Larry45

My life summed up in a paragraph... sigh.

Man it is good to have a (sober) perspective on that cycle now. I was such a jerk.

SwanSong

Gosh I was just sitting here thinking about my mom and dad after I read your original post soberjohndoe and all the others. The whole time as I read down from post to post I was just thinking about two primary things - how can I tell if I'm an alcoholic? And what does it mean if I experience blackouts?

For whatever reason my mother and father came to mind. They are the farthest thing from alcoholics I've ever seen (for people who still actually drink).

I was just trying to picture them blacking out and I can't even do it. They just would never drink to that point because they are, to use another label or term, 'normies'.

So I agree, alcoholism has to be self-diagnosed. But I guess I can't think of a person who isn't alcoholic that has suffered blackouts......a single blackout once in a lifetime and then *never* again or some weird scenario, maybe. But once we've crossed that line to where we are blacking out, well I think it's a good time to take a look at the big picture and I'm happy that you've come to SR and that is exactly what you are doing!

I also agree, it only gets worse. At least for me it did, if I could have stopped when I was just experiencing blackouts as the worst sign of my drinking (for me, I was clearly in full fledged alcoholism by then) I could have spared myself a lot future misery. My family, friends, colleagues, loved ones, etc. too.

Good for you. I hope you decide sobriety is for you.

reggiewayne

Good stuff Swan Song. It's funny how we would not in a million years wish our lifestyle on our loved one's - but we spend so many years defending our lifestyle. For some reason it's Ok, even normal, to drink ourselves to death, but we would never want our family members to drink even half as much as we do.

Further proof that alcoholism is just plain insanity.

Larry45

I have to chime in here and say I don't think black outs are necessarily a sure sign of alcoholism. In my student days there were countless kids in their late teens / early 20s who drank to the point of black-out on a fairly consistent basis because that was the culture: binge drinking. But many of them have gone on to be 'normal' or 'non' drinkers.

However, if this continues into our adult-hood as a permanent fixture, then yes, it's a real issue. Not that I'm making light of young people drinking heavily... they shouldn't, but they do. At which point they become an alcoholic, I'm not entirely sure.

FrothyJay

At a certain point I was in a blackout more than I wasn't. So I began to call my periods of "consciousness" white-outs.