JTele, I would probably stick with what you describe toward the end of the original post, where you describe the resolve you reached, whether you had the label alcoholic in front of you or not.For the time being at least, until you have more of it figured out.
I haven't been "diagnosed" one, but I have been taken for one here. I say that I am and I explain why in some of my posts. It had been something I wondered (kind of knew) for several years. A lot of people give their drinking issues strength by tucking the question away. I know that's what I did, I just drank on top of the question so I didn't have to deal with it. I think my quitting was probably a lot easier than it might have been because I went with "I'm an alcoholic" and didn't give myself any loopholes. I don't know if the quitting is forever, when you look at it literally (how am I supposed to know that?), but it's the way it is for now. I think it's been a little more than 15 months now and I don't want to go back to it.
I noticed a number of things in your post that resembled my situation. I wouldn't be identical (I don't have kids, for example), but there are similarities. After a period of being more of a partier with heavy intake in addition to the consistent everyday drinking (after an earlier period of drinking once in a while), I settled into just a steady drinker, but it was a little heavier than your regular intake, I think, and probably with fewer days when I would go without (those were few and far between, for sure).
But aside from the quantity and the frequency, there was a relationship with the drinking that amounts to what I am calling my alcoholism (or drug addiction, in the larger sense). It neutralized feelings to some degree and regulated ups and downs and gave me an illusion of strength and staying power; some extra gregariousness; some more "character" or expressive ability....And I don't mean WHILE drinking, I mean the ongoing routine of keeping it in my system contributed to all those things. It made me more depressed at times, but there was a buzz to make me forget about that. But I gues I reached a point where I couldn't take all the negatives anymore, and the nerve it gave me was going too far and the mood swings too scary; the depression too rough. And I wanted to quit drinking. It wasn't at a point when I was at my most depressed or "disadvanatged" at all, but I haven't been letting that confuse me. There was a desire to quit drinking that became bigger than the desire to drink, so I seized that while it was ready for the taking, and kept going.
Anyway, that's where I come from.
Good luck as you work through your own path on this.