Alcohol can become a libidinal investment — a source of pleasure not only in its immediate sensory aspects (the taste, the pleasant burning sensation, even the typography on the bottle), but also in the way it structures time. Each next drink planned; the evening organised around alcohol as the source of reward and soothing.

Give it up, and it is not only the sensory enjoyment that is lost. The evening can become an incomprehensible desert of nothing — and in its place, anxiety.

This is the hook. Drinking is a pleasure in itself, one that keeps anxiety at bay by giving enjoyment a predictable form. To stop drinking requires recognising drinking as the solution, not the problem.

Alcohol is a classic case of jouissance: enjoyment that continues beyond pleasure, even when it has turned against the subject.