1. To relapse is to fall from the state of recovery back into active drinking. Relapses usually follow a period during which the alcoholic has retreated from active involvement in AA, but may also result from certain overwhelming triggers specifically meaningful to the individual. Most relapses are due to insufficient defenses having been established by the recovering alcoholic, as described in the Big Book of AA. 2. Drinking again after showing some promise of recovery. Usually planned. Many people who relapse experience jails, institutions or death. Some just go on living a crappy hopeless life. 3. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. Even between bouts of drinking it grows or advances within us. Therefore, if we do drink, each relapse leads us to worse abuse than at the point where we began to recover.