an alcoholic's nature is to drink....stopping and staying stopped is a long term ongoing process. and relapses after a number of years in recovery is very difficult to overcome.
see the disease progresses whether the alcoholic is drinking or not. after a period of years of sobriety if they drink again, it's not like going back to their first drink ever. it's as if they never stopped.
one has to go thru some pretty intense mental gymnastics to make the choice to drink again after mutliple years of sobriety. for me it was 7.5 years. i didn't make that decision lightly....but i still made it. and by doing so i took everything i had been taught in AA and just chucked it right out the window. said thanks but no thanks, i'd rather drink.
he's doing what addicts do......