Hi Weston,
Those first few weeks (or months) can be really tough. If you can go a couple of weeks without drinking, that immediate physical addiction and withdrawl is behind you. Now it's a mental problem. That doesn't mean it's all in your head. A huge component of alcoholism is the mental obsession and the delusion of being able to drink again.
Originally Posted by AA Big Book, 1st Ed.
The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.
Originally Posted by AA Big Book, 1st Ed.
The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so called will power becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
Originally Posted by AA Big Book, 1st Ed.
The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove.
The quotes can go on and on. They are based on the experience of a bunch of recovered alcoholics who couldn't stay sober for any length of time. They'd swear off for good, make promises to the family ( and really believe), and then get drunk for no good reason.
Those people, and many others since them that have been in the same situation, found that they needed to take certain actions in order to remove that insanity of the first drink. They had to have a personality change (spiritual awakening) sufficient to overcome alcoholism. The Big Book of AA contains precise instructions for doing just that.
I was a daily drinker who couldn't go even a day without drinking. I began taking AA's steps the first day I didn't drink, because I needed something right away. I followed that program of action as closely as possible a few years ago, and I continue to live by the outlined principles. I haven't needed to drink, nor have I been crippled by all of the feelings that used to justify drinking in my mind. It's as if I couldn't drink even if I wanted to, and my life has been fulfilled beyond my expectations.