I tend to look at ethyl alcohol as a useful solvent, and it's good for sanitizing things in higher concentrations. I like to put some 190-proof Everclear into a spray bottle for cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, whatever. In this light, drinking ethyl alcohol seems absurd, doesn't it? But then, I suppose it's not much different from the solvent GBL acting as a prodrug for GHB in the human body, or the way lithium is used to treat bipolar disorder. Regardless alcohol is a really shitty drug with a very limiting scope. One of its only real appeals is that it's legal in a variety of situations for adults to possess and consume, unlike virtually every other recreational drug in existence. There's nicotine, but let's face it: that has limited appeal.
But never mind all of that. Alcohol takes a heavy goddamn toll on the body (just ask your teeth), and if you continue to drink heavily as you get older, it becomes a bad look. There are so many other, better drugs you can do. Safer drugs, at that. So give your liver a little break from all the heavy lifting and drop some acid, eat some shrooms, snort some k, drop some molly & candyflip it and right after that peaks, take a bump of 3-HO-PCP until the wonkiness swallows its own tail… eat some 2C-B, make love, take a shower together and when you get out, use the alcohol sprayer to mist the medicine cabinet mirror, wipe it clean and take a look at yourself and smile realizing you avoided a stupid spiral down into alcoholism by having the courage to break a few drug laws. Call it civil disobedience and take pride in your actions.
Or don't. Selah. But to answer your direct question: I wouldn't recommend quitting any GABA-ergic substance (alcohol included) cold turkey. The body is very homeostatic and tends to kick back against whatever you do to it. So if you're always on painkillers and then suddenly stop, you'll feel pain. Always on stims, your body fights against the excess stimulation. Take the stims away and the body keeps pushing downward for a while until it comes back to homeostasis. So GABA-ergics (GHB, benzos, alcohol) act also as anticonvulsants. If the body gets used to their presence and you suddenly take it away, guess what? You could go into life-threatening convulsions. No bueno. Avoid that. Taper down. Good luck – you got this.
EDIT: Oh yeah I should also add something that rarely gets addressed. And that is the fact that ethyl alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen. It's as cancer-causing as cigarettes, asbestos, and UV light. The alcohol industry lobbies big dollars every year to suppress this knowledge and not be required to carry cancer-warnings on their labels, but the fact that cigarettes have to carry these warnings while alcohol does not might create a false sense of safety in the public concerning alcohol consumption. Makes no mistake about it: drinking is directly linked to liver, kidney, bladder, ureta, and colorectal cancers.
And I'm not saying no one should ever drink; that's stupid. But daily, repeated exposure to a known carcinogen isn't a wise idea either.
