Hi MuddyBoots. My experience was that my alcohol abuse worsened my episodes from no hospital bad to hospital bad. After my 1st, in a dual diagnosis ward (with detox), I tried to stop 100%, going to AA almost every day. Sometimes twice per day. Then about 88 (or so) days later, I drank again. Then some more sober days, and more AA Then a "slip". Repeat. However, I went from a relatively safe home drinker to going out to bars for the "slips". Being on heavy psych meds, I became vulnerable to bad blackouts. And driving drunk. I was in and out of the hospital because of this. It was mostly because of worsening mixed manic states with psychoses more than needing full detox. But then I'd again accumulate many sober days, then another slip. Once I nearly poisoned myself by drinking too much while on a heavy med cocktail.

There came a time when my alcohol cravings were very strong. An IOP psychiatrist tried prescribing meds to help curb them. One did nothing, but another did help a bit. However, what helped more was actually not these, but a particular bipolar med cocktail. When I started the new one, I seemed to lose the desire to self medicate. Also, I lost the manic side of my episodes. In my case, unlike perhaps yours, it was mania that really fueled my drinking. When that was gone for me, it was easy not to drink.