good perspective EGNYC.... I see where you're going with that.
To be clear, my comments aren't meant to excuse or dismiss relapse. Only to recognize that for many of us, myself included, relapse was a part of the cycle and the journey of recovery.
If we find ourselves in relapse, back on the dark descent, we have a choice; we can continue going down, down down.... we can choose to open up that relapse and glean all we can from it - learning, motivation, evidence of the fact that alcohol doesn't work.... or we can choose to ignore it or beat ourselves up and not really look at what we can take from it.
In my own experience, relapse and looking at relapse honestly was helpful in making my choice for sobriety.