Although they offer strong support and a means for getting sober that is light years ahead of going it alone, mere attendance in rehab and then outpatient treatment on its own is not enough to remain sober.
I frequently ran into people I'd known from both types of treatment who'd left treatment early, were kicked out for some infraction, or completed treatment. In all but a couple of cases, they were all drinking, though not always at the moment I ran into them. Feigning interest in me, my life and my sobriety so as to later extract drinking money from me..."How's your Mom? I need some money to get home." "It's great that you're still sober! I haven't eaten in a coupla days, so if you can let me have a twenty." "You look great! I just got a job, but I need money to get there." Sometimes they were just falling down drunk and didn't recognize me. One guy I'd come to know pretty well in rehab and OP, who'd earned a reputation for stalking one of the women from OP when he was thrown out after testing positive for booze, and who was clearly hungover when I saw him, grabbed me outside a subway station and asked me for forty bucks so he could go to the Mets game. "I have to go. It's opening day." Others were enlisting the usual cast of characters among excuses as to why they were drinking again..."That counselor who threw me out was out to get me." "I can't find work." "AA sucks." "My grandmother died (again) last week."
Although I may believe that I'm sophisticated, clever, attractive or funny when I'm drinking, I most certainly am not, even though some people may tell me that I am. Some people liked when I drank -- during the few times I was being "social" -- because it took the attention away from them, they were fine with me being the village idiot, or they convinced themselves that they didn't have a problem because, well, "look at that guy!" During my three-year relapse, I eventually came to know who and what I was while drinking, and I attempted to keep my bad behavior to myself, though I also allowed my alcoholic thinking to convince me that I could "get away with it" by moving in with my girlfriend at the time. How could someone who loved me so completely turn against me, reject me and, finally, throw me out?
Seeing myself in other people in that particular way brought/brings to mind such words as 'grotesque', 'pathetic', and 'disgusting'. Like it or not, my uncensored mind makes judgments before, and sometimes during and after, the content is filtered through reason, compassion and empathy. I am often quiet and sometimes contentious in the extreme when I'm drinking, but always revolting. There is no such thing as 'charm' and 'grace' for a drunk.
I was shocked and horrified by both the amount and the depth of self-loathing I carried when I first got sober. But what was there to like? I came to understand this better when I witnessed other people, particularly people I knew, who were drinking. The only remedy for me was not simply to avoid bad behavior, but to be a better person. And this was only possible by first putting down the drink.
There are a range of physiological reasons why we black out, but there is also a psychological explanation. If we were to recall our bad behavior while we're drinking, it would be impossible to live within our own skin. Even the detailed descriptions from people who witnessed my bad behavior were suspect to me, if only because what they described was so extreme. If I couldn't remember it, then it probably didn't happen. At least not to the extent I was told. They're just busting my chops because I was drunk. It's a convenient defense for moving on from what people tell me happened and to continue drinking.
All of these things remind me of the line in the AA Big Book, "An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature."