That's the thing Carol.  It wasn't that having a couple of beers is a bad thing.  It was that my automatic response to stress or anxiety was to numb those feelings, instead of face them in a more healthy, productive way.  I've learned to recognize that automatic, unhealthy response, and not act on it.

Besides, it would've taken an entire KEG to relieve my anxiety, and then I'd have shown up after 15 years proving to everyone who knew me way back when that I hadn't changed one bit.

I'm not opposed to a drink now and then, but if drinking is used as a tool to escape, then it isn't normal drinking.  It's just a cheap substitute for my drug of choice.  It's the same behavior as when I used meth to escape dealing with life's uncomfortableness.

That's why, in that situation, I didn't listen to my brain.  I stopped, and I played the tape forward, and I did not drink.