Some of these people will get loaded again and eventually die of their addictions because they can’t bear to come back through those doors minus the badge of however many years they had without a drink or a drug. That pride in their clean and sober time was in essence their new drug. ~ AAAgnostica.org

They call they dry drunks in AA,
white knuckle folks, those who come
to use their willpower and hang on
without really recovering, just stopping,
swapping the addiction for their mulish pride.
Promises, shomises, no such stuff.
Instead, the bedevilments describe them.
Troubled relationships, emotions run rampant,
prey to misery, to depression, to blaming others,
circumstances, chance, the world…
anything but their defiance against 12 Steps.
Prey to depression, unemployment,
uselessness, unhappiness, to life.
But they cling to staying stopped
at the peril of all around them,
spreading misery and pain.
Their pride in the fact alone
is what they look to, their salvation
so to speak. They are their higher power,
the pride in switching addictions
their new drug.