[Kellye C]

Hi and welcome. Only you can decide if you are alcoholic or not.

I will say this. I am an alcoholic. I drank alcoholically for 3.5 years. I almost died in the process due to how quickly it progressed. Reading your post, I could have written it. I was able to pretty much keep my cool in public too but I would go home and finish the job. As long as I knew I had my stash waiting for me I could be ok in public. Like you, if I didn't have it, I would get fidgety before the liquor store closed and would invent an excuse to either leave early or leave, grab a bottle and come back where I could then relax. This was the obsession that is talked about. I was powerless because no matter what the consequences of the drinking were, no matter how many hangovers and how horrible I felt, the next evening I was doing the same thing again.

Hang out here and read the stickies on this and other forums. See what looks true to your own experiences. Look for the similarities, not the differences. Check out a few more meetings with the same mindset. If you stay openminded you will probably get the answer you seek. If not, they tell us if we are not sure to go out and do some CONTROLLED drinking (which means drink 1 and then stop). I know for me I couldn't do that. 1 is too many and 1,000 are not enough. But I knew going in that I was whipped. I just needed to find a way out of hell. I did.

Glad you're here!
Hugs,
Kellye