this is an interesting consideration when you get some real time sober
Of the remaining "yets" in my life, up to and including death, which am I willing to risk in order to chase a euphoria that I have already learned via multiple relapses I cannot achieve anymore by drinking?
In other words, for me, I can't get a fun buzz off of alcohol like I could when I was younger. Drinking for me is just as much as I can until I'm in oblivion. My brain might try to trick me into remembering a time when I either had or could mimic control over it, and could enjoy it, but those days are absolutely, positively gone.
So which of the "yets" am I willing to risk in order to chase something I can never catch? Never got a DUI, maybe I could get drunk a few times before I got one of those. Or killed someone in a vehicular manslaughter, that was always a possibility I never dwelt on much. Ooh, I know-- alcohol poisoning. I never did have to be hospitalized for that, and I bet if I started up again, with my body now unaccustomed to heavy drinking and my brain desperate to skip all the intermediate steps of inebriation and get right to oblivion, I'd have a real shot at that.
I absolutely get the concept of "man, I didn't get to finish" if your story doesn't start with "And after I got out of prison...." or something like that. I threw away multiple attempts at sobriety because I would think, literally, "I don't want to be sober for a whole year and then go back out, I better go back out now at three months and next time I'll get some real good sober time".
Such twisted insanity. I haven't thought that way in a long time and for THAT, I am motherfucking grateful. And as logical as the consideration described above sounds, I know that I have to stay in my Higher Power for that thinking to have any impact on me, because if I get separated from my HP and I'm not working the steps and being of service, the insanity can return, and if it does, it (and I) can't be reasoned with like it sounds like I'm doing above.
Here's a great AA speaker, the Recovered Podcast has been running some of his talks lately. I think he uses the phrase "my brain would have killed me a long time ago except it needed me for transportation" at one point; he's fucking hilarious.