Ago

I have as well, both me and others, the first time I drank I had five sponsees, a "big name" sponsor, and was attending meetings 5x a week, and was working the steps for the fourth time, I have seen countless alcoholics drink that were working a program for a myriad of reasons, chiefly though because they were alcoholics, but sometimes because they were undiagnosed bipolar, sometimes because they just weren't done, sometimes because they missed something in their fifth step, a number of times because some moron told them they weren't sober if they ate "meds", sometimes because they stopped going to meetings, sometimes because they weren't working with others, the list goes on and on.

It is the exception, not the rule, but it happens frequently enough as to not be uncommon, Alcoholics drink when the pain becomes so great they have no other coping mechanism and studies have shown that an alcoholic can literally go insane if he doesn't drink during certain periods (thank God for Psychiatrists trained in addiction now).

"Stories" from "old timers" frequently include periods of years where they found it necessary to "pick up a drink" and didn't, and they don't know why. That's the difference between me and an old timer right now, I did pick up that drink, I just got lucky enough to "make it back" which in and of itself is pretty F'ing rare.

However, my personal opinion is relapse is not part of recovery, not drinking is part of recovery, relapse is part of my disease.

Relapse is part of my "story" now, and increases my helpfulness to others, and quite frankly my most effective sponsorship is with alcoholics with long term sobriety that "slip", that particular dynamic has it's own demons and since I have been through it, I am effective working with alcoholics going through it.

Anyhow, I had to learn the hard way, just because someone relapses doesn't necessarily mean that they were "doing it wrong" or that they weren't "working a program".