LifeChanges

There have been many times when I am in a social setting and I feel I can spot another alcoholic. And I mean both parties being active alcoholics. I am not saying they are obnoxiously drunk or even acting sloppy. I'm saying by the dead look In their eyes. Or maybe the face bloat. Or maybe the fact that they look at others drinks to see how soon they can order their next.
I've asked my normal drinking husband, did you see so and so drinking twice as fast! Nope, he doesn't notice. Did you see so and so order shots and needed us to drink the, so they could? No, just thought he was out having fun.
Yes, clearly I seek and find behaviors similar to my own thinking.

Do you think it's easy to spot other troubled drinkers or alcoholics because we are the same?

Sometimes it's just the look in their eyes that makes me feel like we have this drunk connection, even when no drinking is involved.

Mklove

Definitely, I see it and hear it even when I'm not looking. I drove some coworkers to an event and they were almost panicked about when they could start drinking. I'm some of their boss and it was after work so I really didn't care, good chance to have fun and I could be DD. Boy I learned about them that night, in fact more than I needed to ever know.

doggonecarl

If I'm supposed to be able to spot alcoholics, why did I fail to see the one in the mirror for so many years?

Mattq2

Wow Carl, I think I was to drunk usually to notice that the man in the mirror was an alcoholic. Somebody else told me he was.😀.

I think now with a small amount of sober time I do see the signs in people when I am around people drinking. It's a sad thing when you realize how many people have problems. Like I said I was usually to drunk and self absorbed to notice anything when I was drinking

Forward12

Sometimes. Just a few times that stand out me were being at the local bar on a friday or saturday night that's mostly all 20somethings, and there are a couple shriveled older guys sitting in the corner who are there every day, likely all day.
Another buying two pints of cheap vodka at 11 am at the pantry, to say to the clerk without a care that he was on his lunch break and saving the other for later, to go into his car and start slamming the bottle in the parking lot.
Another was a guy wreaking of booze at 8 in the morning at the grocery store with a big bottle of skol in hand.
Most all had that same unhealthy "alcoholic" look with either the look of misery, or gitty without a care in the world attitude.

DesertDawg

I've never really been able to tell unless it was pretty obvious. Example: I have every other Friday off from work. Recently met my sister on a Friday morning to do some Christmas shopping and catch up. We stopped at CVS (a US drugstore/pharmacy chain) at around 9:00am. A lady was in there buying two 1.5L bottles ( the big bottles) of cheap Sauvignon Blanc, from the refrigerated section, and was arguing about trying to get them for some sort of discount or use a coupon or something, and was getting fairly animated as the cashier explained that the wine was not eligible for whatever offer she was trying to use. I told my sister that I felt for the lady, because she was very likely an alcoholic. Sister asked how I knew -- I asked her "who buys pre-chilled cheap rotgut wine at 9am? ". When the lady turned around, puffy bloated face and red nose and cheeks. I'm pretty sure I was correct, and I hope she has found some sort of help.

Jimmy58

Yes definitely, I can spot them and they can spot me. When I was. drinking we were drawn together like magnets to steel. I think drunks look for other drunks because being
with other drunks made my heavy drinking appear to be normal.

PhoenixJ

I have noticed that once I purchased a car I really wanted- I saw that same car everywhere. Just us being vigilant, survival mode, people watching, reflecting and being sober.

SweatyHands

I definitely notice alcoholic behavior in people more than my wife does. A few examples: Thanksgiving dinner, I saw a few members of my family go into the kitchen to fill up their wine glasses, and proceed to chug half of a glass, and then refill it to carry the full glass back to the living room. I stopped to get cigars at the liquor store a few weeks ago, and I saw a gentleman, probably about my age--40ish, and wearing business clothes, who got into his car with his bag, was moving around quite a bit in his car, and then a few minutes later got out of the car to throw a paper bag full of trash into the garbage can in the lot. Then, when he pulled out of the parking lot, I sat the puddle where he poured out half of his gatorade to make room. And the last one happened this morning. I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things, and I saw an older woman having a meltdown because the line for the self checkout was not moving, and she needed to pay for her two tall cans of beer and get to her car quickly.

I recognized all of this behavior, because they are all things that I have done when drinking. I remember being in line at the liquor store with shaking hands and a racing heart, freaking out that the person in front of me was holding me up by asking the cashier how her day was going. I always took two or three big gulps of my drink, and then topped it off before going back to where other people were drinking normally. And I was always terrified that someone would pick up my juice bottle or water bottle and take a drink from it at work.

And as far as not recognizing the alcoholic looking back at me from the mirror, I always did. I just had to choose to believe my lie in order to keep drinking.

Soberwolf

I think it would be distracting if I was in early recovery & I've learnt it doesn't matter what I say think or do its up to them & I can only hold out for hope that they decided to quit drinking

Nothing will work if the person doesn't want to change so I don't try to spot alcoholics but I know one when I see one if that helps ?

LifeChanges

Supposed to? No. But because if you are sick yourself it might be easier to spot a fellow drunk?

LifeChanges

I don't "try" to spot them either. But there they are, always. Just a reminder I suppose, a reminder that I am not invisible nor fooling anyone.

OldTomato

Can't really be sure, anyone could be an alcoholic.

When working retail I could pick up the smell of vodka on someone a mile off though. They never appeared to be drunk either.

MissPerfumado

I think being highly sensitive to our own alcoholism allows us to spot it in others, for sure.

I was boarding a plane recently and the older gent in front of me in the queue caught my eye. I thought to myself, I bet that fellow ends up sitting next to me. And there was just something about the way he walked (a wee shuffle) and held himself (slightly stooped with a protruding belly), and his general dishevelment, that momentarily made me wonder if he'd already had something to drink that morning (it was a 10 am flight).

Well,sure enough he did end up sitting right next to me. This was an international flight and I was travelling for work so we were in business class which meant free-flowing booze. He accepted the pre-flight champagne from the attendant, then asked for a pre-meal gin & tonic, then declined the meal itself, proceeded to down the G&T, and ordered another one and was making quick work of that too. He had a sweet, sickly smell to him, which I took to be booze from the night before.

He kept looking my way like he wanted to make conversation and I just kept my headphones on and buried my nose deeper and deeper into my book. At some point during the second gin & tonic, he plucked up the courage to speak to me. He asked me if I spoke English (my book was in English, so he was no sleuth!). When I said yes, he clumsily proceeded to tell me he liked my shoes, of all things. His eyes were yellow and his complexion was pasty. He smelled putrid. I just said thank you, put my headphones back on and carried on with my book.

He fell fast asleep mid-drink and stayed asleep for the remainder of the flight.

Absolutely, he was an alcoholic. And I spotted him in the queue, without knowing anything about him.

Soberwolf

Best post in this thread thank you Carl for that timely reminder

FreeOwl

While I try not to judge, I do believe I can see the suffering reflected in others that I have known with alcohol.

Some of them openly admit it. Some of them may be finding their own way to understanding how alcohol has them in its grips, some of them are oblivious, happily ensconced in denial or hazy ignorance.

I try to be a beacon. But I do so by attraction, not promotion.

Seeing those people's looks, lives and entrapment reminds me in a positive way of my gratitude for sobriety.

aasharon90

But for the Grace of God there goes I.

Nonsensical

I suffer from a predilection to 'confirmation bias'.

When I was drinking somebody ordering shots confirmed my belief that I wasn't an alcoholic.

Now that I don't drink somebody ordering shots confirms my belief that they are an alcoholic.

Maybe it's just me?

August252015

Yep.

I work in a restaurant (side note: best thing I could be doing, for many reasons) and get to see the entire spectrum of drinking behavior. It's like an anthropological episode that shows every shift. I see the non-drinkers (for whatever reason- just seem to "not drink"), the "normals" (there really are plenty of people who just have one, enjoy one throughout a meal, leave a drink half finished, etc - many who don't really even notice the drink in front of them)....I see the people who have a drink while waiting on someone and ask to close that tab before the other party arrives....I see those with the red faces (usually middle aged men and older), the women with the slightly shaky hands who grip the wine glass a little too tightly....I could go on. I find it all clinically interesting, with detachment or sympathy, no judgment. I sometimes get a sense that the person is in recovery, for whatever reason. Sometimes it's a turn of phrase that rings of AA. Whatever it all is, the spectrum of human behavior around drinking is everywhere.

Not just in restaurants, either. Or just about actual drinking behavior. I see people's attitudes and responses- the quickness to irritation, the judgmental attitudes, the.... - and often think about how I behave compared to that, how I want to live my program. Again, not with judgment, but detachment and turning it back to the AA "I" (if I am not the problem, there is no solution). Fact is, alcohol and, truthfully, alcoholic behavior is all around us. So is the good stuff.

I had amazing radar for when my mom had even the tiniest bit of alcohol; I know she had it for me when I was drinking, too. I am sure plenty of people saw the degrees of my normal to very abnormal drinking. Some of them have told me about it since.

I take all of this as useful material for staying sober. I know what I don't want to be - and I know how I appear to people now: as someone who just doesn't drink...or to a practiced eye, someone who has the wisdom and experience of alcoholism behind them and lives in recovery now.

All good stuff.

MLD51

I can see it - all around me. I live in a small town in Wisconsin - it's everywhere. I would venture a guess that half of the people I know at least have a problem with alcohol. Partly because I used to hang out in bars a lot, so many of the people I know are people I used to see out drinking in bars. They are still there. I realize the majority of people out there either don't drink or drink normally, I just don't know that many of them outside of AA. But I can spot the people exhibiting the same behaviors I used to exhibit, easily. I can also sometimes easily tell if someone I used to know as a drinker has gotten help and is in recovery. They look and act different than they used to. They have a bounce in their step, their eyes are clear and bright, and they smile more. I can only assume people see the same in me.