Carrie,
I have no experience with being pregnant. However, I have a lot of experience with being unable to stop drinking when I had sufficiently good reason to do so. I also have a lot of experience with trying to deperately hold on to those brief times when I quit temporarily as evidence of an ability to control it.
AA's Big Book terms people who can quit or moderate when they have sufficiently good reason (like a warning from a doctor) as non alcoholic hard drinkers, even though they might be physically addicted. Although I didn't know it at the time, I desperately wanted to be a hard drinker. I hung on to the delusion almost to the grave that I could drink like normal people.
But the fact for me is, I am an alcoholic, not a hard drinker. I have lost the power of choice in drink. That meant, for me, the consequences, warnings, loss of family, job, crashed cars, locked in jail, were not sufficient to keep me from drinking. That meant, for me, there was never going to be a wake up call sufficient to get me to see the light and get my act together. That meant, for me, I had placed myself beyond human aid.
That is where it gets serious. That is where I couldn't seem to imagine life with or without booze. That is where I got to experience lonliness such as few do. That is truly the jumping off place. Convinced that I was a real alcoholic, I only had two choices. 'Go on to the bitter end blotting out the conciousness of my intolerable situation as best I could, or accept spiritual help.'
Paraphrases from AA BB 1st Ed.