It's important to understand that resolve is something you need to practice, it's like a muscle. Every time you give in to a temptation, your resolve weakens. Every time you resist, it gets stronger.
Practicing like this quite literally rewires your brain. Strengthens the ability of the amygdala to regulate behavior. If you give in to every impulse, you teach your brain to exercise less impulse control.
This type of advice does work, but only for some people. I would hazard that "some" isn't even a majority of alcoholics or other kinds of addicts. So, it's an interesting perspective to share, but please don't assume that what worked for you is universally good advice for everyone.
You may as well be a patient in a drug trial, one of the let's say 30% that responded well to the drug, but afterwards you go out and claim that it's a cure for everyone... well no, it didn't work for 70% of people.
I'm not assuming anything. I'm sharing my experiences, which are the only experiences I've had, and the basis for my knowledge and understanding of the world.
I will also share the experience that addicts in general are experts at self-deception. They'll have long lists of reasons why their addiction is uniquely impossible to break, and most will dismiss trying anything as a waste of time, not from reflection but as a reflex.
It's important to understand that resolve is something you need to practice, it's like a muscle. Every time you give in to a temptation, your resolve weakens. Every time you resist, it gets stronger.
Practicing like this quite literally rewires your brain. Strengthens the ability of the amygdala to regulate behavior. If you give in to every impulse, you teach your brain to exercise less impulse control.