I have a friend in AA. I'm not sure how to measure if she's been "successful" or not. After completing the steps the first time, she relapsed after a few mont

I have a friend in AA. I'm not sure how to measure if she's been "successful" or not. After completing the steps the first time, she relapsed after a few months. After the second time, she went a bit longer, but didn't quite make a year. She's on her 3rd time now. It's been over a year since she last drank. She's made significant positive life changes and this time feels different. The last two times she constantly talked about fighting the urge to drink. This time she has no urges and nothing to fight. So I guess she's successful now? We'll never really know until she dies, right? Because she could relapse 10/15/20 years from now. I assume they have some arbitrary cutoff of sobriety as "success", but how many people relapse after that cutoff? I'm proud of my friend and hope she stays sober forever, but I also check in with her often to make sure she's staying on track (She has asked me to do this). She says this accountability helps. I'm not sure what my point is, just that "success" when it comes to sobriety is very complicated and not just yes or no.