Hi and thanks for the replies.
My thoughts are that our free will is much more limited than we want to believe. I like the idea that it all comes down to pain versus pleasure. People will alway choose comfort over discomfort.
When you look at every action that you take honestly, you will notice that you will always choose comfort over discomfort. Even with long term goals, you will weigh the cost of the pain to reach your goal against the reward, if the reward is great enough, you will take the hard path to get there, if you decide the reward is not worth the suffering, you won't.
In that moment that you choose to drink, it's because it offers comfort/pleasure in that moment. Even if it's just relieving a long standing habit, without emotion.
So what I'm trying to say is that if you leave those well worn and comfortable alcoholic paths and options open to you, your chances of living a sober life are very slim.
And I agree with nez, in that the change can happen the other way around. You can start changing your internal world (the way you think) and soon your external world (the environment) will start to change too.