I agree with Sugarspun.
Here is my experience with how I have learned to answer these types of questions. I have learned that the best place for me to find an answer is in the Big Book. I have pulled several things out of it that I feel you might find useful.
This first part deals with Step 1 (more of this can be found under Step 1; What the Big Book says about Step One. on this forum).
Bill W admits defeat 8:9-11 (page number : sentance numbers)
I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.
Bill, by admitting to himself his powerlessness, takes his first step. Perhaps we feel as hopeless as Bill. Are we able to control our drinking once we start? Are we unable to quit drinking despite our sincere desire to do so? How have the things we have treid to overcome drinking worked for us? Can we admit that alcohol is more powerful than we are? If we can, then we have taken the first step toward recovery.
Hank P. admitted defeat xxix:6
He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope.
This man took his first step. The admission to ourselves that we are beaten, that the resources we have at our disposal are not going to save us, that unless we find a solution we will die, is a necessary first step in recovery. This admission is an essential precondition to recovery. This is a vital part of the solution to our problem.
Fitz M. made his own diagnosis xxix:16
The patient had made his own diagnosis, and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die.
Once again the first step in recovery is illustrated. We must make our own diagnosis of our condition. Are we alcoholic? Can we cure ourselves?
The authors have no intention of pronouncing us alcoholic. If we are alcoholic, perhaps we can see some similarity with ourselves in the doctor’s description of alcoholism.
This comes from the chapter of the Big Book "The Doctor's Opinion."
There is also a thread here discussing the chapter, here is the link
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...s-opinion.html
xxix:1, 3, 5-6,
He had lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope.
How far down the road to ruin has our alcoholism taken us? Are we at the gates of death? Are we deteriorating physically and mentally? Have we lost everything worthwhile in life yet? Do we see these things approaching?
This man took his first step. The admission to ourselves that we are beaten, that the resources we have at our disposal are not going to save us, that unless we find a solution we will die, is a necessary first step in recovery. This admission is an essential precondition to recovery. This is a vital part of the solution to our problem.
xxix:16
The patient had made his own diagnosis, and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die.
Once again the first step in recovery is illustrated. We must make our own diagnosis of our condition. Are we alcoholic? Can we cure ourselves?
xxix:18
Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the "will power" to resist the impulse to drink.
Why would we continue to believe that willpower was the answer to our drinking problem? Is willpower effective against other physical ailments? Doctor Silkworth thought that our inability to control our drinking was the result of an allergy, an increased susceptibility to alcohol.
Separating the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the alcoholic condition helps us to more clearly see what is happening. The impulse to begin drinking is a different issue from the craving that results after begining to drink. The chapters "There is a Solution" and "More about Alcoholism" explore the impulse to begin drinking in great detail.
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xxviii:2-3
There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight. The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They are always "going on the wagon for keeps," They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.
There is the type fo man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment. There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger. There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be written.
The hopelessness and self-loathing we feel when we find we can not use self-will to overcome our drinking problem leads many alcoholics to commit suicide.
Though we may not fit exactly into any specific category we may see that we have some similarites with one or more of Dr. Silkworth's classification of alcoholics.
Doctor Silkworth's
Classification of alcoholics
xxviii:4-7 ----------Psychopaths
xxviii:8-10----------Unwilling to admit.
xxviii:11------------Believe that after a time they can drink again
xxviii:12------------Manic depressive
xxviii:13------------Entirely normal except when drinking
xxviii:15-20
All these, and many others, have one sympton in common: they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the mainfestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.
It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanentally eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.
This immediately precipitates us into a seething caldron of debate. Much has been written pro and con, but among physicians, the general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed.
Definitions: Eradicated: removed completely. Removed at the roots.
Abstinence: refraining from alcohol
How or what we drink is not important. One of the most positive ways of determining if we are alcoholic is if we ever experience the phenomenon of craving after we start to drink.
Non-alcoholic drinkers are always able to control how much they drink. We can ask ourselves if we are different from non-alcoholics. Do we have this allergy that results in an overpowering craving for more alcohol once we start to drink?
Have we ever been able to stay abstinent before/ If we cannot control our drinking, cannot quit completely, and there is no treatment that will make us like the non-alcoholic drinker, what hope do we have?
An alcoholic who continues to drink will become chronic. Medical science has no cure and considers us doomed. We cannot drink and live and no human power, ours or our doctors, can enable us to quit. We are seemingly hopeless. Remember this book is authored by more than one hundred men and women who have recoverd from this seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.