. Loss of Daily Structure. Daily routine becomes haphazard. They stop getting up and going to bed at regular times. Sometimes they are unable to sleep, and this results in oversleeping at other times. Regular mealtimes are discontinued. It becomes more difficult to keep appointments and plan social events. They feel rushed and overburdened at times and then have nothing to do at other times. They are unable to follow through on plans and decisions and experience tension, frustration, fear, or anxiety that keep them from doing what should be done.

7-5. Periods of Deep Depression. They feel depressed more often. Their depression becomes worse, lasts longer and interferes with living. The depression is so bad that it is noticed by others and cannot be easily denied. The depression is most severe during unplanned or unstructured periods of time. Fatigue, hunger, and loneliness make the depression worse. When they feel depressed, they separate from other people, become more irritable and angry with others and often complain that nobody cares or understands what they are going through.

Phase 8: Behavioral Loss of Control.

            During this phase, they become unable to regulate personal behavior and daily schedule. There is still heavy denial and no full awareness of being out of control. Their life becomes chaotic and many problems are created in all areas of life and recovery. The most common warning signs experienced during this period are:

8-1. Irregular Attendance At A.A. and Treatment Meetings. They stop attending A.A. regularly and begin to miss scheduled appointments for counseling or treatment. They find excuses to justify this and do not recognize the importance of A.A. and treatment. They develop the attitude that “A.A. and counseling aren’t making me feel better, so why should I make them a number one priority? Other things are more important.”

8-2. Development of An “I Don’t Care” Attitude. They try to act as if they don’t care about the problems that are occurring. This is to hide feelings of helplessness and a growing lack of self-confidence.

8-3. Open Rejection of Help. They cut themselves off from other people who can help. They may do this by having fits of anger that drive others away, by criticizing and putting others down, or by quietly withdrawing from others.

8-4. Dissatisfaction With Life. Things seem so bad that they begin to think they might as well begin addictive use, because things couldn’t get worse. Life seems to have become unmanageable since drinking has stopped.

8-5. Feelings of Powerlessness and Helplessness. They develop difficulty in “getting started”; have trouble thinking clearly, concentrating, and thinking abstractly; and feel that they can’t do anything and begin to believe that there is no way out.

Phase 9: Recognition of Loss of Control.

            Their denial breaks and they suddenly recognize how severe the problems are, how unmanageable life has become, and how little power and control they have to solve any of the problems. They experience is very painful and frightening. By this time they have become so isolated that it seems that there is no one to turn to for help. The most common warning signs that occur during this phase are:

9-1. Self-pity. They begin to feel sorry for themselves and may use self-pity to get attention at A.A. or from family members.

9-2. Thoughts of Social Drinking. They realize that drinking or using drugs would help them feel better and begin to hope that they can drink or use normally again and be able to control it. Sometimes they are able to put these thoughts out of their minds, but often the thoughts are so strong that they can’t be stopped. They may begin to feel that drinking is the only alternative to going crazy or committing suicide. Drinking actually looks a sane and rational alternative.

9-3. Conscious Lying. They begin to recognize the lying, denial and excuses but are unable to interrupt them.

9-4. Complete Loss of Self-Confidence. They feel trapped and overwhelmed by the inability to think clearly and take action. This feeling of powerlessness causes the belief that they are useless and incompetent. As a result, they come to believe that they can’t manage life.

Phase 10: Option Reduction.

            During this phase the recovering people feel trapped by the past and the inability to manage life. There seems to be only three ways out–insanity, suicide, or addictive use. They no longer believe that anyone or anything can help them. The most common warning signs that occur during this phase are:

10-1. Unreasonable Resentment. They feel angry, because of the inability to behave the way they want to. Sometimes the anger is with the world in general, sometimes with someone or something in particular, and sometimes with self.

10-2. Discontinues All Treatment and A.A. they stop attending all A.A. meetings. If they are taking Antibes they may forget to take it or deliberately avoid taking it regularly. If a sponsor or a helping person is part of treatment, tension and conflict develop and become so severe that the relationship usually ends. They may drop out of professional counseling even though they need help and know it.

10-3. Overwhelming Loneliness. Frustration, Anger and Tension. they feel completely overwhelmed. They believe that there is no way out except drinking, suicide or insanity. There are intense fears of insanity and feelings of helplessness and desperation.

10-4. Loss of Behavioral Control. They experience more and more difficulty in controlling thoughts, emotions, judgments, and behaviors. This progressive and disabling loss of control begins to cause serious problems in all areas of life. It begins to affect health. No matter how hard they try to regain control, they are unable to do so.

10-5. Return To “Controlled” Addictive Use. At this point many recovering people are so desperate that they make themselves believe that controlled use is possible. They plan to use an addictive for a short period of time and or in a controlled fashion. They begin to use the addictive with the best of intentions. They believe they have no other choice.

10-6. Shame and Guilt. The initial use produces feelings of intense guilt and shame. Guilt is the feeling that is cause by self-judgment that “I have done something wrong.” the recently relapsed persons feel morally responsible for the return to use and believe it would not have happened if they had done “the right things.” Shame is the feeling that results from the self-judgment the “I am a defective person.” Many recovering people feel that their relapse proves that they are worthless and that they might as die as an active addict.

10-7. Loss of Control. The addictive use spirals out of control. Sometimes that loss of control occurs slowly. St other times the loss of control is rapid. The person begins using as often as much as before.

10-8. Life and Health Problems. They begin to experience severe problems with their life and health. Marriage, jobs, and friendships are seriously damaged. Eventually their physical health suffers and they become so ill that they need professional treatment.

Phase 11: Return To Addictive Use or Physical/Emotional Collapse