Relapse Doesn't Start with a Drink

Relapse Doesn't Start with a Drink

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This chatty instalment of *Telling On Ourselves* takes a funny, honest look at relapse and reminds you that it rarely starts with a bottle in hand. Lynn, Vikki and Mark kick things off with chaos and laughter when Mark completely forgets the recording date, immediately "telling on" his own control issues. From there, the trio get serious about what relapse really means.

Vikki reads out a definition: "Relapse is an act of slipping or falling back into a former, usually worse state after experiencing a period of improvement," and they use it to widen the conversation far beyond alcohol. You’ll hear them talk about emotional and behavioural relapse – gossip, avoidance, people‑pleasing – and how old trauma responses and "wagon wheel ruts" in the brain make it easy to slide back into familiar patterns.

Community support and honest feedback are key, with Vikki stressing how much it matters when someone is willing to say, "Yo, Vic, what’s going on?" There’s plenty of humour, from "meow meow land" to a rapid‑fire round on recovery pet peeves (gossip and endless gratitude topics get roasted) and overused phrases like "it is what it is." Underneath the laughs, the message is clear: relapse can be emotional, mental or behavioural, and everyone is capable of slipping – but with tools, honesty, and other people around you, you don’t have to stay down.

Lynn shares how avoidance and agreeing with everything started as a childhood survival tool, while Vikki describes the uncomfortable, "itchy" feeling of going back to gossip after a period of emotional sobriety. Mark brings in his work in behavioural health, describing relapse prevention plans like dashboard gauges: not wanting to get out of bed, snapping at people, or skipping meetings can all be early warning lights.

If relapse can start long before a drink, what warning lights are flashing on your own dashboard today?