I stopped because I just couldn't deal with the hangovers anymore. I'm probably a bit older than a lot of posters here (41), and before I stopped in 2000, I'd been drinking since I was sixteen. That's a few years of drinking. When I was eighteen I could stay up all night pounding beer and whiskey and still get up for work, but towards the end there I'd need two or three days to recover.
My last binge was New Years Eve in 2000: I had to be carried out of the bar by my friends (so I'm told) at 4:00 am completely destroyed on blow, vodka, and Jagermeister. I woke up the next day with a horrible, debilitating hangover and found all kinds of glass and stuff smashed in my house. Still have no idea....
I still drank for a while that year, but never quite as bad, and then quit for good by the end of the year. I was completely abstinent for three years, but in the past few I enjoy a cocktail or two (and even a rare bump) now and again (Absolut & 7 is my poison of choice). But now I always stop at two, and can proudly say I haven't had a hangover in four years. And I don't miss 'em at all. Of course, then I had to get into opiates, but that's a whole 'nother story. :
devildude