[happyrock]

What helped me was to start thinking of drinking primarily as a social enhancer or lubricant, instead of a way to retreat into self-medication. Social drinking is how alcohol is fun for me - the other ways don't really add value to my life. A habit of self-medication with alcohol feels more problematic and perhaps indicative of a psychological dependency, whereas social drinking is perfectly normal and enjoyable. You may not agree with this logic, and there are undoubtedly other dimensions to alcohol that I am ignoring, but this is basically how I think about my own relationship with alcohol and it works for me - do what works for you.

Changing my thinking in this way allowed me to start to cleave to an informal rule of "no drinking alone", a lifestyle tweak that struck me as simple and achievable. That helped me to cut down overall. Ultimately it's about deciding what role you want alcohol to have in your life, fixing that in place, and then working backwards from the desired state.