Nice to see you hear and sorry about your friend. There but for the grace of God went I.
Not sure that having a friend having a DD accident can scare you straight. Reason why is the following:
Do you truly believe that you have a drinking problem?
Despite what happens to your friends and others (and I've been through this myself), deep down, unless we can admit we have a problem (and truly believe it), we may be scared straight for a while, and then we wander back into our "immortal" ways.
Until I admitted that I truly had a problem and actually believed it, then I deep down still thought that I was controlling my drinking. Only when I accepted that I didn't control my drinking am I now able to stay sober.
Again, glad to have you here, and hope we'll see you posting all the milestones you hit.