Have you read any of the sticky posts at the top of this forum on alcoholism?
We have a fellow in my home AA group who is absolutely delightful. He's over a year sober now, and truly embraces sobriety.
He often talks of the one other time he quit, just quit, but didn't do anything different except not drink. He stayed dry for 3 1/2 years, and he said that was the most miserable 3 1/2 years he had experienced.
He still had the mind/attitudes/soul-sickness of an alcoholic. He started drinking again.
There is a world of difference between abstinence only, and true recovery for a real alcoholic.
The drinking is only a symptom for an alcoholic.
Make any sense?