The Possibility of a Relapse
As those in recovery know, a relapse is never out of the realm of possibility–no matter how long you’ve been sober.
The Recovery Village recently surveyed 2,136 American adults who either wanted to stop drinking alcohol or had already tried to (successfully or not). Of those, only 29.4% reported not relapsing at all. The largest group (32.3%) relapsed back to alcohol use within the first year after stopping. With perseverance, your chances of relapsing decrease the longer you stay sober: 21.4% relapsed in their second year in recovery, but only 9.6% relapsed in years three through five, and only 7.2% did so after their fifth year in recovery.
As such, it is vital to have a plan for how to avoid relapse and what to do if it does happen to you.
This plan is often referred to as a relapse prevention plan. Learning how to make a relapse prevention plan and going through the process of creating a relapse prevention plan could be the difference between longer periods of sobriety and repeated relapse.