Originally Posted by
Gottalife 
I am sure there are a good number of non alcoholics claiming AA membership these days, though I can't think why they would want to do that.
It was ambiguity about where I fell on the spectrum in some of my earlier visits to AA that was enough to convince me my problem was manageable and maybe I didn't belong there. I even had an old timer I'd never met, and who knew nothing of my drinking past, suggest that I wasn't "bad off enough to need AA." So I left. Six months later I returned in a neck brace, having totaled my car in a blackout and broken my neck. Bad off enough now? Point being, the lines between what constitutes a "real" alcoholic vs a problem drinker is a moving target as far as I can tell. And what alcoholism looks like from one alcoholic to the next is not always clear. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking, not how we label ourselves.