Vanilla28

Hi everyone, i was just wondering, and im sure a lot of people have thought this after not drinking for a bit......

im starting to question if i am an alcoholic or just an abuser of it. probably now because im feeling good and am maybe being neive in my sobrity, i know i definatly had a problem and was drinking everynight for a long time...but maybe it was more just the bordom of my life.

anyone else do this? start to question things because you are now feeling good?
thanks

day 14 for me.

suki44883

It's quite common, actually. After a period of abstinence, the bad memories begin to fade and you begin to tell yourself that if you can go 14 days without drinking that you must not have a problem. Alcoholism isn't determined by the amount your drink or how often you drink. It is determined by whether or not you can control yourself when you do drink. Can you just have one and let it go at that? Is just having one drink ridiculous to you? Why did you decide to stop drinking? Why are you questioning yourself?

CarolD

Wellcome to our recovery community....

Perhaps another way of thinking might give you answers.

Why is it important for you to go back to drinking
a toxic liquid ...especially when you feel good without it?

Well done on your early sober weeks...I hope you will
cntinue and live in health....

Anna

Hi Vanilla,

Welcome!

I was still feeling a lot of guilt at 14 days, so I wasn't where you are.

But, I do think our minds can play tricks with us and urge us to believe it's okay and we can be in control. But, can we? I can't.

mama36

Vanilla - I don't know your story on how you behaved when you drank or how unmanagable you life had become while you were drinking, but I do know from my own experiences in the past that I ALWAYS got to a point where I reasoned with myself about how I was just going overboard with the drinking and I just needed to smarten up a bit. I THOUGHT that I could drink in a controlled fashion and that I could learn not to abuse the alcohol...well, you know what Thought thought? Thought thought he had his pants down and sh't himself...!

I thought wrong...I could not control it and I could not just have a few. If you are here, my guess is that you have realized that you have a drinking problem and it has likely gone on for some time now. I suspect that you have tried controlled drinking in the past and maybe it didn't work and that is why you found this place? If that is the case then you should reach out and get in touch with some alcohol abuse programs and get started on the road to recovery. You know, going to AA will help you to determine definitely what exactly the issue is and how bad it is. Just a recommendation before you convince yourself that you are just an "abuser" you should get some help. The problem is, if you try to control this on your own and it turns out that you "thought" wrong, you are right back into the booze and sometimes it takes a good long time before you figure out that you should not have tried it in the first place.

You need to realize that alcoholics, or abusers do this. They get through a rough patch only to convince themselves that they are okay now and have either learned a lesson or aren't as bad as they thought they were...when we are feeling a bit better it is easy to forget how sh'tty we really felt of how we behaved.

D.

Dee74

I second guessed myself a lot over 20 years - I wasn't that bad, I was over reacting, no reason why I couldn't have one....

The thing I missed through all those years is why I needed 'one' at all.

I look back now and marvel that I didn't look at all the trouble drinking caused me and just...walk away.

But that's what you get with my kind of problem.

Call it what you like - alcoholism or dependency, addiction or problem - normal folks don't need to drink.

D

artsoul

Hi Vanilla - I'd bet probably everyone here has had the same thoughts you're having. I got sober for 3 years and then decided I could drink again (differently "this time" of course). I felt that maybe I had been abusing alcohol because of what I was going through at the time. So I started off having a few drinks here and there. After my drinking progressed to where I'd started from, I had to get sober again. This time I stayed sober for 4 years and decided once again I was strong enough and smart enough to have "a few." I told myself I had been abusing it because of the situation I was in. I took me 7 years to get back (and lots more pain than the first two times).

So..... this time I know better.

(Read Carol and Suki's posts again - I think the questions they raised are really good ones.)

least

Nope, normal people don't 'need' to drink. I tried so many times to moderate my drinking but never could for very long. It was always back into the pit of Hell that I ended up. Why it took me so long to finally figure it out, I don't know. I'm just glad I did and don't want to drink anymore. Not even a drop.

Remind yourself of why you stopped in the first place. I hope you don't fool yourself into drinking again. It's just not worth it.

Vanilla28

thanks guys for all the responses. they really helped. i was just having a 'moment' of cloudy thoughts. something mama36 said reminded me of something someone said when i was in detox. we had an aa panel come in and a lady said 'when i first came though here i felt like i wasnt anything like these people, but ill tell you one thing, someone who is just a social drinking, doesnt even THINK about needing to go to a place like this, or look up AA online' lol

i know i have a problem with it. i know if i have one glass, it will end up being the whole bottle. sometimes it just feels like a hard pill to swallow and im one of those annoying overthinkers. lol

anyways, still not drinking and nearing the end of my day 14.

mama36

Yay Vanilla...only 2 days apart, you and I. Keep it up!

D.

Antiderivative

Its good that you are being honest and recognize that you have a problem. If you question your drinking and landed yourself in detox, then that is a sign of a problem. "Normal" people do not even question their drinking.

I can't say if you are an alcoholic or a problem drinker. However, from my experience with an addictive mindset, I notice that I was rationalizing, minimizing, and making excusing for my drinking for a long time.

Anyways, congratulations on ending day 14 and remaining sober tonight. That is fantastic!

doggonecarl

Day 16 for me and I caught myself thinking the same thing as you...that I am making this a bigger problem than it really is, that I wasn't truely dependent on alcohol. You nailed it in you last post:
Sounds like you have all the insight you need within yourself. Lean on SR for the support it can provide. Hang in there.

firestorm090

I've asked myself that same question at least a few hundred times. It was always in an attempt to say that today, just for today, I may be wrong, maybe I'm overthinking all this alcohol stuff and maybe a few beers while watching the game won't hurt me. In fact, I ask myself that same question regardless of whatever game is on tv, be it football, baseball, basketball, whatever. Or any holiday, or a birthday in the family, or my birthday, or the neighbor's birthday. I ask myself that same question everyday, and whenever I honestly deny the truth, I get drunk. The truth is I can't drink, am alcoholic and I don't want to be, but that is the truth, and whenever I find myself not accepting myself as I am, which is a daily struggle, I'm on slippery ground.

And I too have become bored with life, and that's because I've spent so much time drinking that I never developed a life that was full and enjoyable without booze.

Today is day 11 for me, so I'm three days behind you and feel exactly like you feel, except I feel better today because I didn't drink last night, nor today. Now that we're not drinking, we have to learn how to live life without alcohol, and that's no small task.

Keep asking for help, try AA or another recovery program and look into things that may help you fill your time enjoyably, so life doesn't seem boring. Another drink is just not worth the pain.

oak

Welcome Vanilla!

I get those same thoughts a lot. Day 19 for me.

I had years of sobriety and then questioned if I could drink ok. No- I could not. I regret drinking again.

Congrats on your sobriety!!! I hope you like it here.

NEOMARXIST

This is something that I wrote in my post entitled positivity. I think it is relevant to what you're questioning...

When you question the point of staying sober then make sure to ask yourself why you decided to get sober in the first place. There must have been a pretty good reason and using the logic that people who ain't alcoholics probably don't post on recovery sites for alcoholics or attend meetings for alcoholics, then everything points to being an alcoholic, and drinking for an alcoholic has no happy endings.

SixStringZen

I don't parse....alcoholic/alcohol addict/heavy drinker/problem drinker....it's irrelevant to me, as my solution is the same for any of them...don't have the first one...it eliminates my guess work

shaun00

Could be........only you know whether its alcoholism.

my experience is.......
alcohlism is a wonderful twister of the mind.....playing tricks and fantasy sometimes becomes believable.

example....

Im a flat out chronic alcoholic ....i lived from day to day as a vagrant and begging for cash to buy booze.....i will do anything and walk anywhere to get a drink.......if i could get away with it id take yours too.
classic skid row drunk.

2 weeks sober having been restrained to the hospital bed and medicated through delirium tremens......my old mind starts to play it little tricks.
maybe its a wife problem....... geez you would drink if you were married to her.
maybe it a career problem......man gotta work right..

Now i have a roof over my head maybe i can drink safely.......maybe just on Saturdays.........OOOOOO...Id love to have 1 glass with my wife.....hand on heart i dont recall ever having one.......but believable it becomes.

I become irritable........this bloody head wont shut up for 5 minutes.
its like the sirens calling the sailers onto the rocks.

Before long the last drink seems a million years ago
The horrendous cosequences of the last drink become foggy........was in that bad??.......really.

or did i just loose my way a bit..........f.....it.........im gonna try....all men drink right?
then that awful morning when i wake trembling for another and i have to get it.......i gave up to an mental obsession.......now ive kicked of an allergy of sorts and around i go again..

Alcoholism justs love to convince me im a moderate drinker with a few external problem......lol....lol...........its laughable if it wasnt so tragic to some.
thats me anyhow.

shaun00

So now im stuck with that obssesion and allergy.
It was suggested to me the solution may lie in a book alcoholics anonymous.

i embarked on rigorous step work by following direction laid out in that book and with the experience of my then sponsor.

then and only then did i see the truth.......and the truth was i was doomed to do it all over again unless i could recover.

bellakeller

My rule of thumb is "Don't believe whatcha think". Especially earlier in recovery. That rule has gotten me out of so much trouble!

longislandsk8r

I cant count how many times Ive thought this! Not to mention every single relapse Ive ever had was because I started feeling good again, got 'bored' and than was right back in misery the next morning...Think a lot before you try and go back, youll never regret not drinking...Stay strong.