I debated replying to this because it'd involve revealing something about my past that I'm not very proud of/may not want searched by my name, but I don't think I've ever seen someone put so bluntly exactly how I felt while I was going through my "drinking years". For folks who don't know what alcoholism is really like, I think you've done a perfect job of describing what alcohol addiction really feels like.

I was there in my 20s (I'm more than a decade over). Boredom leads to depression which leads to self-medicating. Unfortunately, alcohol increases depression a thousand-fold, so it feeds itself. For about five years I drank every afternoon until I was drunk enough to fall asleep. Despite agonizing over my behavior/choices, I couldn't stop myself and getting motivation to seek help when you're in that state would have been impossible for me. After a lot of reading on the subject, I decided to try an approach that reduced my consumption over time (about a month) until I had zero desire to drink any longer. I haven't consumed anything (except for a dessert or two, maybe) with alcohol in it since.

Let me state clearly: I loved drinking. LOVED IT It was something, in the early days of drinking, that I looked forward to every afternoon. It sounds sad to write, but it's completely accurate -- being drunk is fun if it's not "a career". I couldn't imagine life without drinking. Well, I could -- I imagined I'd spend every day missing it and be more unhappy than I was. I was also depressed, but I realized the cycle was no longer "I'm depressed because of X, Y, and Z", those were all entirely overridden by the "I'm depressed because of alcohol" despite that not being obvious to me at that time.

The typical advice didn't work for me: "find something to do that makes you happy", yeah, that's drinking. I could not find anything other than drinking that made me happy, or even close to as happy as drinking did. Plus, it's an easy, effortless, fix. "Exercise" - who are these alcoholics who are so self-motivated that they can get themselves to the gym or even enough energy to do light exercise at home? If that's your think, but I hated exercising. Basically all of the advice centered around "doing something that was impossible to do/rationalize about while I was still a drunk". I knew I couldn't "find anything to replace drinking with" (other than, maybe, another drug, but I was unwilling to go there) while I was still drinking, so I took a different approach, first.

I had to internalize that "drinking was the near-total cause of my depression." I had no idea how to do that so I thought about the problem and stumbled upon an idea. If I actually believed "alcohol directly caused my depression", I might be able to trigger that negative feeling early enough to stop drinking more.

My approach was simple, I drank as soon as I was able[1] but each sip, I took mental note of where I was at emotionally and rationalized the connection with drinking -- would I feel this way if I hadn't drank (no, but I believed I'd probably feel worse, just different forms of awful)? I didn't punish myself for choosing to drink and I tried to rationalize that "it's part of the process...I expect to backslide right now -- that's normal -- I can take the time to focus on what the backslide caused for me, emotionally"

I started noticing that I would begin feeling depressed way before I started feeling the effects of alcohol. Over a few weeks, that started producing outright fear -- I'd literally think "I really don't want to feel the way I felt yesterday and I know if I have this next drink, that's what's coming". It didn't stop right away, I'd test it[2], and sometimes I'd drink more than the day before. But that feeling got stronger and stronger until I was down to a drink, never getting drunk, and terrified of taking the next one. As I drank less, I began writing OSS libraries/tools and sharing them. That started being "the think I want to do more than drinking" once my desire to drink was being eroded by my new "real" understanding of where it would lead. Pretty soon I started drinking later, opting to work on my OSS code and watch download counts. I didn't have to think about this -- it just happened "oh, it's 8:00 PM, now", to eventually "it's bedtime and I didn't have a drink yet!"

I am not a person who's very good at this sort of thing, naturally (if I had, I'd probably not have become a drunk in the first place). I didn't even undertake this effort believing it would work -- I had tried so many things up to this point which were unsuccessful. And at the end of the day, it felt completely natural to quit this way. I've also been able to use this sort of approach for other parts of my life (so maybe I have become a person who is good at this sort of thing, now?)

Had I read something like this while I was in the throws of it, I would not have believed it. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I've shared this with a few people going through the same thing and all (three) were successful.

Anyway, I wish you the best. I was right there in the suffering you're going through. Maybe you'll find out, like I did, that taking alcohol out of your life also eliminates your depression[3]. There's one thing I wish I had believed, though, way sooner than I did: you won't miss alcohol. It used to be a little awkward when someone would offer a drink in a social setting, but I take medication now that is less effective when alcohol is involved so I've found a simple "I take medication which I can't drink with" is a lot easier to explain than "I used to be a drunk" or my personally hated "I'm an alcoholic[4]"

[0] Every drunk has been told "alcohol depresses you" but -- at least as far as I was concerned -- it never felt that way.

[1] Well, not exactly -- whenever the urge arose and the opportunity was allowed -- I never drank while working, I was never drunk behind the wheel.

[2] Honestly, I spent a lot of time "testing" myself -- "Maybe I really do want this drink?" and thinking about all of the positive things which drinking brought to me -- terribly counter-productive, but despite this, I still quit.

[3] Eliminates is a little strong -- life is filled with periods of sorrow/pain and there's no avoiding that, but honestly, I've never been as truly depressed as I was when I was drinking -- even though I never believed it while I was in the throws of it. Perhaps the whole "I've been way more depressed before, so I can handle this little bit" helps -- drinking made my brain learn how to cope with very strong depression in a very perverse way, hiding the source while making it feel like it was helping.

[4] I found nothing more discouraging when I was trying to quit than the realization that I'd be battling the desire to drink my whole life. That's not the case for me. After I quit -- one month -- I didn't want to drink (I was legitimately afraid of the effects of alcohol-induced depression -- who wants that?). I didn't back-slide/fall off the wagon not because I have incredible will power, but because I started seeing it for what it is: something that was poisoning me, slowly, into believing my life was awful.