SonomaGal

As soon as I hit my early 20's I knew I liked to drink more than "normies". I actually didn't drink much then because I was afraid of it getting out of control. Unfortunately once I hit my 30's and I started drinking alone after work, and on the weekends, it did get out of control. It took about 4 years, with the last 2 being the worst until I could finally accept I wasn't going to grow out of it.

Cathryn2001

Aside from occasional shame over a hangover or an asinine FB post, I justified my drinking as "normal" for a long time (until 40), at least until they started a recycling service in my neighborhood. I very quickly became super aware of the magnitude of beer bottles filling our recycling can each week--significant primarily because I was the ONLY drinker in my household (DH stopped several years ago).

I was defensive about the amount, and honestly, more than a little irritated that my "business" was fairly evident to my family, the neighbors, and the recycling pick-up guys--I couldn't stand the sound of the bottles slamming together as they were being dumped from our bins into the truck. At the same time, however, I couldn't imagine normal drinkers worrying about these types of "problems." This was my wake-up call--once I realized that many of my actions (rotating beer stores, scheduling trips for beer, planning my life around beer) were not those of "normal drinkers," I acknowledged that I had a problem.

I've been sober for 10 months and am no longer freaked out over the recycling truck.

jakec

Deep down I knew I had a problem when I felt the need to drink and do drugs by myself in middle school and highschool, but I didn't want to admit it. I remember if I couldn't get loaded when I went out with my friends it felt like the end of the world.

Looking back on it, my addiction was clearly evident early on, but I didn't really admit until sophmore year in highschool when I would use every night alone and tell myself I'll stop and get better tomorrow. Yet the next day I would do the same thing.

thenewguy

When I started suffering severe panic attacks the next day after drinking hard, where I couldn't function for a day or two, and landed in the hospital a few times.

I didn't realize it then, but what I thought was severe anxiety was actually alcohol withdrawal. When I put one and one together, that's when I knew I had a deeper problem than I wanted to admit.

Hawk07

First realization: I started to 'panic' that I didn't have enough alcohol during my weekend binges. Ignored that and kept drinking

2nd: I needed more and more as time went on. For the first time I lived with someone and got quite clever so I thought about hiding my drinking, stashing bottles in the bathroom, laundry hamper ect. Still in denial.

Third: Person I lived with wasn't dumb, I was the dumb alcoholic who thought she was fooling everyone. The only person I was fooling was myself. Took a nose dive from there (living alone again) and started buying ungodly amounts of alcohol that I knew I couldn't finish in one night so I'd have a bit left for the morning to swig.. Needed it to be 'functional' enough to make it to a store to get more the next day.

Wow...typing that out just made me really sad.. I was at such a low.

irma

I,"'d say by the time I was a young teen, prolly 15

irma

Oops...hit send by accident. Anyway... When I started adding water to my dad's bottles, I knew something was off. Never went to a party where I didn't get hammered. Got sick on every type of hard stuff so became a beer drinker. Easily put away a couple 6 packs as a 110 pound teen. Blacked out nearly every time.

HakunaMatata

I knew I was a problem drinker around age 22. I originally thought I escaped my family's addiction history, but looking back now, my drinking patterns clearly showed a slow progression working up to what's now a serious problem. I knew I had to stop when I started blacking out 80% of the time and putting myself in horribly dangerous situations, waking up the next morning with severe panic attacks and anxiety, and feeling sick and tired all the time. I also realized that I lost my sense of self and was the polar opposite image of who I wanted to be as a person. I used alcohol as a crutch for everything. I felt that doing pretty much anything without alcohol sounded boring and not worth it, and a life without alcohol sounded unbearable. I'm now 25 and newly sober.

RevivingOphelia

I knew something was wrong way back in high school/uni, but I didn't pay it any attention. I always got a little anxious if there wasn't enough alcohol around…always gauging the availability of drinks. I even remember two high school friends writing a note to me saying they were concerned about my drinking habits b/c I would party Thursday nights and come to school hungover. I LAUGHED (on the inside) at their concern and didn't respond (but a little voice niggled at me and I remember that note all those years later).

Fast forward a couple of decades. In my early forties I was going through a rough personal time. Those few drinks plus a bottle post-work turned into a few drinks plus TWO bottles of wine a few times a week. Frequent (terrifying) blackouts. Severe anxiety and HELLISH hangovers the next day. Cravings intensified -- constant thinking about when I could drink next. I attended a few meetings (were not for me). I came on here and read and read and realized I cannot drink again. It took months to finally the day I had my last drink (a few sips and put it down and walked away), but it DID happen as you can see by my sobriety date -- over a year and half without a drop and better for it. I was 42 when I stopped. I still sometimes am amazed that I did it b/c I never imagined I could live my life without alcohol as a crutch. Turns it out you can and it's better that way.

Tamerua

I was driving to work and a commercial came on for a recovery clinic (I'm in Florida, home of the rehab center) and the guy on the commercial said something like, "and you say to yourself that you're a functioning alcoholic. Don't you want more out of life than just functioning?"

I think all of the stuff I felt came into perspective then. The hangovers on the weekends, the needing to stay in bed for a whole weekend because of the damage I had done on a Friday, the anxiety... I didn't even know that there was a possibility to have more than functioning!

Still took a couple of years to get to get sober after that, and in all honesty, I hadn't even tried. But that is when I realized I had a problem.

Kelly12390

I first had an inkling that my relationship with alcohol was a little bit too close around 18 or 19. I just knew I loved it more than others appeared to. Then at 21, I started the process of maybe believing that there was alcohol problems when I would buy vodka, drink it straight out of the bottle in my room, when I would literally do anything for another drink once there was in my system. But its only now, at 24, that I feel a physical pain in my heart when I think of alcohol. It's only now that I can accept it- and it's the feeling of aching painful heartbreak that brought me to realisation that I am an alcoholic.

endlesspatience

It was about eight months before I joined AA. I was walking back from a shop at about two am having gone outside to buy more booze, knowing that I had an important job the next morning. I said to myself "Might as well face it, I'm an alcoholic". But at the time I didn't have a clue how to do anything about it. It was only when I went to AA and started to hear the stories of other people that had endeavoured to stop drinking, often successfully, that I was able to do anything about it. Still working on the problem but it's certainly getting easier day by day.