[sugErspun]

Absolutley...great thread.

I "KNEW" I was alcoholic. Treatment centers said so, doctor's said so, my friends and family said so...when I took a drink ~ anything could happen...and I was sooo miserable. I would admit it openly ~ "My name is Adam and I am an alcoholic." As far as I was concerned the heavy drinker and the alcoholic were one in the same. I never knew what AA's definition of alcoholism was (an alcoholic of our type), until I came in from my last drink, got with a recovered alcoholic and approached the whole deal as if we didn't know if I had alcoholism or not. If I determined that I was, we would move on with the steps...we used the book and my personal experiences to answer:

Am I as hopeless as this Bill character?

yea, thank God..I don't know what would have come of me if I wasn't able to identify with alcoholism as outlined in AA.