If I build alcoholism into some eternal daily threat, that I must recommit to defeat everyday, am I setting myself up for eventual defeat?
just my experience: the "at war" metaphors and way of trying to quit never worked for me. seeing myself in a struggle with an enemy and myself as just not having the willpower strong enough but for-sure-i'm-stronger-this (or next)-time...yeah, there was always defeat. i couldn't understand it. couldn't get it until i saw i was a drunk. a totally different thing from seeing i was a smoker. being a smoker was surface stuff.
when i saw i was a drunk, ...well, ultimately i stopped fighting, then. because there was then no external threat left. i couldn't keep fighting MYSELF.
and yes, as soberlicious so eloquently points out, addiction is addiction and i could use some of the "tools" i'd used in quitting smoking for quitting drinking.
but that's all they were good for, and quitting drinking, this time, has been the easy part. other stuff is a whole different story. just my experience, and for sure i never thought i'd be saying anything like that!
Should quitting alcohol be so different from quitting smoking?
re your heading : "should" seems irrelevant. it IS different. if you're an alcoholic the way i understand myself to be. which i also never thought i'd hear myself say, years ago.
seems i find that working at keeping an open mind to your own experience and being willing to let go of preconceived notions about how it will be or how it SHOULD be has been really helpful to me. maybe it will be for you, too.