One day at a time

What's remarkable about alcohol, for those who abuse it, is that sobriety offers no cumulative "protection" against relapse. 20 years of sobriety? So what. You can fall as easily as someone with 2 days of sobriety. Hence the case of Robin Williams.

I met a woman who had been sober 12 years. She remarried and went into business with her new husband. Lots of pressure to pull this off. He had no visceral experience of her drinking days. He kept pressuring her to have a glass of wine with dinner. So she tried one. No problem. The next night she had three glasses. A week after that, she was drinking a fifth of vodka a day. So it goes.

clipped from news.yahoo.com SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Robin Williams said on Thursday that he had not drunk alcohol for 10 months since announcing publicly that he was entering treatment for alcohol abuse. In August his spokeswoman said he had "found himself drinking again" after two decades of sobriety. "Ten months," he told reporters on arrival to San Francisco International Film Festival where he won an acting award. "I had 20 years before that."