If you look at it like an allergy it makes complete and utter sense.
If someone is allergic to strawberries, they do not hang out in a strawberry patch, nor the fruit section of the grocery store, drinking Coca Cola. They read the ingredients of everything they eat, they ask questions at the restaurant about the food they are about to order, they stay well away from fruit stands on the side of the road. They know full well that for the rest of their life, they cant so much even touch a strawberry, because if they do they are going to break out in hives and have an allergic reaction.
This exact same statement is true with alcohol, the allergic reaction to alcohol is the phenomenon of craving. You crave more and more booze with each drink you take. The outcome of taking that drink is never good, sooner or later (because it is a progressive disease - which means it gets worse never better over time whether you drink or not) you are going to break out in handcuffs, or spots like Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Paris, London England. Or crash the car, lose the gf/wife/kids/license/your life/someone elses life/you lose alot of things when drinking thats a fact.
So what is the key to success? It starts off with putting the bottle down, not drinking. It does not however end there. A change in thinking must occur, because that is the root of the problem. Alcohol has nothing to do with our problem at all, it is but a by-product, or a symptom of a much larger, deadlier disease. And it is a disease, recognized by the American Medical Association back in the 50's I believe, when they said smoking wasnt harmful to your health. But even now, doctors alike agree that its a disease. Not a socially acceptable disease like Cancer, no we are shunned, we are the outcasts of society.