I Once Poured Away All My Booze. This Is What I Wish I Knew

Removing alcohol from home is not required, but it can help. Drinking can become an automated routine rather than a conscious choice, especially for experienced drinkers. Repeated routines get linked to cues, so the cues alone can trigger the urge to drink without deliberate decision-making. This can happen when noticing a bottle in the kitchen and feeling an immediate pull toward drinking. To disrupt an established pattern, the routine must be interrupted by replacing it with a different action or removing the cue that starts the sequence. Willpower alone may not be enough when the brain has already learned the cue-routine link.

"The same goes for drinking routines. As a drinking routine becomes well-practiced, drinking starts to feel automatic whenever a cue is spotted. This is why you may find yourself walking into the kitchen, noticing a bottle of wine sitting on the counter out of the corner of your eye, and suddenly feel the urge for a drink. That's why to break an old drinking pattern, what you often need is not more " willpow"

Read at Psychology Today