James, with a sobriety date of November 12, 2016, shares his story.   Recovery Elevator is on Instagram!  Please follow Paul and Ben here .   On today’s podcast Paul discuses relapse.  For some, and Paul has only met a few, relapse isn’t part of their story.  But for the vast majority it is, and it isn’t something to be ashamed of.  Spontaneous sobriety is rare.  Paul feels that the word ‘relapse’ is another word in recovery, similar to the word ‘alcoholic’, that needs to be thrown out.  The word ‘relapse’ has implications of failure.    When we drink again, after having made the internal declaration not to, we are simply doing more field research, learning lessons along the way.  If you find yourself in a continuous cycle of field research, self-compassion is key.   Stop placing success and failure parameters on whether you drank last night or not.  When we start addressing what we are using alcohol to cover up than relapse will become less frequent and even a thing of the past.    When you do find yourself on stable footing, beware of the 3 most dangerous words on this journey…I got this.        SHOW NOTES   **Listeners you can listen to James’ first interview back on episode 105 when he had 74 days of sobriety, today he has 850 days.    [8:05] Paul introduces James   James is 31 years old and lives in New Jersey with his wife and their pomsky, Milo.    He works in Manhattan.  For fun he likes to golf, go to the gym, and hang with his wife and pup.        [10:50] Give us a little background about your drinking.    James started drinking when he was 13, stealing beers and wine coolers from the liquor cabinet.  In high school he was not a big drinker, although he remembers how drinking helped make him feel comfortable.    He started college, on a golf scholarship, became good friends with one of his teammates that was a Christian, started going to bible study and church and didn’t drink his entire freshman year.   Later, one of his teammates from England, was graduating so they threw a party and James drank.  He picked up right where he left off and the next three years of college he was binge drinking and dabbled in drugs.    The spring semester of his senior year his coach called him in to his office and told him not to come to practice anymore, that he was coming in smelling like liquor and bringing the rest of the team down.  This was the first time that he realized his drinking was affecting other people.    [13:44] Can you tell us what it felt like to have someone on the outside call you out on your drinking.    Immediately James was embarrassed and ashamed.  He walked out of the office feeling sad and like he had let everyone down.  He was able to curb his drinking enough to not be a burden and make it through the last 3 months playing golf.    2010 James was in Barcelona, caddying at a nice country club, the 2nd day he caddied he met a man that offered him a job which he took a week later.  This was the beginning of the end.  From the time he graduated at 21 years old to 28 years old, when he got sober, it was a quick progression of drugs and alcohol.  In the span of 5 years James lost his Grandfather, his uncle and his Dad.  Instead of dealing with the losses he used alcohol and drugs.    At 27 he was arrested for possession of cocaine, theft, and disturbing the peace.  This leads to an intervention by his family and his Mom gives him the option to go to rehab or see a therapist.  He picked the therapist.  He went through a number of therapists and his girlfriend of 2 years left him during this time.       [22:40] What did it feel like that moment when you told yourself you were done.    He immediately felt a sense of relief.  He reached out to a friend from college, that he used to party with, but from his posts on Facebook knew that he had gotten sober.  At this time neither his family, or his girlfriend, would talk to him.  He went to see his friend from college the next day.  Talking to him helped, and he also sta