Hi Sel, Welcome!
I wondered what I was for months...Then I thought, all I want is to stop drinking because it's messing me up. So I dropped the whole label thing. When I go to meetings (my recovery program is AA), I just say, "I'm X and I'm powerless over alcohol." That just works for me. I don't have to label myself and yet I'm stating the truth--that I am powerless over booze.
Also, I talked to someone sober for 25 years and she told me that many more people are coming into AA with much higher bottoms than in earlier times. Of course, low bottom alcoholics continue to come in, but because society itself has a greater understanding of the disease and what it looks like, more people are arriving at an earlier phase. The two challenges these people face are: 1. they continue to doubt if they really are alcoholics because they're not like the people who share in meetings, and 2. they're more tempted to relapse because, after all, they're not REAL alcoholics.
The thing you have to ask is: Isn't it better to get help at an early phase of a disease than in a later one?
Zorah