Like Potluck and Anna pointed out, reasons for drinking never end. Any reason can also have its polar opposite, and that's a reason to drink also. I thought I was the only person to have that realization, because I'd never heard it expressed before I came to this forum. I think variations of these opposites may be nearly universal. Spotting those polar opposites as causes to drink may have been helpful too, because it helped me understand that contradictory circumstances can both be reasons to drink. A bad day was a good excuse. A good day called for celebration, and somehow drinking was always the endpoint. This suggests to me that there probably is another reason, the real reason. That reason is addiction.
The way to deal with alcoholism for me was to forget about reasons, and put my energy into changing my behavior. It turns out that is what it took. You can think and reason until the cows come home, but what good is that if it always leads to a drink? Put away the self psychotherapy and use behavior modification instead. You can still do the psychotherapy, but understand you have to change how you behave around alcohol first, and then you change how you think later.