I was pretty lonely when I was getting sober. No license, no public transportation, divorced, no girlfriend....... bla bla bla. Meetings were about the only social event I had other than work, and I worked with all guys. It's natural for someone like me or most anyone who's new to the rooms of AA to want to look to AA meetings as some sort of social event. And while they CAN be a social event to a degree, it's important for me to remember what the heck I'm there for.
Recovery involves a LOT of change, no question. New habits, dropping of old habits, new ways of thinking and of looking at the world and it's people, and those are just to start out. It was like being a baby all over again for me. It was like re-learning how to just live.......exist.
Even though I was in my late 30's, I started to fall into the same "AA is a social club" trap that so many younger AA's do. I was going mostly (if I was honest with myself) to make friends, get phone numbers and maybe even get laid if I was lucky. So much for new attitudes, new behaviors and all that other stuff huh? Not me, I was doing the same thing in AA that I'd been doing most of my life. I suppose I was lucky that I didn't go back out like so many of my peers did.
Eventually I had to decide, just like everyone else who had recovered from their illness, that my sobriety had to come first. It had to come ahead of making friends, getting numbers and even getting laid. It meant there were nights I couldn't go hang with friends because I had to work on my inventory....or read another chapter.....or go to some stupid meeting that I didn't think would help me. It meant going to those meetings with the job of being a greeter (not something I wanted to do) or with the duty of staying late and trying to find someone who could use some encouragement. It basically meant that I had to drop my selfish motives for friendship and/or love.....and go there with a more recovery-centered objective.
Sure, it's sad when people go back out. Very sad.
Before getting involved in recovery I'd spent the majority of my life trying to "fit in" and be one of the cool kids, part of the crowd. Keeping that as my motivation in recovery was getting similar results - crappy ones. It was also quite apparent that the other ppl who were doing the same thing, they tended to go back out. Like Jennie said above me - my sobriety and my recovery is my responsibility. When that's my priority I'm in good shape. When the social aspect is my priority, my recovery is going to suffer.