Hi Jerry,

You write on this topic often, and it always makes me think, what am I missing.... someone that goes back out, and comes back in looking so sick and demoralized by their fall, evokes many emotions. 

As I said, always think I am just missing the message.

Oh well someday I will "get it"  Maybe it translates to "There but for the Grace of God, Go I"

Oh well my friend, dont have to "get" everything that my fellow alcoholic says, and  I need you to understand when you eplain why you feel that way, I completely understand that part.

Well looks like I answered my own confusion, sort of...)

Toodles from across the Pacific.

Tonicakes 

I'm grateful for the program, and that it's there for the relapsers, such as myself, that make it back, I am grateful there were hands ready to pull me up behind them for free and for fun, I am grateful I can return the favor and pull the new people or the relapser up behind m, I am grateful to have been of service, for free and for fun

My God doesn't really throw people under the bus for my personal edification, but I am grateful I can be one of the hands that is there when they come back

as Mr Sponsorpants put it yesterday:

Service is a joy, and the times when I have been fully present for a sponsee, focused intently on listening to them and helping them, are some of the times I've felt closest to something Bigger than myself -- a connection, a channel, to a Higher Power. It is a privilege, and something for which I will always be grateful.

That said, I am never grateful for someone else's misfortune, and when an alcoholic relapses, that's misfortune, feels too much like, "better him then me" no matter how nobly I dress it up, and if my program relied on my memory I'd be screwed

We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, "It won't burn me this time, so here's how!" 

When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid, and unless locked up, may die or to permanently insane. These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcohoholics throughout history. But for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations.

There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self- searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at out feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.

The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences* which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.

I mean if just watching relapsers keep drinking would have helped get sober, I would have stuck with bartending, that's just me though