Peace to you least,
I'm an alcoholic! That means I have difficulty dealing with my emotions without alcohol. "Normal" people have the same emotions and troubles but they never consider getting drunk and staying drunk a solution.
For years alcohol was my solution. Whenever I felt a negative emotion, anger, guilt, boredom etc., I drank to make it go away. Whenever I felt good emotions I drank to make them even better.
My problem is I'm an alcoholic, I have no other solution except alcohol. I need a solution, a way to live without drinking and drugging.
Least, you mentioned the physical and emotional turmoil caused by drinking, that is so true. But for me the physical consequences would always pass and I'd be left with the emotional and spiritual wreckage that I couldn't move. That always led me back, just make it go away!
I cannot stay sober alone, others may be able to do so, but I can't. The thing that helped me was giving up and doing what others suggested. After years in and out of AA and getting numbers I never used, I finally started reaching out in troubled times....reaching out before I picked up.
AA talks about a spiritual awakening but I don't think my spirit was ever asleep. That was the problem, if my spirit would have been asleep I wouldn't have been bothered by the way I was living. I used alcohol and drugs to put my spirit asleep, only problem is I would wake up when the junk wore off and there I was, same me same crap.
I'm an alcoholic! Alcohol is not a solution, it only delays me ever finding a solution.
Go find your solution least. Before long you'll be sitting in some emotion, the crap you used to drink over and think, "so this is what I've been running from, I can feel this today, it does not scare me", then you'll work through it and you will be better, you will be recovering.
God's peace least
Don't give up and don't pick up