Hi TaintedLove

So sometimes it's the urges leading to the drinking, leading to..........

So do you think maybe exchanging each drink you would have had with a coping mechanism, or a variety of coping mechanisms??
So you're not going to be telling yourself "I can't.......", you're going to be telling yourself "Instead, I'm going to..........". Whether that's going to be taking a walk, listening to music, watching a film, talking to us on here.........whatever may help a little............leading onto sleep, you would have had anyway.
And if the urges are real bad.........they deserve/need expression/you deserve expression you know.........no excuses needed there.......but before they get to the point of expression via SI lets aim for some safer/less harmful expression, hey??
Maybe by talking about anything behind them, if there is anything, maybe by writing "stuff" down, maybe by looking for/using some sort of safe "comfort".........perhaps things like that could even help you build up your coping resources???
And, it does sound like you can sometimes hold off the SI until you have the "excuse" of drinking...........so that definately sounds like you have some real strength there, and that is strength you can really use

Alison