I had a problem years back... ...just brining this up is difficult.
I was getting over a bad relationship in highschool and I sought the advice of my best friend.. ..he offered me vodka. From that point on many of my memories are fuzzy at best. I averaged one or two 1.75L plastic bottles of vodka a week. I started my Sr. year every morning by stopping at the gas station for a 20oz bottle of cranberry juice in wich 3/4 got dumped so I could fill it with Vodka. I drank during school, I drank on my lunchbreak off campus, and I drank when I left school. One night I had the bright idea that I was going to drink an entire bottle all by myself. In which I succeeded. ...if you want to put it that way. I drove around, telling all my friends what I had been working on, and the good friends were really worried, the bad friends egged me on. Next, I remember puking out the window of my truck into an open covertable. Then I remember being driven home by my worst-enemy, a 9:45. I was then left on my front door, with my parents home, covered in vomit. My mother knew, but I still tried to lie. She cleaned me up, and put me to bed, (the lecture was to come the next day) She woke me up at 5:30 the next morning telling me that I had to go to work. She made DAMN sure that I was up and awake. I got ready, bitching the entire time. Drove my vomit filled car to work and sat there with 4 x 150 Horsepower electric motors running at full cap w/i 10 feet of me. I was ill. I was spinning, I was puking, I had told myself I was never going to drink again. The hangover lasted almost a week. I was told my all of my friends how much of an ass I was. And I even lost a few friends over the matter. The amount of respect that I lost, and the fact that I put myself in danger as well as my friends, and even the people who were on the road at the same time as I. This was a turing point in my life. I was at an all-time low. I was thankful that I was alive, I was thankful that I didn't get caught by the law, and I was sure thankful that I was grounded by my parents. it was the best thing that ever happened.
So then I went to college, after staying away from alcohol for 6 months I felt like I was ready to test myself. I started drinking again, and on top of that I smoked WAY too much dope. That lasted for 5 years, daily, I even resorted to setting up a hydroponic setup to keep myself in supply. (Engineering Students! heh)
So, to keep this short.. ..I realized that I was doing it all for a reason, I decided that I had to really watch myself.
So I have a glass of wine every once and a while. I'll have a beer with old friends, hell, I'll even burn one down with my buddies for old times sake, but there is always a voice inside my head that tells me when I have to watch out, a voice that I never had before.
The moral of the story:
Get a voice inside your head, if you already have one, listen to it!
If you can't find a voice, and you can't listen to the one you have, then it's your responsibility to quit... ...and quit for good. You'll be glad that you did.
-SF