Flying4Life

I still can't say for sure that I have alcoholism, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

After being sober for a full month. I drank while I was away on vacation for a few days. It was pretty much meh. I guess I did it because there was some family pressure. During the evenings, they just wanted to sit around and talk and drink. Nothing bad happened, I didn't get drunk or embarrass myself or have to nurse a hangover the next day.

I haven't had a drink since, because I haven't wanted to. I'd rather be sober than drinking. I can be really hard on myself. My mother had a serious drinking problem and it killed her recently. I wish I could've fixed her but I just couldn't. I wonder if I was subconsciously taking on her issues in a way to feel closer to her.

I might not be an alcoholic but I feel compelled to watch my drinking closely. Ultimately, I feel like sobriety is the best option but I may not be ready for permanent sobriety just yet. I am taking it one day at a time and I hope that I will still be welcome here.
Thanks for reading.

Live2Run25

Only you can really know what's best for you, but if you mother died of problems from alcohol, it's proabably much more likely that you'd develop problems yourself. My dad is an alcoholic, and how about that? So am I.

Best of luck!

Someguy23

Thank you very much for your post.

It is exactly the situation I am in myself and it's nice to know I'm not alone. I could have written the above two phrases word for word. Now I don't have to, I can just quote you...

Personally, I do consider myself an alcoholic and I do think I'll have to give up drinking completely at some point but I don't think I'll be able to until I will feel that I want to quit drinking rather than that I have to quit drinking.

Until then, I'm doing - for lack of a better term - harm reduction. And I also hope I am still welcome here.

Incidentally, I too have noticed that drinking lost a lot of its appeal after a period of abstinence.

Dee74

I struggled with this question for 20 years - eventually I drank all day so the question was answered for me.

Maybe the question is best phrased in terms of 'do I have a problem' rather than 'do I fit the alcoholic criteria'?

Looking back at my earlier drinking period I clearly used alcohol as a coping strategy for my life, and I could never stay away from alcohol for any appreciable time - my 'record' was two months... and that was pretty agonising by the end...

I think that should have told me something - alcoholic or not, I had a problem.

D