Addendum: want to add something that may not be clear in my first post. I don't make any excuses for the reasons I drank--be they my surroundings or genetics. Whether one is predisposed to drink or not, it's their personal decision to pick up the bottle, and their personal choice to find the bottom of it. I take full responsibility for my previous habits, and it took a lot to get to that point. I could come up with any of a dozen reasons to drink from "Happy Monday!" to "She left me"--the point was finding reasons not to drink. Hell, they were excuses to drink, not reasons to. I drank to remember, I drank to forget. I drank to memories and I drank from memories. The point was simply that I prefered to drink myself to idiocy rather than deal with my problems like a man--which lead to self-loathing and a greater tendency to drink rather than fix things. I am an alcoholic, I have been physically depenedent on alcohol, and I have chosen to eliminate the behavior that those two things inspire. And trust me, no matter how many times you hear it, you'll never understand it unless you've gone through it--
withdrawal is a bitch. When your body becomes physically depenedent on a substance, it's tougher than hell to get off of. But it's usually worth your time to do so (unless it's sustenance or water
)