I never went to meetings, but when I stopped 8-9 years ago I joined an online group called Bright Eye, which helped a lot (it folded a long time ago). It had a strange and frustrating thread system, and only mods could start threads, so most of them were a million pages long. One good thing about it, however, was that it had groups of people at various stages of sobriety/recovery, and you graduated from one to another. In theory, if you stayed off the booze you moved from, say, 6-9 months to 9-12 months with the same people, as the previous lot moved up to the next thread. If you lapsed (and were honest about it), you started again. I found that discipline helpful.
There was a lot of faffing about in the early groups, which is to be expected, as that is the hardest time, and people do take several attempts to achieve 3 months sobriety and be entitled to move to the next stage. But (and to me it was a huge 'but') there were those who seemed to do it for attention, and would post every Saturday that they were back to Day 1 to a chorus of 'Never mind, we are here for you. The important thing is getting back up' and so on. When the going got tough at the 6-8 week stage (or whenever it hit) and others at that stage had their heads down just getting through the night, there was a temptation to get a dopamine hit by triggering the 'poor you' responses and go back to the early days thread where everyone was stumbling. Some posters were there for years, and became like elders on the thread, because of their experience of hundreds of lapses - they were basically drinkers who never gave up, and IMO they held a lot of people back. It was clear that there were those who wanted the security of their 'classmates' around them, and struggled to 'move up' without them so joined in the lapsing and supportfest.
Also, as the site was self-managed, it was up to individuals where they posted, and there were those on the longer-sober threads who would fairly routinely say they had slipped but weren't counting their latest binge as they wanted to stay with the group they were in. On the one hand I can understand that, but the whole point of the 'groups' was that they were made up of those who had toughed it out, and took a pride in it. Those who had the 9 months medal had earned it, and often felt their achievement was weakened by sharing the honour with those who hadn't put the work in. Obviously we aren't set up like that, so the comparison doesn't really work, but I hope you can see what I'm getting at.
I don't know. We need to support one another, but sometimes that support is weakened by constantly telling people that there is no harm in an occasional lapse. There is. Most of us lapse sometimes, and realistically an odd boozy weekend is a whole lot better than a continual boozy lifestyle. We shouldn't lose sight of that, and AFAIK nobody on here is in any position to judge anyone else - I'm certainly not. But I wouldn't like to see this thread become one where people talk about their lapses in any more than passing references, or pretend that it's ok to be a social drinker on an abstinence thread.
We do welcome people back with understanding and empathy, and I hope we always will. There was a time on here (some time ago - I've been around for ages!) when I bowed out for a while as there was a spate of posts about drinking, and I didn't want to read them. I never found quit-lit helpful for the same reasons, really. We know the author has come out the other side, but many who do the same things as they do end up as casualties. The thread leaders usually keep a gentle lid on that sort of thing, but for some reason at that time it wasn't happening.
Anyway, this thread belongs to all of us, so it will be what we all want it to be. FWIW, when I had my own lapse I stayed away or lurked and didn't mention it until I had seen sense. I have found it a source of support and friendship for years now, and hope it has many years ahead of it. I cheer on those who have sailed with us and moved on to a happier life, and also think about those who have vanished when not sailing in smooth waters, and hope they are doing well.