Joboo.
Let me throw something different at you-- stop trying.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Trying to stop drinking for me was like shoveling water uphill. With 100% regularity, I returned to it. Each time, my resolve was greater--
this time it was going to be different. If you gave me a lie-dectector test, I would have passed it.
Yet, I drank again. I went to AA and they gave me all sorts of explanations-- I didn't want it bad enough, I wasn't finished, I wasn't committed, etc. But I knew-- I REALLY KNEW-- that I was an alcoholic, and that it was better for me not to drink. So why couldn't I stop?
I did not understand my disease.
Alcoholism is a fatal, chronic condition. Calling it a "drinking problem" is like calling leprosy a stubborn rash. 100,000 people die from it each year in the United States alone. It is characterized by two key components:
1) the inability to control how much you drink once you start drinking (physical allergy)
2) the inexplicable return to drinking after a period of sobriety despite good intentions (mental obsession).
These two components add up to complete and total powerlessness. "Trying harder" makes no difference-- it always ends up the same. The only thing that's different is the amount of time it takes the alcoholic to this stunning realization:
"I'm screwed. I have no hope. I can't help but drink."
So now what?
The program of AA suggests not that we build obstacles to drinking, but that we begin the process of removing obstacles to a power greater than ourselves that can solve the drink problem. These are the steps of AA, and they work, regardless of what you believe. Because if you've been able to concede to your inner most self that you are powerless and your life is unmanageable, you are in a position to recover. But you cannot do it through willpower, exercise, calling your sponsor, going to meetings, eating better, changing your friends, moving, taking vitamins, or not watching TV.
You need to undergo a fundamental personality change.
So it's not about trying not to drink. It's about trying to find a power that can solve a problem you are completely unable to solve on your own.