Many people believe that the drinker who tries to stop and cannot is already fully addicted to alcohol; the attempt and subsequent failure to stop is simply evidence of this. In fact, the process of attempting to stop actually takes the already existing addiction to a new level. It is when we try to stop that the spiral of craving starts, and from then on the lesson being absorbed by the subconscious is not that alcohol provides a neat remedy to anxiety and depression, but that if we want a drink and cannot have one we literally cannot function as a human being.
