Great topic.
My road to recovery began when I heard someone say in a Big Book Step Study, "my problem is not alcohol. My problem is sobriety." I got chills.
I've come to understand that my life has been a quest for power over the way I feel. Alcohol did that for me, for many years, and did it successfully. I believe that without alcohol, I might have killed myself at some point.
But alcohol eventually gives out, and starts to kick our behinds. We stick with it, cause we've got no other recourse. Now we've got the physical dependence in addition to the mental one.
When we quit drinking, we are put in a state of utter powerlessness. If you've heard it said that it gets worse before it gets better, for me it was true.
When you get right down to it, the fact that we call it "alcoholism" is tantamount to calling cancer "hair loss." Probably a bad example, but maybe you get the point.