I've been looking for that passage from one of my Theravadan Buddhist books I mentioned about alcoholism being about chasing a sensation. I found something close*, but it was about addiction and didn't use the word "chase", which was key to me. I'm starting to wonder if that actually might be the passage, and what I found so inspirational was how I formed it for myself in my mind. I'll keep looking, I don't think it was an inspired idea but a direct read.

That "chase" is important as a mental concept because it emphasizes the willful pursuit aspect of alcoholism. I know alcoholism is now considered an insidious and complex illness that requires treatment, but that's not my field and I don't know anything about it. From a mindfulness practice aspect for my purposes, it's filtering all that out and focusing on the chase, the willful pursuit in the moment.

I've been applying mindfulness practice to drinking to locate that sensation, that breaking point where the lure of another shot and another shot becomes irresistible. It isn't there at the first drink. It takes a few drinks for it to appear, and mind you I sip through shots; about four sips a shot. It's been years since I've shot my liquor, well-named I daresay, brutal and violent. Fuh yuh uh quick. Sipping shots is more demure and dâinty. That's me.🌷

That actually does help with the mindfulness because it spreads out or breaks the effect into increments, and the first indication that the chase sensation is kicking in is when the time interval between sips noticeably shortens. Resistance falters and that's when I mark the sensation and I know if I let go and cross the threshold I'll officially be chasing the sensation, sliding down the slippery slope. It manifests in manifold ways that I won't get into, but needless to say involves more alcohol intake/sensation chasing until I either brush my teeth and go to sleep or get out of my apartment for the day, both of which likely involve final "one for the road" drinks to satisfy the sensation, but is usually never a good thing. OR I mark the sensation and mindfully remind myself that to continue leads to "feeling bad", and if I heed that I can then stop. 

I'm also trying to force myself back onto the buying-a-bottle-every-three-days schedule, instead of every other day. I'm not trying to stop, I don't care about that. If I'm drinking enough to be considered alcoholic, yippy-da-doo-day. I'm just trying to manage a schedule to avoid feeling like crap, whatever that means. I know it when I feel it. So I've saved two empty bottles and when I buy a bottle, I dole the fifth into thirds and those are roughly the three days portions. Imagine my horror when I saw how little that is. I felt I could chug that and still see straight. But it's only a guideline serving restraint, a self-warning. Buying a bottle every three days never meant that's all I drank. That's why I have a tiered system of reserve bottles, because I always finished a bottle by or on the third day and dipped into the reserve bottle. It's anal, neurotic alcoholism.

* An addict takes a drug because he wishes to experience the pleasurable sensation that the drug produces in him, even though he knows that by taking the drug he reinforces his addiction. In the same way we are addicted to the condition of craving. As soon as one desire is satisfied, we generate another. The object is secondary; the fact is that we seek to maintain the state of craving continually, because this very craving produces in us a pleasurable sensation that we wish to prolong. Craving becomes a habit that we cannot break, an addiction. And just as an addict gradually develops tolerance towards his chosen drug and requires ever larger doses in order to achieve intoxication, our cravings steadily become stronger the more we seek to fulfill them. In this way we can never come to the end of craving. And so long as we crave, we can never be happy. - The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka, William Hart, p. 46.

This passage is more about the dharma view of craving as an affliction, which applies just as much to shopping, rather than the affliction of sensations we chase, pleasurable or not, such as alcohol.