Hefner

Hi everyone,

I post on here now and then and recently I have been having an identity crisis. I have identified as an Alcoholic for some time now and finally did something about it. Those on here who follow me know that I just celebrated 1 year of sobriety last Month, May 16th. Until I got sober I drank every day for a LONG time. I still can't recall my last 24 hour period without a beer. I drank heavily on some days and " normally " on others but I ALWAYS drank. I have never been a shot guy. I only drank Beer. Period. I actually have a fully stocked Bar and Wine in my Cellar which I have never touched, nor do I want to. I can be around hard Liquor and Wine and Hard Lemonaides and yadda yadda yadda . . . . you get the point. I'm at a place now where I no longer crave Beer. Now let me preface this question by saying that I know if I drink Beer again I'm in for a world of hurt and that's just a plain fact so don't panic and call the Sobriety Police on me BUT are there people out there who might identify as Alcoholics who are not? Beer ran my life for YEARS and I have the horror stories just like everyone else to prove it but I see posts on here and I actually think " I had a walk in he Park compared to that! " Now I am NOT making fun of anyone's situation. On the contrary I think many on here have had a worse battle with the Bottle than I did and that is why I'm somewhat confused. Even my mother brought it up one day. She said something to the affect of " I'm not so sure you are an alcoholic. A good drunk yes but maybe not an Alcoholic. " I assured her that if she gave me a 12 pack of Sam Adams I could prove her wrong. We both kind of laughed and moved past it. Either way, Drunk or Alcoholic I know I can never drink responsibly again.it might start out that way but it won't last and that is why I identify as an Alcoholic.

soberlicious

Exactly. Doesn't really matter what you call it.

Nuudawn

Yes, its all just semantics. Problem drinker, heavy drinker, hard partier, alcohol abuser.
All I know is that if I have one drink, I no longer have any certainty of the outcome. I am no longer in control.

Grungehead

I always thought an alcoholic was a drunk who was an expert in his/her field. And trust me us beer drinkers make top notch alcoholics. We may not have the speed of the ones taking shots but we have the endurance to keep on going after everyone else is passed out.

DarkDays

As above does it really matter, you was addicted to alcohol regardless.

LadyinBC

I wouldn't even start out responsibly. One drink and I am done for. I would never be able to just have one. I would start right where I ended.

fantail

Well, you hit on the point that there's really "no such thing" as an alcoholic if you try to define it too narrowly. It's a word that refers to a wide range of symptoms and behaviors and characteristics, all clustered around alcohol dependence.

They do have two broad "types" of alcoholics in the literature... Type A is people like me. Genetic predisposition, underlying mental health issues, jump into it young and quickly escalate to problem drinking then full on dependence. Type B is the slow growth, people who drink normally for a while and then bring it into their life and stress coping mechanisms more and more until one day they're dependent... they tend to be older when they seek treatment.

And that's it... that's the closest scientific description I've seen to any kind of descriptor of what an alcoholic is.

So yeah, I dunno. I have a weird relationship with the word. I embrace it fully for use in therapy or on here or wherever in my active recovery... it makes sense to me, I know what I am. But in colloquial life it means too many things to too many people for me to imagine I'll ever feel OK describing myself that way in normal conversation.

fantail

Haha oh yes! I admit I cross-trained a bit but my key event was definitely the beer marathon.

john44

I kept the important parts for you.

john44

Thanks for posting that; I've never seen it before. Can you point me to the literature/study that addresses this? I'm definitely 100% Type B. Most of the people I've met in AA would say they're Type A, Many of the stories I've heard start out "I had my first drink at 13 and it changed my life, I knew right away I never wanted to be without alcohol." or some version of this. It wasn't like that for me and I've found relatively few people in AA whose story is similar to mine.

I think this is one of the reasons it took me so long to admit I had a problem. I would think "I'm not like that". When it occurred to me that it didn't matter how it started but where it was and was headed, that made it easier to admit the problem and get to the point of surrender.

tomsteve

ex beer drinker here. think I need "good drunk" defined.
it wasn't about how much I drank or what type of alcohol I drank. it was about my actions and thinking when I drank.
if it walks, flys, swims, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

john44

This is true.

I've just been reading about Type A and B alcoholism (actually A is late onset and B is early in all the literature I've read so far). I believe the distinction is important because different pharmacological treatments could be employed which have actually shown measures of success.

GreenEggsAndHam

Sounds like the AV talking, IMO. You may think you don't intend to drink again, but the seed is being planted that you weren't so bad after all.

I have these thoughts daily (another beer drinker here), but I need to always identify with being an alcoholic because that's what I am regardless of what or how much I drank, if I could sometimes moderate, if I wasn't lying in a ditch when I sought treatment, etc. I know that *for me,* it will be a slippery slope when I convince myself I'm not.

2granddaughters

To be labeled an alcoholic is something that only I can truly do....

but I have to use the evidence supplied by loved ones/friends to make the ruling.

After all, how many of us after a horrendous drunk said/thought a day or two later "That wasn't so bad" and promptly forgot the episode only to repeat it. Go ask your wife/mother/boss a day or two later what they thought.

My blaming, blindness and denial kept me from really seeing/accepting/admitting the truth .. or beginning to correct it.

All the best.

Bob R

sugarbear1

I wanted to not identify with being an alcoholic, either. A drunk is a drunk. High bottom or low bottom, we can not become "normal" drinkers.

I drank beer, too. My sobriety date is May 16, 2011. I refuse to find out what would happen if I drank again.

I don't suggest finding out how low you can get as it ALWAYS gets worse. One beer will create The Kindling Effect. Could take you a month or several years, but it WILL get worse. Your "not yets" WILL happen and then you can say your stories are as "bad" as that guy's stories.....

"it might start out that way but it won't last and that is why I identify as an Alcoholic." You ARE correct!

Stay strong and stay stopped!

bigsombrero

I am a pretty versatile alcoholic. I started out drinking only beer, for probably about 10 years there I strictly drank domestic beer, always in social settings. I went out A LOT. I moved on to more "mature tastes" and started drinking the IPA's, the stouts, the microbrews, the craft beers. Then I moved on to a wine phase, for months I lived off red wine - I had been to Paris, so I'd magically become an expert and was only drinking it for the taste..LOL. Then came vodka. First it was the fancy stuff, and by the end I was down to buying the crappy Gordon's brand by the gallon because I'd lost my job and had little cash.

In the end, it doesn't matter. An alcoholic in my treatment center had resorted to drinking Hand Sanitizer.

There's always someone "worse" than you, too. Don't let that fool you. Alcohol is the key component.

Hefner

Thanks to everyone for the replys. As I said I know I can not ever drink again so no seed has been planted. As I said in one of my earlier posts " I know that I'm not cured. There is no cure. My Monster is out in my driveway doing pushups right now " . I just wanted some feedback and got it. I'm DEFINETLY the guy who slowly let it build until realizing later in life that it was out of control. Thanks again.

LiveforToday22

I used to drink beer, thought it was awesome. Never drank wine, I was a
"man" and wouldnt be caught dead drinking that. I got a pretty big tolerance to beer and switched to vodka (skol) and never looked back. I used to wonder how people couldnt drink, I thought it was the meaning of life. I never was able to control it, ever. Towards the end of my drinking I always thought, "why me????" Now that im sober, I think "why not me?"

Dee74

my family doesn't think I'm an alcoholic because there's a lot of baggage to that term and we just don't have that in our family....

My old friends don't think I'm an alcoholic because to accept that would mean holding up a pretty unflattering mirror to their own lives....

and...they've been times I've wondered if I was really an alcoholic, or just caught up in a really bad way of life...

but that's the nature of this thing...it'll do its very best to convince you there's no problem....

This 'thing', whatever you or I want to call it, nearly killed me.

D

FBL

For years I told myself I wasn't an alcoholic for many reasons:
1) I only drank beer
2) I never missed a day of work
3) I never crashed my car (the DUI I got was just "bad luck")
4) I never got mean or nasty with others
5) I only blacked out "once in awhile"...etc, etc.

Turns out, I was only fooling myself.