Are you aware that there are several stages of alcoholism, just like many other diseases?
I was talking with some dweeb doctor "professional" about a year ago who was shocked and dismayed (naturally -- it's his livelihood!) -- when I told him I quit drinking without medical supervision. Yes, "medical supervision," that was HIS terminology! He sternly warned me that I might have killed myself, that I had done a very risky thing! *rolls eyes* What, has this guy lived in a cave all his life? I can't think of a single person, even those with DTs when they quit, who killed themselves quitting drinking. But I can think of quite a few who killed themselves (and/or someone else) because they continued drinking.
Alcoholism is no disease, buddy, no matter how often those with a financial and emotional stake in the matter say otherwise. If it's a disease, it's self-inflicted and self-cured. To call it a "disease" is an insult to folks like my now-deceased friend who had MS, or the little girl up the street who has type 1 diabetes, or the elementary school teacher I had whose leg was crippled by polio. Do you for an INSTANT think that if all it took was ceasing the personal indulgence of a recreational behavior to make their symptoms disappear, that they wouldn't do it in a heartbeat? They had/have REAL diseases. Alcoholism is the result of someone who just doesn't want to deal with the fact that life isn't fair and that genetics dealt them a hand in which they -- unlike most people -- cannot handle alcohol, just like genetics deals others a hand in which they -- unlike most people -- are alergic to cats, or strawberries, or penicillin.
Disease, my ass. Stages, schmages. My grandmother told me about how my grandfather had the DTs when he tried to stop drinking. But it wasn't trying to stop that killed him -- it was because he didn't stop.
Don't lecture me about the "stages" of alcoholism. Doctors and the medical profession are as fallible as any other human endeavor. And this crap that quiting alcoholism alone is somehow "dangerous" and that it is a "disease" is just that -- crap.
Reagan was right about simple solutions. The solution to alcoholism or any other addiction is very simple: cease the behavior. It isn't EASY, but it is simple. YOU don't want to believe it, so you make it unnecessarily complicated and arduous and intimidating; your kind of thinking exploits victimhood to the ultimate.