Might just drop in again.
SoberL's probably referring to me as the 'her' ('putting her in her place') - because I'm currently drinking. Having followed a few of the posts - in this EPIC thread :-) - I want to note:
Robby's use of the term 'failure' does not worry me, nor put me in my place. I understand his point: that IN THE CONTEXT of 'not-drinking' (of which SR is a forum to discuss that), yes, I agree that if one is drinking, ergo, one has failed to not-drink.
The continuation of not-drinking is at the heart of whatever any of us practice, do, implement, tools / programmes / standing-on-heads to that end. As we know, that 'end' is blessedly and logically (no, not a contradiction, just a reality of life's messiness) often indeed 'the end' for some. I for one salute all of you who have continued a non-drinking life. Robby, SoberL, Fresh, gee, heaps of others here on SR and those we all know of in our daily lives.
I take no umbrage whatsoever that drinking (again) could be rightly seen as a failure. In fact, I believe that RR / Trimpey's view on the matter is 'a reversal of intent' (to not-drink). I don't agree wholly with all of the RR / AVRT thesis, if you care to call it that; just as I don't agree wholly - in fact, even rather less - with most of the AA thesis (if you care to call it that) - about how to stop drinking and how to stay stopped. But I do know, in my own experience, that yes, in this context of the thread: I have had a 'reversal of intent'. There's really no other way to put it.
Someone such as Robby - AND those who are nothing like Robby - have stuck to whatever guns in their / your impressive arsenal in order to stay stopped. To not have that reversal of intent. And I say 'not have', not in a passive but an active sense.
I still believe that threads like this one, along with so many others on SR and elsewhere, are potentially helpful for others whilst they think about what is at stake for themselves.
What is at stake for any of us is entirely unique to each of us. Speaking personally, what is at stake for my life seems to change slightly every day. For others, it works better to have some central tenet of certainty. (And no, I'm not suddenly going all post-modern - been there, did that, back in my academic days and saw that post-modern / relativism can itself become a dogma, an 'ism', if you will).
But, we each are trying to live our small lives, here on this tiny planet. (I think it was BacktoSquareOne ? who wrote a very short but eloquent piece on this recently?). When thinking on that....well.
The final verse of the Diamond Sutra brings me back to earth:
'Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, a dream'.
Kinda scary stuff in some ways, but it helps me when getting too caught up in all our differences.