This is what we're really talking about here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpfYCZa87g
By changing your thinking and behaviors you create new neural pathways and the old weaken. So, by reinforcing the "I don't want to and won't drink" pathways, abstaining from alcohol (or other addictive substance or behavior), and negating the AV, Beast, or "I want to drink" pathways, the desire to use will subside with time, maybe never completely, but possibly. It's not instantaneous. It's not simply a matter of deciding and the addiction is gone. It's a matter of deciding over and over and over again and behaving accordingly over and over and over again until the old habit more or less dies out.