When I was in early sobriety, I imagined that there must be a certain point that people reach in recovery where they are now going to “make it.” A certain length of clean time where people are protected against the threat of relapse. Turns out this simply isn’t true. In fact, the statistics for long-term sobriety are quite frightening ‒ the drop-off rate of relapsing addicts and alcoholics doesn’t really slow down much as your length of sobriety increases. So what causes a person to relapse after experiencing a genuine sobriety? The answer is complacency.