This is an interesting point. I think I did something similar. After trying to moderate many times, I stopped drinking around others, but moved to secret drinking at home. Not as a plan, but that's the way it worked out. I'd buy only one bottle of wine, secretly, at a time, but would drink it all (and more if I had it). Late at night, when others were asleep.
Somehow it seemed I wasn't hurting anyone but myself, disregarding the collateral damage I was causing by making me less able to function during the day, accomplish fewer things of significance and meaning, not to mention harming myself in every physical and emotional way.
What a way to live.