For me the episodes, high and low, started waay before I started drinking, but got 5x worse when I started drinking (even though I thought alcohol was helping). Much longer, much more intense episodes, like 2-3 years of depression and months of mania instead of 10 months of depression and just hypomania.

Trying out this whole sobriety thing now. So far so good (except for all of the awfulness). Give it a go! But if you're binge drinking a ton every day right now, don't go cold turkey unless you have the support of a detox facility. I made that mistake and could have died of wernicke's encephalopathy. Bad times.