For me, "understanding WHY," I drank in the first place was key to stopping abusive partaking in drugs, including alcohol.
Addictions always serve an emotional purpose and that purpose is to reverse feeling of FEAR or more specifically overwhelming helplessness, feeling trapped, powerless and out of control. Addictive behavior is never random, addictive behavior is learned. There is always a reason and a reward. Whatever is rewarded gets repeated. (Trigger-Behavior-Reward-Repeat). You can’t get addicted to a substance or behavior that doesn’t do something for you! The antidote is to find and replace your temporary quick fix or mood changer with something more valuable to you. Empower yourself and regain control of your emotions by facing them directly or replacing them with some other high value behavior. These are learned behaviors. Just the way we learned that a quick fix or mood changer of substances helped us to regain control. I hope that makes some sense. :-)
Two excellent books that you might find valuable are, The Heart of Addiction by addiction Psychiatrist, Lance Dodes and The Freedom Model for Addictions written by a couple of addicts. The latter is available free if you google it.