I was not an "in moderation" person either. When I drank, I never wanted to stop until I felt like stopping. That could be 2 drinks, it might be 4, more often it was significantly more. At one point I thought this characteristic was, "just a part of who I am," but it isn't. It's a part of addictive behavior.

I used to think that alcohol helped relieve stress as well. I've a high-pressure job as well. I would drink "to relax" and fall asleep and then when my anxieties returned sometimes more intensely than before, I'd attribute it to the job. This cycle would repeat. It's part of addictive behavior.

It wasn't until I stopped drinking that I discovered that most of the anxieties I was experiencing were caused by alcohol in the first place. No joke.

Whenever I contemplated quitting, the Voice (of addiction) would immediately start fabricating irrational reasons for me to continue drinking. The Voice doesn't care why you or me drink. It just wants its fix. It could tell you that you will stand out in a party, playing on your insecurities, it could tell me that I will suffer anxiety unless I drink; it just doesn't care. You can refer to yourself as "high functioning," blame other drinkers in the family, drink while watching YouTube in the morning, drink while feeding ducks at the lake, or doing anything else, it's all the same to the Voice. It wants its fix. It will always try to convince us that giving up drinking is the absolute worst option.

When I finally recognized that I had a mental addiction, plain and simple, things got much easier. I used SMART Recovery's approach to eliminate an addictive behavior-followed the program on my own. I havent had a drink in over 2 years and have never felt better. SMART is only one option, but treating my drinking for what it was, an addictive behavior, was what mattered most.