Hi Spen,
I'm an alcoholic, and I know that I can't ever drink safely. I react in a strange way when I drink; I want MORE. That wanting more feeling doesn't end until I'm physically without booze for a while.
But then without booze, I'm grumpy and bored (restless, irritable, and discontent), and I have the delusion that a drink will make me feel better. I obsess over it because I want that feeling again that life can't seem to give me. So I always did exactly what AA's Big Book talks about.
Originally Posted by AA Big Book 1st Ed.
After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
In order to see past that delusion, I had to have some kind of mental shift that let me see the truth about my drinking. I had to have a psychic change or a spiritual experience. Taking AA's 12 steps brought about that change for me, and my life produced that feeling I could never really get again from booze. It took on new meaning.