Dear stop starters
I just want to chip in here.
You are certainly not alone in what you are doing - I took a year to be convinced. Nore, as my own example proves. does "slipping" now mean you will never get it - if I make it to December 16 I will be eight years continuously sober (i.e. no drink of alcohol in that time) one day at a time. For someone who drank every day, that can't be bad.
On the other hand, you need to get into your head that your adversary is not us, or your own willpower, or even alcohol. It is alcohol ABUSE, and, whether you like it or not, you are playing for very high stakes. It is like a game of Russian roulette and every time you pick up a drink is another pull on the trigger because, unlike smoking or biscuits or many other addictions, you literally do not know where it is going to take you or what the consequences will be.
I can also promise you that, if you are alcoholic, it is not going to get any better. Whatever problems you have in life, a drink will make them worse. And you will wake up the next day (assuming you do wake up the next day) with that same feeling of paranoia, loneliness and dread.
In other words - and this is only my opinion, as ever - don't beat yourself up if you have a drink. You're human, you're a problem drinker, it's an entirely understandable temptation and no one can blame you for being suckered in. Most important of all, PLEASE don't feel judged or that you have let anyone but yourself down. And KEEP COMING BACK!
But don't expect it to get any easier either. If you could control your drinking, you probably would be doing so already (as, I am aware, some people here are successfully doing.) You would know if you were one of them - if you're not, and if you've tried it and failed it more than a couple of times, don't expect the next drink to be any different in those terms.
During that year of slipping, I had a different reason every time I drank. Looking back, it was the same reason every time, and yet I never guessed it - it was that I did not take my alcoholism seriously enough and still believed in miracle cures. Now I don't, I find sustaining and enjoying sobriety very easy.