I've never had more than a wine cooler or 2 so have no personal experience. But I can tell you that my brother quit cold turkey last year because he was arrested and obviously couldn't drink in jail and then he was on bail with a condition of bail being no drinking. He had no problems at all. I'm sure he went back to drinking as soon as he wasn' on bail but he did stop temporarily (and stopping wasn't his idea and he wasn't committed to it so his failure is not an example of what trying to quit is like).

I'm not recommending that approach because bad stuff can happen but it is possible to get through it without horrible things occurring.

I have seen people professionally going through alcohol withdrawl with meds doing both ok and others doing not so well and the same without. Maybe a call to your pdoc that you are stopping, does he think you are safe is in order?

So I don't really have any useful advice but just wanted you to know it's not the worst case scenario every time.