My parents used to drink all the time. So I grew up thinking that drinking alcohol was what normal people did. The quantity of drinking depicted on
Mad Men was about the right amount for their generation.
I also hung out with people who drank a lot. There's a saying "birds of a feather flock together". Hanging out with drinkers meant that drinking was the social norm. I really only noticed this after getting run over by a car - I had turned into a miserable person who even I didn't want to be around (additionally, many of my social group were not all that fun to be around when both of us were sober). When I stopped hanging around drinkers, I found it easier to cut way down on alcohol consumption. I also didn't realize just how expensive it is until I cut down.
Then I got gall stones and had to have my gall bladder removed. Something else went wrong with/from the surgery and my pancreas got badly infected. This resulted in me having to make massive changes in what I ate, how I ate and when I ate. Completely discontinuing alcohol was one of those changes. No more bacon cheeseburgers was another change. A person with a working gallbladder is capable of eating lots of garbage, but without one, I have to be more picky than a stereotypical vegan (or pick whatever stereotype you want to mock and dial it up to at least 9¾). Some types of fat (like margarine) will have me stuck to the toilet. I hate it. I miss bacon cheeseburgers. And potato chips. I never realized just how many pizzerias use fake cheese (made from vegetable oil), and now I can hardly eat any pizzas. I hate it.
Excessive alcohol consumption is one of the risk factors for getting gall stones. Others include: overweight, too much fatty foods, being female, being sedentary or over 40.
> the foggy head feeling
I grew up thinking this was the entire point of drinking alcohol. Or smoking pot. Or opiates. My sister refuses to take pain killers because she hates the blurry thinking and foggy head feeling.
> I have a hard time saying no to a drink if everyone else is having a drink
This means that you need to change who you socialize with. I'm sorry - there's no way around this. You cannot associate with "users" and stay sober. This also took me a very long time to realize. Humans are social animals. If everyone you associate picks their nose - you will start to pick your nose. It is called "mirroring". It is a bug in the wetware.
Alternative: instead of ordering at the table like others, go up to the bar and order something non-alcoholic. In America, such drinks usually get "virgin" prepended to the name. Or instead of a "rum & coke", just a coke with a wedge of lime. Expensive, but then you're renting space at the bar/restaurant. They need to survive as well.
> how to get out of just hating yourself when you fail
Take each day as it comes. Don't hammer yourself when you stumble and fall. I used to mock AA members - that was wrong of me. It took me a very long time to realize that many of the 12 steps are important and do work.