Hi sohard. You are right, there is no reason it can't work.
I think the technique is the same for alcohol and tobacco. You quit one, you can quit the other. I quit cigarettes a long time ago, long before i knew about AVRT. I did have residual desire for cigarettes, long after i quit. I remember noticing the urge for a cigarette after meals, but just dismissing it, because i was so clear that i had decided to be a non-smoker, once and for all.
Similar to you, when i quit smoking i could only see the negatives of it -- there seemed to be very little pleasure, and any pleasure was dwarfed by the negatives.
In contrast, with alcohol, when i quit there was still a lot of pleasure associated with alcohol. The beast uses that -- reminds me of the pleasure, and says that to quit alcohol must therefore be harder than quitting smoking. But remembering the pleasure, and thinking that abstaining will be hard -- these thoughts are just AV. Just like with those blind urges for a cigarette, there's only one thing to be done with them -- recognize their source, and ignore them.
I don't think you have to "convince" yourself that drinking was all negative ...you don't have to train yourself not to associate alcohol with pleasure, or not to desire alcohol. The technique is just to dissociate, not to argue -- we don't have to argue with our beasts about whether alcohol can be pleasurable. We just say "oh, there's a thought about how nice a drink would be ... since i am a non-drinker, that thought can only be my AV, which I ignore". It is much easier than arguing (to say, "oh no, a drink wouldn't really be a good idea because of x,y,z, play the tape forward, remember all the bad consequences, etc").