We drink because the breakdown of alcohol in our liver leaves a toxin in our alcoholic body. The physical and mental discomfort caused by this toxin can be lessened by more alcohol, which again must be broken down, leading to additional toxin in our body. This is the biological component of alcoholism, and it is always in play if you are an alcoholic. But we always hear about the psychological component too, which is often interpreted as a moral failure, which it is not. Instead, we have been conditioned to realize that more alcohol TEMPORARILY lessens the effect of the physical and mental effects of the toxin (acetaldehyde), although we may not know what that is.
I may be on thin ice here, but I think the psychological component is secondary to the biological effects of the toxin. We know that alcohol will relieve the stress caused by the toxin from our liver's assimilation of alcohol, so we mistakenly come to believe that alcohol will relieve all kinds of stress, and then we drink even when it doesn't work.
I think the early recovery, cravings are this biological factor at work. In the second phase of recovery, after cravings become manageable, the psychological component of our addiction kicks in and is manifested as the alcoholic voice, and probably through other psychological dynamics as well. The psychological part of our addiction may or may not be even harder to manage than the physical cravings. Actually, the alcoholic voice is present during the cravings too, but for me, I couldn't recognize it when the cravings were taking up all of my attention.
Unfortunately, the psychological part of our addiction is the only part we can manage. We can never manage the toxins, we can only prevent their presence through abstinence, and then our biological addiction is no longer in play. Then we have to manage our psychology by learning to recognize our AV and to ignore it. Which is the harder task? I think it is different for each of us. For me, the biological part was harder. Once I was through that, it was only a matter of constantly choosing not to respond to my AV.
The toxin part of this description is fact, the rest is an opinion, because psychology is a daunting phenomenon and has less science in it than biology.