I disagree. Thoughts, even cravings, are learned behaviors and have strong triggers. They will occur from time to time, and the thought of escaping difficult situations or enhancing pleasant ones are natural for people like us who have a lifelong history of behaving just so.
In AA, there is a lot of talk about a spiritual experience - either having one as the foundation of one’s sobriety or having one as the result of using the 12 step program of recovery. But what does that mean? In the book “Alcoholics Anonymous”, in Appendix II, it is defined as :
The terms “spiritual experience” and “spiritual awakening” are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms
The spiritual experience, then, is really a healing and a transformation of fundamental ideas, attitudes and behaviors, a growth from a life centered on alcohol and getting high into a life centered on service to others and contemplation of the beauty all around us and permeating us.
These unwelcome thoughts and cravings can be considered the natural result of an ongoing obsession with alcohol, particularly if they are very intrusive and debilitating. Having them does not mean your sobriety is incorrect or of lesser value. Even one of the co-founders of AA, Dr. Bob, was tremendously bothered by such thoughts and cravings for years into his sobriety. “Unlike most of our crowd, I did not get over my craving for liquor much during the first two and one half years of abstinence. It was almost always with me.” His response was to throw himself all the more into service, treating alcoholics at the hospital where he practiced.
On the subject of relapse, if you want opinions, this place is rife with them! What proves often to be a short dry spell of less than a month or two is incorrectly called a relapse by many. There really wasn’t a sufficient period to allow a healing to take place, and the “relapse” was really just a continuation of the original drinking. I never relapsed, I just went back to drinking because the consequences had resolved (the heat was off) or I had gathered enough emotional and physical resources to go back even harder than ever.
The true relapse, a return to a state of illness after years of health, does happen and has been described by several people on this forum. The common thread is a subtle and growing change in perspective and orientation, away from participation in sobriety community toward increasing isolation, growing denial, and eventually a return to illogical thinking and self-harmful actions. But I’ve never heard of true relapse as a response to a single event or a single thought, or even a succession of thoughts. Events and intrusive, insane, thoughts can and do start impelling the sufferer down the road toward relapse, but these are never (in my experience) sufficient of themselves to correlate directly and immediately to drinking.
For me, AA is a form of cognitive behavior therapy - we change our actions which changes our thoughts, which changes our emotional responses which changes our actions. Your trouble with intrusive thoughts seems to be pretty severe and particularly strong. I hope you find the effective treatment for them. A contented serene sobriety is what we really want. And I have seen so many people achieve it that I know it is possible for anyone.
