When I was young I didn't say to myself, "I want to be a late stage alcohol who is physically dependent on alcohol, hurts the ones he loves, screws up his career, has a horrible marriage, and almost dies of alcoholism."
I didn't get as bad as I did in a day. The disease progressed oh so slowly. Each day and year being worse than the one before with alcohol constantly whispering in my ear, "Your not that bad and if you have to you can quit tomorrow if you want to. Tomorrow after tomorrow came and went but I never wanted to.
The water was almost boiling and even then I did not have sense to jump out. I ended up withdrawing from alcohol by accident and had to be rushed to the ER. The doc said I got lucky
It was only then I could see I was in a pot of boiling water and decided a nice cool pond was a much better place to live