I went to counseling, AA meetings for the first three months, used my docs and focused on making a new life for myself and by extension my SH and family. I also used thinking similar to AVRT as I used to be a counselor years ago and eclectically mixed some reality Therapy with a large dose of RET and behaviorist with humanism if that makes any sense.
I decided to stop and needed to detox in hospital first to get well detoxed. Before that I had already made a firm, determined, decision that if I could ever quit that long I would be over the hump and never drink nor smoke again.
I was not secretive nor talkative about it. In other words my friends and family knew when I checked in and I told them I would be fine just needed a head start and my doc said I needed to be safe when I quit drinking for good.
I remember what I thought was good about it, and the nice buzz I got in the first years drinking. That was true. I also remember very clearly how helpless I was at the end of my drinking.
One thing has not changed. I will never drink or smoke again.
So why am I still here a year plus later?
Gratitude.
If obsession over alcohol were money I would have to declare bankruptcy.
But it took more than fear and hiding for me to make it. SR has been a major part and is now the major part.
I consider myself recovered now. BECAUSE I know I am one drink, and one smoke, away from being enslaved again. And as in all cases, in this case too, Freedom Isn't Free. It cost me my drinking, a cheap price to pay, to stop being cheap myself.