Does drinking cause you problems in your life?

If, it has, chances are it will continue if, you continue drinking

Groucho, to be honest, I found your posting horrifying.

I somehow justified my continued drinking after several blackouts over a period of four years: one in each of the first two years, two in the third year, and four in the forth year.

I cannot believe how many brain cells I have killed. Thank God I didn't hurt anyone else.

I am not judging you: you just made me see myself during the last few years.

I am an alcoholic, and I will be d***** if I let alcohol do any more damage to me, even moderate damage.

I don't like these types of threads and the way they inevitably slide into talk 'real alcoholics' vs 'heavy drinkers'.

I know which one I chose to think of myself as.

The bottom line is - it doesn't matter what you are.
Whatever you're doing is alcohol abuse Groucho.

You're drinking 1.5 to 2 bottles of wine a day...and topping that up with bourbon where necessary.

You're drinking in secret, hiding it from your wife.

You do black out, however infrequently.

you 'don't seem to be able to stop yrself from engaging in pretty frequent secret binge drinking'

and yet - like all of us, you still want to play with alcohol and try moderation.

That worries me.

I know - you've provided mitigation.
You obviously hope that you can pull back on the throttle and be a 'normal' drinker.

I dont know yr full story - I hope you're right, I really do.

But as Captain Z said, this is a progressive disease. If I had stopped myself where you are, I might have saved myself a good 10 years of a drinking career.

But I followed it through the end. And I didn't even realise it was happening until it was way way too late.

D

Theresa - Thanks for your experience. I really do appreciate it, but I don't think recovery is for me. This puts it pretty well:

I don't doubt that alcohol has become a problem for me, but I often drink in moderation, and I don't think that AA or any similar program is directed towards me. I keep the Big Book within arm's length in my home office. This is how Bill described a real alcoholic:

But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but [sic] at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.

Here is the fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control. He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking. He is a real Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. He is seldom mildly intoxicated. He is always more or less insanely drunk.

I don't claim that my drinking is good for me, but it's pretty clear from the real alcoholics her that I should look elsewhere for a solution.

Thanks again!!

Groucho I 100% agree with you, plainly you are not an alcoholic! It is great that you are here though posting:-)

Crack on and come back if you ever get to the point where you get out of control with it. I was a functional drinker would have a few beers a day and 1.5-2 bottles of cava a night with maybe one or two days not drinking during the week. I had all the remource and guilt associated with doing this and it was a living hell, these are very strong characteristics of an alcoholic, so I am one and totally stopping alcohol is the only way for me.

Each to their own, whatever gets you through to 6 foot under i guess!

Groucho.
Just because you are not an alcoholic doesn't mean that you don't have a drinking problem and should not drink. The Captain already said this. If you didn't have a drinking problem you probably wouldn't be here.
From this thread I suspect that I am not an alcoholic either by the AA definition but I do have a drinking problem and I know the solution to my problem is to never drink again. If another solution works for you I envy you.
Good luck.

Groucho...I have to agree with Dee on this..your alcohol consumption and drinking habits sound dangerous. Hiding your drinking means you know something is wrong...why not take sometime off alcohol for a while...another 6 months perhaps....see how you feel after that.

yeahgr8...please do NOT attempt to play doctor with others lives...you do NOT know 100% of anything about Groucho...none of us do....you post is dangerous.

Groucho, I really admire your honesty when posting about your experience. It is posts such as yours that make me keep coming back to SR.

Best

Groucho, By all means look elsewhere, look EVERYWHERE, but I think I'm a "real alcoholic" (wish I wasn't), and I certainly will not tell you that you should go someplace else. Sober Recovery is not only for the AA is not only for Alcoholics, real or imagined. It's for people who have problems with alcohol or other substances, and you say you had health problems and it even seems you have a problem if you feel you need to sneak a drink. Posting here helps, stay with us!

"More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it."

i've almost read the whole thread and found it very useful and informative. thanks for that everyone.

i recently got back from a month-long trip though se asia with some friends of mine, which quite naturally entailed a lot of drinking. i had at least a few drinks almost every day, and my buddy and i were really hitting it hard for the final 8 days or so. the day before i flew back i started getting pretty intense withdrawals (a few panic attacks, insomnia, intermittent but intense depression, etc.), which lasted for a few days and then gradually diminished in severity. that was three weeks ago. i'd never experienced withdrawal before. i haven't had a drink since and i'm feeling a lot better - i don't yet feel COMPLETELY back to normal, but i'm assuming that will take another few weeks.

anyway my point is, i've spent a lot of time these past couple weeks agonizing over whether this means i'm a capital A alcoholic or not, and i've come to the conclusion that i'm probably not. i've never had any trouble controlling my drinking - i only drink with friends, normally only a few times a month, i stop when everyone else does, it's not problem for me to have three or four and then stop if that's what everyone else is doing, i almost never drink alone, etc. the withdrawal experience has been, uh, "sobering," and i'll definitely watch my drinking from here on out. but seriously doubt i'm a "real" alcoholic.

i can empathize with those who feel threatened by all this "controlled drinking" research. i understand that for "real" alcholics, having the (scientifically-backed) possibility of a return to controlled drinking dangled in front of their faces doesn't do them any good; obviously you want to keep keep these people on the wagon, and if you are one yourself it's understandable to feel threatened by any new information that might tempt you to jump off. but i think this "better safe than sorry" approach in the mainstream literature engenders a lot of confusion. from reading a lot of the literature i was starting to get the impression that having experienced the tolerance + physical dependence + withdrawal automatically qualified you as an alcoholic. from what i've gathered reading this thread, that doesn't seem to be the case. at least in my case, that trip to southeast asia is not going to happen again.

that said, the fact that i had intense such withdrawal symptoms while my buddy, who was drinking just as much as i was, had no trouble at all, leads me to think i should still be careful. there are apparently a number of neurobiological pathways through which alcoholism manifests itself. i suspect i'm vulnerable in this one regard, and not as vulnerable in others. for me this is a much more useful way to think of things, and it clears up a lot of confusion. in a "real" alcoholic i suspect a number of these pathways converge, making a return to moderation basically impossible. but this is obviously not true of everyone who has, or has had, a drinking problem.

hodori...:wave:
Welcome to SR and our Alcoholism Forum

Glad to know you binge did not cause
you lasting damage.

If I played Russian roulette with one bullet in a six-shooter, NOBODY could reliably tell me if I'd ever blow my brains out, or at which spin.

But I could absolutely tell you that I wouldn't, if I never played.

CLMI

Thanks to those of you who took some time to respond to me. I should probably clarify. Both of my posts were attempts to play devil's advocate with a position I don't agree with, but pretty accurately describes the games my brain plays with me on a daily basis. I am not now in recovery, but I don't really doubt that I need to quit drinking, probably with the help of AA. As much as I resent the notion of somebody in the rooms telling somebody else they don't qualify because they don't have the "right" symptoms or experiences, I'm all too apt to make the same arguments to myself when convenient. Certainly it's illuminating to me when I juxtapose those arguments with an honest assessment of my actual drinking patterns and circumstances.

I do think the people over on the Friends & Family area would be dumbfounded at the hair splitting we're apt to engage in over what is or is not alcoholism. They don't seem to harbor any of the same uncertainties that we do. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Groucho....:)
good to know you are thinking about a sober future.

Of course, it does not have to be AA.
However...on line discussion boards have little to
do with my experiences in AA meetings.

For instance...my noon meeting topic was about
choices and taking personal responsbility.
:)...It might have been interesting for you too.

24 of us ...in all stages of recovery...thought it was.

Hope you too will find joy and serenity
:yup:

As this thread has so many shares and much information to
think about....:)...and...
it's getting too difficult to read......

I'm going to close it.
Please begin another tread if you choose.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts...ideas and experiences.