Yeah I 'knew' I was an alcoholic for a long time - i just didn't know how to not be - people kept speaking of hitting the ultimate low point and I'd hit that a few times and in different ways - it seemed that enough was never going to be enough for me. I was going to have to stop or be stopped by death if I didn't stop this beast from self destructing me. Slow daily painful suicide is how I still describe my drinking. I don't think that it's ever helpful to advise people that 'your not ready to stop drinking because you've not hit your lowest yet' my beast challenged that - loved it - he was like 'oh really let's see how low we can get you and keep drinking AT it all the injustice, the sadness, the self pitty, heck I'm going to make you so burnt out putting up the perfect image to the outside world and STILL drinking half the night that you won't even know what's real' that's how it was lol my life was a blur of frenzied and nervous energy activity and at night I'd numb those nerves down a bit. Oh it's insanity - it's mind altering what alcohol will do. People say heroin is nasty - I agree 100% but I think alcohol is totally underestimated - it made me such a sneak and a liar and I could manipulate any situation to justify to myself drinking. I remember being at the stage of I met a friend in a shop and I had alcohol - I didn't even bother to justify it. I was just thinking 'we will both ignore the elephant in the room' lol anyway rambling on as always...