I understand completely. I spent years doing those same mental gymnastics and trying to figure out how I could drink normally like everyone else. It was so tiring! I could go awhile without drinking a few weeks or so, but then I would want some wine with dinner or we’d be hosting or attending another party and I’d get wasted. Normal, right? It was for me as I had been drinking since I was 15 and it was simply part of me and part of life with friends and society and all that.
But my inner life? Messy…real messy…and it got way worse as time went on. I would try everything to figure out the secret of drinking without getting blackout wasted or embarrassed wasted or humiliating wasted or dangerous wasted…you get the point. I never did figure it out…eventually I would always end up blackout and feeling depleted, depressed, even suicidal at the end of my drinking career. I wanted so much to “be able to drink”… But what I was really missing was that the drink was causing all these issues in my life…my anxiety, depression, low self esteem, anger, frustration and on and on…to say nothing of how physically horrible it made me feel. I won’t say I never feel any of things now in sobriety, because I am human and humans feel it all…but those feelings aren’t amplified or heightened as they were with alcohol, and now I am able to feel them without wanting to escape and dull them.
So yes, you are in the right place. Honestly, you can try for moderation all you want, lord knows I spent many years on that quest. But for me, I found that right now being sober feels much more manageable and I feel really really good. I don’t worry about forever and being sober forever…I stay sober right now because I just felt so damned shitty trying to continue being a drinker. It wasn’t adding anything to my life, it was taking it. I wasted way too long at that party long long after it was over.
So, I hope you will stick around and read and interact and see who YOU are behind the alcohol and your drinking persona. Living sober is a possibility for sure and you do get used to socializing sober and realizing you will feel amazing the next morning and be regret free…that is a strong motivator for me. 
