Looking back, I realize something about myself (I truly had NO idea at the time)
I didn't want to live sober. I wanted to be sober when I wanted to be sober, and get blotto when I wanted to get blotto. So, I got into recovery and sober didn't seem all that fun, but I was "committed"...so I stayed sober, until I really just wanted to get blotto again. And I did.
Problem was, being blotto ALL the time wasn't so good. So I'd get back on the wagon..until some time came along that I didn't want to experience sober...and got blotto again. But then I found myself blotto when it wasn't so good to be so...so I'd get sober again...then find myself wanting to be blotto...
Then finally I realized that there were only two choices for me. I wasn't capable of doing sober when I wanted and blotto when I wanted. It was one or the other, I had to pick. That I really truly had to pick, and then live with my decision.
All that time I had thought I was committed to recovery, I was really just committed to trying to be sober when I needed to be, and still getting blotto when I wanted to be.
One day, finally I chose sober. To learn to live sober all the time. To say no to blotto, and find other things to do with my life.
In those early days I thought I wanted to live sober all the time and just couldn't do it. Now I realize that the truth was, I didn't want to live sober all the time, Sometimes I wanted to be blotto.
Just like cheating in a relationship necessarily affects the relationship, cheating in my recovery affected my life. It destroyed it, just like cheating can destroy a relationship. I had to stop it completely, not just do it only on special occasions, but take that behavior out of my life entirely.