This scenario happened to me a lot. It started with "I just want to have a good time" (like I used to). This was my only intention when I took the first drink. Then, 6 hours later landing face first in the Police cells and thinking in total despair, "how the h_ll did this happen?
Landing up in the cells was the furthest thing from my mind when I took that first drink. Actually it should have been the first thing to come to mind if I had had the ability to play the tape through, but those saner thoughts never came, in my case.
I was a binge drinker, every chance I got I drank until I was too sick to continue or ran out of money or both. Each session was dangerous, many of my contemporaries died in action.
It is not how much or how often you drink, it is what happens when you drink that determines whether you are alcoholic. We all have different stories and patterns, but the thing we have in common is once we take the first drink, we cannot gurantee what will happen next.
This analogy is a good one. See if you are in the room with these ten or so alcoholics. We'll give them all a drink or two and watch their behaviour. A couple will get argumentative and want to fight. One or two will become loud and boisterous, another will try and meet a girl. Yet another may want to sing, and another may just withdrawand sit quietly in a corner out of harms way.
They have one thing in common. They will all reach for another drink.