My drinking was always excessive but it escalated after having my third child and then went through the roof in the last four years. I tried antabuse, AA, outpatient rehab, rigorous self imposed moderation schemes, but nothing stopped the run away train after the first drink. Even if I could go three days without a drink (shakes, sweats and tremors notwithstanding) it doesn't mean much if on a drinking day I'm finishing a Costco sized handle of gin before dawn the next day.
when my time was up there was a big humiliating public episode with my husband and his work, plus I was just so sick, so out of it and unstable and depleted. I quit the next day. That previous summer I could feel momentum building and I knew sobriety was coming . I just didn't know when. When the day came that my drinking ended I knew it in my gut and I haven't wanted a drink since.
Death is my promise in that first drink. I know now that the first drink is a whole bottle until blackout and there's no in between. Knowing that means the daily choice to abstain is an easy one.