Occasionally I miss drinking.
Or not drinking, but the ceremony around it.
I do not miss craziness but sometimes I pass a pub on a winter's evening and remember how much I loved going to a warm pub on dark evening to read the newspaper.
This made me happy.
Now, it's been a long time since alcohol made me happy. I found it too difficult to moderate so I stopped trying. On the occasions in the last few years where I drank, I wasn't at all happy- just drunk.
Regarding control, I suppose if one doesn't believe in the disease theory, which I don't, one must automatically assume it is possible to control one's drinking. I don't hold on to that as a future reason to drink thought. I've decided it's caused me too much pain trying to do this and it's not worth the effort.
Today, I'm happy. I can face my daughter without shame. She's 11 now and I often speak with her of the times she has seen me passed out or talking crap. She says she forgives me and I think she does. I tell her that my behaviour in those times was not the behaviour of a good father and that she will never have to see her dad like that again.
We have an amazing relationship and to me, that's the biggest source of happiness in my life.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think it was AlericB who quit drinking to avoid losing a partner.
AA would say this is the wrong reason to quit, that "You have to do it for yourself". But the vast majority are happier when with the people we love. So it is possible to do it for yourself and for somebody else simultaneously.
Regarding the model in question in this thread, I'll say two things:
1. In my professional experience (I work for the state with young people and families in crisis), mental health difficulties and substance abuse issues are inexorably linked- the "dual diagnosis". My organisation does not collect data on the matter of dual diagnosis but my colleagues in the homelessness sector tell me the stats are through the roof. You can talk about chicken and egg all you like, but the reality is the two coexist with frightening prevalence.
2. I'm conscious the OP asked that we refrain from questioning stats but as a person who often works with stats, I am too aware of how easy it is to pluck a stat and use it out of context (eg. unemployment rate vs employment rate). So in attempting to judge a product or service by stats, one really needs to know much more than the headline stat provided by the vendor.