It all got very real when I got the point where all the things I valued were being destroyed by drinking alcohol. I could have them back, and have them large, but only if I quit drinking.
That condition applied then, and it applies now, and it will always apply. I can drink, or I can have a job, a marriage, a family, a home, physical and mental health, self respect, personal growth, a sense of meaning and purpose, stuff like that. But I can't do both.
It makes me happy to know that I will never go back to that place of misery and sadness and guilt and shame and depression and anxiety. I have done a thing that some people think is difficult to do, but I decided I would succeed no matter what, easy or difficult, so the degree of difficulty never really mattered.
I didn't quit for a day or an hour, I quit for a moment. I quit for the present moment, the one I am living right now, the one where I can do things and make changes and experience and grow.
I don't know what will happen to me tomorrow but I do know that I won't drink. I decided that drinking isn't something that somehow happens to me, it is something that I do. I decided I won't do it. Ever. No matter what.
If you decide to quit for good, you can.