Thanks for this post, Mentium. It is such a good and needed reminder.
We had someone "go back out" from our AA group a couple of weeks back after a 5 year period of sobriety. Shocked me, really. It was a horrible bender that thankfully included no deaths, his or anyone else's, but a lot of destruction otherwise. All of these things it took him five years to build back up again were gone in a weekend.
They say in AA that because of every person that went back out and never made it back, you are there. I thought that was cruel when I first heard it but I can see the logic now.
I know watching what happened to this guy affirmed my commitment to sobriety. Maybe only for another day but, hey, that's all we got, right?
Thanks for the thread and post.