robertbryant

Hi all,

I have a tendency to be rather verbose - so apologies in advance if this ends up being a long post - but I will do my best to keep it brief.

Essentially, I never thought of myself as an alcoholic (or even a potential candidate for alcoholism) until a few years ago when my long-term (6 years) girlfriend left me. Her leaving me, and the time at which she did so, had a rather profound effect on me. I didn't quite know what to do, and found myself in the position of having nothing to do and enough money to let me drink my sorrows away without it impacting my quality of life.

Long story short, I spent about 3-4 months drinking rather freely. I started out with a few drinks a day, and ended up (as I'm sure most of you have) having wine and whisky for breakfast. In the end I realised that drinking 2 bottles of wine, the better part of a bottle of whisky, and a few beers every day probably wasn't a great direction for my life to take. So I forced myself to quit drinking (and went through a 2-week withdrawal period filled with panic attacks and constant longing for booze).

All fine and dandy until I started dating again, and on a particularly good date the girl (now my girlfriend) asked me if I wanted to hit a bar after our alcohol-free dinner, as the restaurant was closing. I said yes, because I could sense there was potential for this relationship to go a lot further. I ended up drinking 2 gin and tonics that night, as I didn't want to admit to having had an issue with alcohol, and have been drinking since.

It was periodical at first, and seeing as I like to think that I am an intellectual person with control over my own actions.. I didn't think it would be an issue once I overcame the pain of losing my ex. Well, turns out I was wrong. While I never had an issue before the break-up, I now (2 years later) find myself drinking nearly every day, and hiding it from my girlfriend.

People who don't drink regularly tend to be very obvious drunks.. I, however, can easily have one or two bottles of wine without her noticing. The thing is, people tend to like me more when I'm "drunk" as I'm more sociable and very.. hmm, well, creative in terms of making conversations interesting. When I'm sober, I tend to be more withdrawn. In addition, I like who I am when under the influence more than my sober self. I also have a rather restless mind, and can't shut off the part of myself that thinks about work or tries to solve whatever issue may be at hand, when I'm sober. It really gets to be, because it's stupendously tiring to always be "switched on".

The only negative thing about my drinking, so far as I am concerned, is that I get rather impulsive with my emotions when the buzz is wearing off. So towards the end of the night, I often have little arguments with my girlfriend where I end up saying something in an exaggerated manner. The sentiment is always true, but sometimes too honest. Apart from that, it is nothing but positive (well.. I have added a few pounds around the belly, but I'm working on that and find that I can go for a run and lift weights before I start drinking, and I have cut carbs out of my diet, so I'm getting pretty fit again).

Anyway, I just don't know if this is healthy.. It seems a pretty common course for your life to take for people in my situation (I'm an academic and a writer; two professions prone to "over-"consuming alcohol).

In short: How do you know if you have an issue? I don't believe in any of the online quizzes, as even a moderate drinker can get a score that would indicate alcoholism..

Thanks!

Carlotta

Only you can determine if alcohol is a problem for you or not and whether or not you are an alcoholic.
I would suggest that you quit immediately (no last hurray, right now this minute) for 90 days, no support of any kind just go on as you would normally without booze and see how it goes. If you can do it without any thoughts of alcohol, without planning your 91s day drink, without physical or mental discomfort then you are probably just a heavy drinker.
If you can't then you got your answer.

Carlotta

oh and if at my suggestion to quit at this minute your first thought was:
I ll do it tomorrow
then alcohol has a hold on you.

zjw

I dunno sounds a bit suspect and your here.

Theres some books out there that offer some solutions to this that doesnt include drinking. Drinking really doesnt solve anything. You do realize alcohol is poisoness why would it be a solution? I can recomend some good books if you like PM me.

From your post it sounds like your in a lucky position that your here asking about this now rather then 10 years from now in a ditch wondering how your life ended up in the crap house.

If it where me I'd quit now before it got bad. But then I have the benefit of being sober for a few years now and beating it. Without that benefit I might also just be likly to keep drinking too.

Its really up to you. Drinkings not offering you any solution so quit for a while see how it goes if thats a struggle for you then maybe thats your answer.

silentrun

You sound like you are headed for trouble. If you can quit now and not look back consider yourself very fortunate. You are having a lucid thoughts about what is happening to you. Don't dismiss your sense that something isn't right. Grab onto it.
How I figured out I was in deep dodo. One morning I looked down and my hands were shaking. All I could think about was getting some more booze in my system. In that moment I knew.

awuh1

You had a period of time where you had "wine and whisky for breakfast". Typically with this sort of history, and after a period of abstinence and subsequent drink, the result is for the pattern to repeat itself (with or without a future breakup). This is not to say it will happen in your case but if the pattern of excessive drinking begins to show itself, when will you recognize this and quit? Will you then be able to be honest with this current girlfriend about the problem? Most importantly, will you be able to be honest with yourself?

JeffreyAK

I think it depends what you think alcoholism means. The DSM-IV or V questionnaires are pretty good, and have been thought through very carefully, and moderate drinkers are almost certainly not going to get a score indicating alcoholism. If you don't like your score, might be time to give it some more honest thought? From what you described, it would be a disservice to say anything other than, sounds to me like you have a problem and should quit.

Incidentally, I'm an academic too, and we can be the hardest nuts to crack. We tend to think we can solve addiction problems intellectually, and find some magic way to will our negative consequences away and drink like all those other people can. It can take a lot of severe consequences to drive home that it's not a problem that can be solved that way.

dwtbd

As an academic , you are asking members of a sobriety forum if over consumption of alcohol is healthy?
Do you know the biological effects of alcohol on the human body? Which organs are harmed and how? Is your professional position secure enough, among your peers(competitors), that purposely and continually diminishing your brain function is sustainable?
I also think you are overestimating the breadth of the commonality of over consumption of alcohol among those whose profession is based on their intellectual capacity, or at least among those with sustained success .

Che

1. Yes you have a problem with alcohol.
2. Reread your post to find out why.

Hiding your consumption from others is psychologically unhealthy, drinking every day is physically unsustainable. In the long term both will have repercussions. The fact that you used alcohol to deal with your breakup in a way that got out of control should suggest to you that you need to be a lot more careful about your consumption, and a lot more honest with yourself and others. This is a problem that quietly gets more and more out of control once you start using alcohol for the wrong reasons.

You would be surprised what people know and ignore. This type of thing is really awkward to bring up, and some people just hope it is a phase that will pass. If you stop drinking like a fool today, maybe that can come true :P

Bmac

Do YOU think you are an alcoholic? It's really the only opinion that matters.

sugarbear1

just stop drinking it.

if it's easy to stop and your problems go away, maybe it was the alcohol, so don't drink.

if you can't stay stopped or if you are sober and life seems to be getting worse, it may be alcoholism. there are methods to work to get through life sober.

zjw

to give you an idea how blind we can be for the first year i was sober I still didnt think i was an alcholic or had a drinking problem.

at about my 1 year mark I signed up here and started reading and such went to an AA meeting and realized I was an alcoholic. and that all this stuff i wrestled with was becuase i was an alcoholic etc.. it all made sense to me.

But boy was i blind for a good while.

Arbor

Most of us? I never drank in the morning never mind wine and whisky for breakfast and consider myself very alcoholic.

least

If alcohol is causing any problems, stop drinking for at least three months and see how you feel then.

MIRecovery

You may wish to read the description of the alcoholic in the AA big book. When I did I immediately recognized myself

kinzoku

You sound a hell of a lot like me. Right down to the verbosity (and my love of the word verbosity). It's funny how easy it is to rationalize things. Think about this: if you didn't have a problem would you have to hide your drinking? Would you be here now? Maybe.

Probably not.

lillyknitting

Someone suggested to me once "quit for three months and then review how you feel".

Gottalife

That's a good point. And there are plenty of charletans who will diagnose alcoholism at the drop of a hat, and charge you heaps for their treatment.

Alcoholism is not the only valid reason for giving up drinking. As a carcinogen, alcohol is in the same class as cigarettes. Throat, stomach, pancreatic and liver cancers are common among heavy drinkers as is heart disease. So there are good health reasons for stopping.

Then there are things like love, career, sports interests or maybe even family which can also provide strong reasons to stop for the non alcoholic heavy drinker.

Where alcoholism might be indicated is where an individual has very compelling reasons like those above, and really wants to stop, but finds they are unable to.
Another indicator is the inability to guarantee every time how much he will drink, once he takes the first one.

As suggested earlier, just stop for a period like 90 days, and see how it goes.

PurpleKnight

Welcome to the Forum!!

I guess something has triggered these thoughts about your drinking to make you come to to Forum to ask about them, people without a problem rarely stop to consider if they have one!!

MelindaFlowers

Hey Robert,

As a former heavy drinker and now as a nondrinker I can tell you something with almost complete certainty: Everyone knows you've had a lot to drink if they're around you after two bottles of wine. I've had nine months of very astute sober observations of people I know as they drink and it is much more obvious than we think.

What I see is that a person's rhythm changes. The rhythm of how they speak, how they laugh, how they make eye contact, how they might put their hand on my arm, how they tell jokes or stories that go on just a bit too long, and how they are very open with their feelings all of a sudden.

I used to think that I came across as just a relaxed, funny, likeable person when drinking so this has been quite an eye-opening experience observing the past nine months. It doesn't mean they're being obnoxious, but I can spot someone from ten paces if they've had more than two drinks.

A second way that is painfully obvious, again this is a shock to me, is the smell. My guy likes to drink but he's not an alcoholic (I can also spot those from 10 paces) and I can smell it from six feet away when he's had three beers, wine, spirits, whatever. When you are stone sober the smell is very pungent. When he goes to bed before me I can smell it as soon as I walk into the bedroom.

Nobody every really said anything to me either. I think it's really awkward and they may just think we just "like our booze a bit too much" and there isn't a serious problem, but trust me, they know.

We get so used to it, we naturally don't think too much of having a bottle or three of wine in one evening. But to the vast majority of the population, they can see right through it. The only way to hide drinking is to drink alone and then don't touch your phone or facebook or walk out onto the porch. Then of course hide the hangover the next day. I can also spot those from a mile away. I'm not sure if non-alcoholics can spot hangovers as well as drunk people.