A couple of posters have said there is more to sobriety than not drinking. That was my experience. Just not drinking was miserable and unsustainable. I felt really disconnected from the world.
The thing is I was suffering from untreated alcoholism. Alcoholism really made its presence felt when I stopped drinking. I had to treat it, and here's why:
I was suffering from a terminal progressive illness. When I looked at my drinking history, it was steadily getting worse, not better. Many times I tried to control it, or stop, but was unable. Alcoholism always culminates in one of these three options: We sober up, we get locked up, or we are covered up. It is that serious.
Maybe do an assessment of your drinking to date. Cant you control it? Can you leave it alone when you want to? Can you guarantee how much you will drink each time, 100%. Can you have a couple and stop abruptly?
Your answers, if you are honest with yourself, will tell you if you have the terminal illness known as alcoholism. If you do, wouldn't the sane thing to do be to make recovery your number one priority, ahead of everything else?
When I finally realised the seriousness of my situation, I would have gone to the ends of the earth for a solution.