bjtds3,
I have had more than my share of days and nights precisely as you've just described it. I know keenly the shame and guilt and disgust resulting from falling back on that desperate crutch, made worse every time you are able to string together a few days of sobriety and productivity. The vacillations get exponentially worse until you lose control and your life becomes one giant see-saw.

There are many good suggestions contained in the AA literature/wisdom (and elsewhere in life) but this morning try and focus on on of the AA mantras, "thinking the drink through". We all know how it begins and ends, and generally what happens in-between...do you want to go through that again?

Life is never over, you have a fresh shot at it every time you wake up in the morning, including those days when there's a half-empty bottle at the foot of your bed just begging to be finished. Turn that bottle upside down today; your addicted mind will protest, "What a waste of a good drink!" but it will be the most productive first step you ever took. And just keep walking away from that bottle, that pill, that line, until you have put some distance between it and you.

In almost all cases, it really boils down to avoiding that first drink. So do whatever you have to do to make this happen. If you're unemployed or underemployed or bored out of your skull or friendless or in any other sorry situation, you are the only one who can pull yourself out of it, that's the hard reality. You're going to have to re-learn living again and find productive hobbies, habits and behaviors which can help keep at bay those impulses that steal over you and wrest the reins of your life from your fingers.

The only way you can get back in the driver's seat is to forcibly evict your addicted self from it. One day at a time. Get rid of temptations. Don't call people you know will get you in trouble. Renew associations with people you know can help you. Go to AA meetings and get some phone numbers...sometimes, hard to believe, a simple phone call to them, to say, "Man, I'm in trouble here" is enough to get you off that crazy train you're knowingly thinking about getting on again.

I'm pulling for you. I want this to end and for you-whoever you are-to get back to being you. As you well know, you won't find you in a bottle. Good luck.