Thanks for sharing. Your post triggers a couple of reactions in me.
First, I'll note that I've come to conclude that there is a type of alcoholic for whom only fully committing to the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous will work in terms of staying clean and sober, and I am one of those types. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more about that.
Second, when I finally quit cigarettes I used the following method: (1) very gradual taper to 5 cigs per day by spreading out the number of cigs I was smoking on a daily basis evenly across the day and then removing 1 cig each week (thereby increasing the time between cigs); (2) I had been told that there's no point trying to go from 5 to 0 gradually, so after a week at 5 cigs I switched to the nicotine gum as needed. That was over 20 years ago and I haven't had a cig since -- though I'm convinced I'd be both drinking and smoking if I wasn't fully committed to the recovery program of A.A.