A Hundred Alibis

"No man who has ever passed from normal or hard drinking to chronic alcoholism, or who has shown persistently a disposition to act in an antisocial manner when under the influence of intoxicating beverages, can ever expect to be shown how to drink in a controlled manner, or to learn how by himself even after long periods of abstention.  The very concept of eventual drinking, however remote, seems to be fatal to satisfactory results." The Common Sense of Drinking

"We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself.  Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking.  Try to drink and stop abruptly.  Try it more than once." Big Book of Alcoholics

Try it a thousand times.  Try it five thousand times.  However many times you try it you can easily find someone else in AA who has tried it more.  You may be able to stop all by yourself but you won't ever be able to drink normally.  

Once you've turned a cucumber into a pickle you can't turn it back into a cucumber.

"One of the reasons that may make it difficult for an inebriate to reform permanently is an idealization of the past, which he futilely believes he can revive, a belief often unexpressed with which he fools himself over and over again. 'This time it is going to be different,' you may hear him say, but if you know him well you will smile." The Common Sense of Drinking

Euphoric Recall:  The ability to glamorize the best, to remember the good things and not the bad, or to turn the bad things into good things.  I bet part of this is human nature - we intuitively try to dwell on what's good and forget what's painful.  Emotional shock.

"If you ask him why he started on that last bender, the chances are that he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis.  Sometimes these excuses have a certain plausibility, but none of them really makes sense in the light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking bout creates.  They sound like the philosophy of a man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache."  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous