In other words, if you're constantly counting the days without a drink and struggle with yourself to not drink, are you really "cured" from the addiction?
As far as the counting the days thing I think I agree with you on that. A couple years ago a friend of mine was struggling to quit their drug addiction. For almost a year they would count the days or weeks between the times they 'fucked up' as my friend called it. In the end after some pretty bad things happening and a few times almost losing their life. My friend got serious about it and they've been over a year now clean. The thing is this time my friend hasn't been counting the days or thinking about how long it's been. They've just been getting on trying to rebuild their life and avoiding the people and things that used to be part their addiction and I think it's made a big difference.
The problem with addition is that there’s often an “upper level” cognitive process that wants to stop, doesn’t enjoy the fallout of addition, but that exists with the “lower level” processes of enjoying the drugs and disliking withdrawal, boredom, finding new friends and ways of living. You can only really change and stay changed when you unite both of those urges and work hard to change beyond just quitting x. AA does that in a way that seems to work for some, as religion has always been capable of restricting people’s lives. Of course people who don’t believe in that framework don’t actually need it, but they do need something comprehensively geared to changing their overall lifestyle.
I think the idea of a group setting for support is smart, the idea that the group has to be fanatically religion is not.
The problem is that once you start you have a set of well-worn reward pathways in your brain that want more of it.
A true cure would need to look at neuroplastic, genetic, and environmental factors that lead to an addiction response. But what's the point when you can just not drink, which is unhealthy anyway.
Sure.
>In other words, if you're constantly counting the days without a drink and struggle with yourself to not drink, are you really "cured" from the addiction?
This is an entirely different statement from your first point and a mischaracterization of recovery.