hello all,
JWN, what a great post! I remember on one of the threads when we were all admitting to our drinking on the train habits, now when I get on a train I think what a pisshead I must have been 
usually when I though i was being adult and sophisticated and in control.
Lucil, does your dp drink a lot as well? For some people a change in their partner's habits can show up their own drinking patterns. Either that or your dp may just not understand the 'alcoholic mind'. I find that lots of people who are not alcoholic may find they are drinking too much so they simply cut down, and they simply cannot understand that I cannot do the same. They think that because they can do it then alcohol is not that addictive. Either that or they think that if I am addicted to alcohol then I would also be addicted to other things.
For me, personally (and I totally accept that other people have a different view) there is some interaction between alcohol and my brain, so that I am always chasing after that elusive 'high'. The one I imagine I had when I first felt slightly tipsy. I am not sure that the high I imagine was ever reality, but it doesn't stop me chasing after it. When I am drinking I sometimes think I get an 'echo' of the imaginary high with my first drink, so then I want more, and more and more of that, and have another drink and another and another. Of course my rational, sober mind knows that even if that hit does happen, it is a fleeting moment, and is never there as I drink more and more. At that stage all I get is fuzzy, and slurry, and befuddled. Then I think I confuse those pissed, not in control feelings with what I was looking for initially (I know that if I were really looking for that fuzzy-headed, slightly dizzy feeling then I could get that easily by being sleep deprived, or perhaps even hung over, and I also know that being pissed is not what got a 'grip' on me in the beginning).
I have no idea whether that makes sense to any of you, and I have no idea whether it is similar to the mind of other alcoholics, but for me it helps to explain the utter madness that is alcoholism for me.
I am trying to notice other things that do give me a high, things like an awesome amazing sunset, or laughing with a friend till I'm crying, or really, really loud fireworks, or drumming, or the tiny instant just before orgasm when I know for certain that it is about to happen even if there was a nuclear war, or the day I got my best job ever and danced around the living room punching the air, or the smell of a wonderful rose.... And I find that the less I drink, then less my brain is depressed and the more I can notice the other things that delight me and leave my senses reeling. It's a wonderful life.