Originally Posted by
steve-in-kville 
I am convinced that addiction goes hand in hand with mental health. I have something buried pretty deep and I need professional help to peel back the layers of the onion.
Addiction may go hand in hand with mental health issues in your case, but in general it doesn't and it doesn't have to. Addiction specialists call addiction a primary illness, meaning it's not secondary to anything else or caused by anything else except too much drink for too long.
We can really spin ourselves up, and cause great harm to ourselves and others, when we convince ourselves that our problem isn't really addiction, or that we need to fix some other issue before we can stop drinking. That's a lie that the reptilian addict voice tells us, to help us justify continuing to drink or serial relapsing. We may need to put more real work into recovery, maybe even going to support group meetings three times a day for six months if that's what it takes to get on to stable ground, but we don't need to peel back any layers of any onions to stop drinking. That's very cerebral, and addiction isn't a cerebral illness. Actions matter, not thinking.
