⚠️ Relapse Early-Warning Audit — Marlatt's 5 Signs Weekly Check

Your 5-Pattern Audit

Pattern 1 — HALT Drift

Questions:

• Sleep last 2 weeks? (55-60 hour weeks + new management stress usually reduces sleep quality + quantity)
• Eating patterns? (Work dinners are often irregular food, late, alcohol-adjacent)
• Anger/frustration unmanaged? (New management = new interpersonal friction; are you carrying it home?)
• Loneliness despite being 'around people all day'? (Management is particular loneliness — can't debrief to your team about team)

VERDICT: PRESENT. You're likely running tired (T) + lonely-in-new-role (L) chronically for 2 weeks. The fact that you described yourself as 'handling it' is itself a soft flag — people in actual HALT drift often describe themselves this way.

Pattern 2 — Isolation from Sober Supports

Questions:

• Meetings: 1 in 2 weeks vs. normal 2-3/week = 50-67% drop.
• Sponsor contact: 0 in 2 weeks. Understandable (his vacation), but also: did you reach out to anyone ELSE in your home group during his absence? Interim sponsor, sober friend, sponsee?
• Social contact with sober-network people outside meetings?
• Are you telling anyone in the fellowship about the stress of the promotion?

VERDICT: PRESENT. This is unambiguously isolation-from-supports. The pattern is: sponsor gone → meetings dropped → no alternative contact made. Understandable logistically, concerning structurally.

Pattern 3 — Apparently Irrelevant Decisions (AIDs)

Questions:

• You mentioned driving past your old bar 'because of traffic.' Examine that: was the highway actually significantly worse? Did you consciously choose 'long way' knowing it would pass the bar? Was there a moment in the drive where you noticed the bar and felt something?
• Work dinners: are some of them optional? Are any at venues that feel risky? (Restaurants with bars you linger at, colleagues who drink heavily, etc.)
• Staying late at work 2 weeks in a row — is any of it avoiding home? Avoiding evening time that used to be drinking time?
• The promotion itself — any decision in the last 2 weeks to travel, move, change routines that has a non-sobriety-supporting second-order effect?

VERDICT: PRESENT. The drive-past-the-bar incident is a classic AID. 'Traffic was bad' is the surface; the decision to take THAT long route specifically, the fact that you noticed the bar, the fact that you mentioned it in your audit — this is your unconscious flagging to your conscious. Work dinners are possibly AIDs; staying late possibly is. You need to name these specifically and consciously.

Pattern 4 — Overconfidence

Questions:

• Any thoughts in last 2 weeks like 'I could have a beer at a work dinner and be fine'? 'I'm 3 years in, I'm past this'?
• Did you drop a meeting thinking 'I don't need it this week, I'm solid'?
• Did you avoid calling your sponsor's backup because 'it's not a big deal'?
• Are you telling yourself the promotion means 'I've got my life together now' in a way that might devalue the sobriety work that got you here?

VERDICT: LIKELY PRESENT (partial). You've been skipping meetings partly because 'I'm handling it.' You didn't reach for an interim sponsor. The implicit message is 'I'm strong enough to coast through 2 weeks without support.' That's not obvious overconfidence but it's soft overconfidence — the kind that precedes harder versions.

Pattern 5 — Romanticizing Using Days

Questions:

• Any thoughts in last 2 weeks about drinking days with specific memory of 'the good part' (camaraderie, the bar atmosphere, unwinding after a hard day)?
• Has anyone from your drinking-years past reached out or come to mind?
• The bar you drove past — what did you feel when you saw it? Contempt? Grief? Curiosity? Something that bothered you?
• At work dinners, have you watched colleagues drink and had any mental 'must be nice' moments?

VERDICT: UNCLEAR — probably partially present. You didn't explicitly report romanticizing, but the bar-drive specifically and the work-dinner-environment consistently create opportunity for this pattern. Worth honest reflection.

Count + Verdict

3 patterns clearly present, 1 partial, 1 unclear → treating as 3+ present = PRE-EMERGENCY PROTOCOL.

This is not you heading toward tomorrow's relapse. But you are in the 2-6 week pre-relapse pattern-emergence zone. The promotion is a major life change that statistically increases relapse risk, and your supports have dropped simultaneously. This combination is well-documented as a relapse-risk set-up.

To be clear: 3+ patterns present doesn't mean you WILL relapse. It means you've entered the statistical high-risk window, and action this week matters.

This Week's Action (Pre-Emergency Protocol)

1. Interim sponsor contact — today. Your sponsor is on vacation. You need an interim contact. Options:

• Call your sponsor's sponsor (if you know them) or another long-term member of your home group
• Email your sponsor — 'checking in, running elevated patterns, please call when you're back'
• Contact your home group's 'officer' (secretary, GSR) if you're unsure who to reach out to

2. Meeting intensity this week: 3 meetings minimum in next 7 days. Not 'if you can fit it in.' Scheduled. This week.

3. Name the AID specifically. The drive-past-bar incident needs conscious naming. Tell someone (not just the AI, a sober human). 'I drove past my old bar on Thursday. I told myself it was traffic. I'm not sure it was.'

4. Reduce 1 work dinner this week. Pick the most optional one. Cite something — family obligation, dentist, a meeting. Re-establish evening recovery time.

5. Schedule a check-in with your sponsor for his first day back. Not 'when we have time to talk.' A specific scheduled call, so he knows this is on his first-day agenda.

6. Consider: if this pattern has been building for more than 2 weeks, a therapist consult may make sense. Promotion-stress + isolation + major life change often exceeds what sponsor + meetings alone can hold. This is not weakness — this is adult recovery management.

What to Tell Your Sponsor (when he's back)

Exact phrasing for your call or conversation:

'Hey, welcome back. I wanted to tell you first thing: I ran my weekly audit while you were gone and I had 3 patterns present — isolation (dropped meetings), HALT drift (the new job), and an AID (drove past my old bar Thursday, told myself it was traffic). I've upped meetings and reached out to [interim contact] but I wanted you to know. I don't think I'm in immediate danger but I want us to work this pattern cluster before it gets more advanced.'

This phrasing: specific, owns the pattern, names action already taken, frames as collaborative vs. alarmed. Good sponsor call.

Next Audit

Next Sunday, same time. If action steps above have been taken, expect patterns count to drop to 0-1. If still 2+ after acting on the above, that's the 'this-isn't-fitting-in-sponsor-alone-territory' signal and professional consult becomes more important.