Hey Searching, don't worry about offending anyone here, questions like this get asked a lot.
First I want to just throw out there that everyone is different when it comes to the drinking thing. I used to not have a problem with it. No one starts off saying "I"m going to be an alcoholic" and throws all effort into it.
I used to enjoy my wine on the weekends and just a few glasses, work all week. Occasionally I would get blasted out of my mind and it was usually with friends/family who were drinking as much as me at the time. Holidays, parties, going out and playing a couple games of pool. At some point I crossed a line in my life where it got excessive.
I think his throwing the word "addiction" out there was out of line and judgmental. No one can really decide that someone has a problem other than themselves. Reading over what you said, I relate to a lot of the drinking. I was at that point once and I also have been through a lot in my life. I can't say my family has been one of the best influences as everyone in my family drinks and smokes pot. For me that was all "normal" and it was easy for me to say "this is what we do in my family."
I also was a bartender so I was around drinking all the time. How can it be a problem if everyone else is doing it?
Justifying, rationalizing and then the explaining as to why it's ok for me.
Things got a lot worse in my life when I remarried a second time. I'm not blaming but I'm saying that when things got bad in that marriage my drinking took off and I didn't care. It was my crutch for everything. I can't even begin to tell you how bad it got but drinking 24-7-365 and it didn't matter what time of the day it was, 7AM and getting into the shower to get ready for work was a good time to have a Bud Light. Mainly because I had to get rid of all the shaking. I had become physically addicted. HORRIBLE!!!!
I am sure that you came here hoping to hear "yeah, you're not bad like us," but from what I read up there in your post, you're not far behind where I was at some point in my life. When I look back now I can see the progression and I also know that even if I had said "I can quit whenever I feel like," that wasn't true.
My X husband says he could never understand how I could drink like that and to him I said "I could never understand how you can get a beer and only drink half of the bottle and switch to a soda."
My simple suggestion would be to read some of the other posts here in New Comers and see what others have to say in regards to what has happened to them, how it started and where they are today.
Many years ago I tried to get sober and went to AA, met some great people and I wasn't ready. The things that I learned about my drinking kept my foot in the door though and when I was ready I got sober.
Anyway, that's the short long winded version of my story. Hope that helps a little bit.
