Hi Stanger - Welcome back!
I'm Rowan and I'm an alcoholic. Many of us understand relapse and the feelings of guilt and shame associated with it. I started drinking years ago to have fun, and it stayed fun for quite some time, but years later I was drinking alone night after night - and it wasn't working anymore. It ceased to be fun. I would highly recommend calling your sponsor before you go out with friends rather than after relapsing; you can still drink after you talk to your sponsor, but chances are you won't want to. You know that alcoholism is a disease that tries to tell you that you don't have it. It truly is cunning and terribly powerful. I was at an open meeting the other night, and the speaker was a guy who had just over a year in - the first 6 months were in an inpatient rehab. And he said something that I hadn't heard before; he said, "Well, I'm in AA, and I might as well accept that and get sober, because I'm just going to end up here anyway." And it's so true. The thing is, he finally accepted that he was an alcoholic. And he turned it into a positive rather than dwelling on the fact that he couldn't drink. It's so true! Picture a table just brimming with food, all your favourite desserts, steaks whatever. Everything you could possibly want is right there on that table. Only ONE thing is missing and that's alcohol. So why focus on what we can't have rather than what we do have? Someone shared that analogy with me and it really stuck.
Anyway, sorry for the lecture, I'll stop preaching now
God Bless and Keep Coming Back
Rowan