There's a lot of insight and good stuff on this thread! The problem, as I see it, is that two parts of the brain, one primitive and the other rational, fight for control. Alcohol numbs the rational part and makes it vulnerable to the primitive part, which craves alcohol because of the body's having "adapted" its chemistry and physiology to create an alcohol based environment. Freud, now in large part discredited, sensed this in speaking of the ego and superego (rational) and the id (primitive). It's there and always will be there, with alcoholics and non alcoholics. It's just part of the territory.
W.