When I relapsed after a year of sobriety, it only seemed sudden to everyone else around me. A part of me had been expecting it to happen for at least 6 months prior. That part of me wasn't willing to accept that I could never drink again. It was the part that believed I could learn to drink in moderation, the part that still envied people who "got to drink" when I did not.
It has taken several years to unpack all of that and learn to see it for the BS it was. I never "got to drink." I had to drink in order to maintain my addiction, along with all the lies it told me that I never wanted to let go of.
In other words, my sobriety that time around was built on a cracked foundation. It's taken a while to fix those cracks, and here I am again.