The part of the book that I personally relate to the most is what he calls Fading Affect Bias (FAB) - pretty much the same thing that others call Euphoric Recall. And how that plays a role in the pattern of a binge drinker like myself. I really feel that's the only part of the complex I still have a lot of problems with and where I repeatedly fail... it's so powerful for me. I can pretty easily handle the negative mood states, post-drinking transient spike in anxiety/depression, never even had the motivation much to "treat" those with drinking again, never been the self-medicating type of alcoholic much, never drink "at" events or others' judgment etc. But a few days or weeks later, when my brain and mind gets into that FAB state, it's extremely challenging. It does help though to know it's a neurobiological process/mechanism and not personal weakness. I do consciously focus my efforts on that challenge now and try to play "tricks" with myself to influence that, some similar to what the author of the book also suggests, like stopping even when I'm drunk to really look at what's happening, trying to hammer into my mind it's nothing truly compelling and I already feel totally out of myself while still in that so-called euphoric phase of drunkenness, and just more and more as the intoxication progresses and while hungover. Try to keep that awareness vivid, play the tape when I get cravings. But it's super challenging for me, I often feel like I'm trying to use willpower and reason against the mechanisms in my brain that I'm also quite familiar with. Which we all have to do of course in early sobriety, whatever we call the strategy. It would definitely be easier to find a very effective way to alleviate that memory distortion and associated cravings, but unfortunately that does not really exist for alcohol. The FAB in addiction play a role similarly to the whole reward phenomenon - it's not something created by addiction or existing only in addiction, it a process that has evolutionary advantage in a normal, balanced state, drugs can just hijack it.
The morality argument... yep. Sadly, I encountered it not only from old literature like RR but was also exposed to it in medical communities and directly myself relatively recently even here on SR. It sometimes even comes from long-recovered addicts. It doesn't really faze me personally (other than sometimes making a sarcastic comeback to it) as I believe the modern science... but does make me think like "what?!... hello? have you heard of 21st century explanations to how addiction works?". I think any effort to eradicate that perception and judgment is progressive to also loosen the addiction stigma or sense of failure in recovery further, which is definitely a major cause for people shying away from seeking help or even being honest.