Thing is, normal, well balanced people don't usually sink into alcoholism running their life.
So when they quit as you said yourself, they don't have coping techniques to deal with life. So a lot of us need to learn how to run a healthy life along with putting right the train wreck of messes we have generally created, also apologies and amends to the people we have mistreated under our entitled "right" to drink!
Interesting thread and discussion. The issue that springs into my mind is "terminal uniqueness". Although most of us seem to have that so not so unique after all!