When did you know you were an alcoholic?
Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Northern NJ
Posts: 174
Originally Posted by MelindaFlowers 
I knew I was an alcoholic when I tried to stop drinking but couldn't. It was in 2010. I was 28. I stopped in 2014 at 32.
I was out of work at the time and chuckled when the above poster mentioned being worried about only having nine beers left. I would do the same thing but it was little vodka airplane shots instead. Whats funny,and goes to show, how in denial i was, is when i would go and get them in the morning I would think why not get the pint instead of ten little shots but wouldnt because, "it was too much" 6 hrs later id be back getting more. I would fill all my coat pockets so my family wouldnt notice me walking in with a bag. Get in my room and throw them on my bed, sit in front of my computer and begin my day of drinking. I would schedule my first drink so it would get me to about 11pm. I would pace myself early in the afternoon, play video games and it would pick up in the evening to the point where i would sometimes vomit in my own mouth from too much too fast - would run into the bathroom spit it in the toilet and continue drinking. Puking never was a queue for me stop - instead i would think how much alcohol i have to replace that just got flushed down the toilet. I could go on and on.
The past year has been the most productive in all of my existence - every aspect of my life has improved 100 fold. Here's to many more.
Guest
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 809
I was 15 years old. I remember exactly where I was, and when the thought crossed my mine. I don't know why I remember it, but I was walking down the hallway of my parents house, and the thought "man - I'm really angry when I can't get alcohol or drugs" crossed my mind, and I knew I was different in someway.
I pushed that thought aside and found a way to get alcohol/drugs that day. But I'll never forget that first realization that I was different.
I'm now turning 28 years old in a couple days and coming up on 60 days sober. As others have said, it's been a long road.
I pushed that thought aside and found a way to get alcohol/drugs that day. But I'll never forget that first realization that I was different.
I'm now turning 28 years old in a couple days and coming up on 60 days sober. As others have said, it's been a long road.
Member
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 267
Like some others I might have known in my 20s but rationalized til my late 30s. First considered myself a regular drinker (as in "drink regularly"), then a heavy drinker, but not a "problem" drinker. The drinking stayed habitual and got heavier and heavier throughout my 30s until I finally realized it had its teeth in me physically and not just psychologically. Still continued, with half cocked attempts to get control, for 2-3 more years. Worst 2-3 years of my life. This is the first year, at 42/43, that I've given sobriety a serious, extended effort. It hasn't been without setbacks but it's been more success than failure overall and I feel like I'm seeing the light at last.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: CO, USA
Posts: 145
In my early 20's, I knew that I needed several drinks to feel comfortable in a bar, but I just attributed that to a little anxiety. In my late 20's the drinking became more regular and turned into a solitary pattern, but I told myself it was just a temporary thing that I could easily deal with later. In my early 30's was when I recognized that I felt really bad about my behavior and that attempts to change failed. 37 was when I was confronted with some harsh reality that I had to change or die young.
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: New Orleans, LA
Posts: 985
I was a "hard partying" teenager. Mostly drugs, but those were the "rock and roll" years, and there was alcohol mixed in here and there. My mother was an alcoholic, and I had an unhealthy amount of freedom as a teen. I was loaded every day, on some substance or another.
I got clean and sober when I was 20 years old, through NA. The whole decade of my 20s was clean and sober. I had two children, went to school, married, traveled.
I got divorced at 30, and decided that I would smoke pot and drink only beer and wine because my addiction had been hard drugs. I was convinced that I had just been a troubled teenager, maybe not an addict at all. After all, look at how successful I was...
I did fine through my thirties. A couple of nights "over-drunk" (which I chalked up to not having much experience with alcohol), mostly moderate drinking. My life was filled with creative challenges - writing, making music, raising my children through their adolescences, love, friendship. A very happy and free decade. While I didn't worry that I was an alcoholic, I did go to AA regularly for two distinct years of sobriety, which I now find interesting. At the time, I believed that I was not an alcoholic, but that I had "aged out" of NA and missed/needed the fellowship. I had also been diagnosed with a medical condition that would not be well served by drinking and so decided to stop. Odd as it may sound, at no point during these stints of sobriety did I actually think I was an alcoholic. I had been trained in the NA model which says that alcohol is a substitute drug, and was "really a drug addict. a long long time ago."
At 42, my youngest child was grown, and I moved to Alaska by myself. Medical condition be damned (by then I was feeling pretty invincible, because my health was good and I was apparently overcoming my medical problems). I was single and didn't have children, alone for the first time in my life, living in a new, dangerous, exciting, and wild frontier land.
I drank. I still stuck to the beer and wine deal I'd made in my thirties, but the quantities increased, as did frequency. I began to drink at the end of my arduous workdays, to "let go" of the stresses of work. Often drinking alone. I recognized that I was leaning toward alcoholism during my first year here, but defined it as "loneliness drinking" and thought it was situational.
That stage lasted four years. I noticed that I was making bad relationship choices as well, choosing men who were also hard drinkers, with all the chaos that came along with that. Again, situational, 'cause "who else do you find on the wild frontier?"
Last year, romantically involved with an alcoholic who was diagnosed with cirrosis, I found myself engaged in a very long phone call with him, imploring him to stop drinking for his health. I talked about my experiences with 12 step programs and waxed eloquent on the joy and meaning of a fully sober lifestyle.
I was convinced. The next day, I went to my first AA meeting in Alaska. He did too. He lived in a different community, so we - without telling each other, after that phone call - both got sober through AA separately.
I lasted 6 months. That relationship fizzled out, I still didn't believe I was an alcoholic. My AV had firmly convinced me that it was the challenging work, the inhospitable country, the cold, the dark, the loneliness. Not me. It had nothing to do with me.
I relapsed in May, drank through the summer. This time, I knew I was an alcoholic. This time I could not stop. This time my heart crumbled in on itself, and I did not stop. This time I blacked out in public. This time I was established in my community, not lonely, loving my work, happy, and the sun shone all day and night and I still could not stop.
And now I know. That the concept of a progressive disease is not just something that everyone made up. It's funny, so many, many years of recovery, and I didn't actually believe that any of it applied to me...
I got clean and sober when I was 20 years old, through NA. The whole decade of my 20s was clean and sober. I had two children, went to school, married, traveled.
I got divorced at 30, and decided that I would smoke pot and drink only beer and wine because my addiction had been hard drugs. I was convinced that I had just been a troubled teenager, maybe not an addict at all. After all, look at how successful I was...
I did fine through my thirties. A couple of nights "over-drunk" (which I chalked up to not having much experience with alcohol), mostly moderate drinking. My life was filled with creative challenges - writing, making music, raising my children through their adolescences, love, friendship. A very happy and free decade. While I didn't worry that I was an alcoholic, I did go to AA regularly for two distinct years of sobriety, which I now find interesting. At the time, I believed that I was not an alcoholic, but that I had "aged out" of NA and missed/needed the fellowship. I had also been diagnosed with a medical condition that would not be well served by drinking and so decided to stop. Odd as it may sound, at no point during these stints of sobriety did I actually think I was an alcoholic. I had been trained in the NA model which says that alcohol is a substitute drug, and was "really a drug addict. a long long time ago."
At 42, my youngest child was grown, and I moved to Alaska by myself. Medical condition be damned (by then I was feeling pretty invincible, because my health was good and I was apparently overcoming my medical problems). I was single and didn't have children, alone for the first time in my life, living in a new, dangerous, exciting, and wild frontier land.
I drank. I still stuck to the beer and wine deal I'd made in my thirties, but the quantities increased, as did frequency. I began to drink at the end of my arduous workdays, to "let go" of the stresses of work. Often drinking alone. I recognized that I was leaning toward alcoholism during my first year here, but defined it as "loneliness drinking" and thought it was situational.
That stage lasted four years. I noticed that I was making bad relationship choices as well, choosing men who were also hard drinkers, with all the chaos that came along with that. Again, situational, 'cause "who else do you find on the wild frontier?"
Last year, romantically involved with an alcoholic who was diagnosed with cirrosis, I found myself engaged in a very long phone call with him, imploring him to stop drinking for his health. I talked about my experiences with 12 step programs and waxed eloquent on the joy and meaning of a fully sober lifestyle.
I was convinced. The next day, I went to my first AA meeting in Alaska. He did too. He lived in a different community, so we - without telling each other, after that phone call - both got sober through AA separately.
I lasted 6 months. That relationship fizzled out, I still didn't believe I was an alcoholic. My AV had firmly convinced me that it was the challenging work, the inhospitable country, the cold, the dark, the loneliness. Not me. It had nothing to do with me.
I relapsed in May, drank through the summer. This time, I knew I was an alcoholic. This time I could not stop. This time my heart crumbled in on itself, and I did not stop. This time I blacked out in public. This time I was established in my community, not lonely, loving my work, happy, and the sun shone all day and night and I still could not stop.
And now I know. That the concept of a progressive disease is not just something that everyone made up. It's funny, so many, many years of recovery, and I didn't actually believe that any of it applied to me...
Just another day...
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Michigan
Posts: 274
Well my dad is an alcoholic and I went to those Al Anon meetings when a teen with my mom. The meeting informed me that I would end up being some kind of a-holic. My dads mom drank, my mom and dad did drugs and drank, grandpa on moms side workaholic..so I was doomed at my 1st breath. lol But seriously I went through a lot..good and bad but didn't start drinking heavily until maybe about 23. Once I started drinking heavy I knew. My dads a drunk and I cant stop at just 1. I am 42 now.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: California
Posts: 2,693
This is in hindsight, but here are a few:
1. I knew I was an alcoholic when I woke up from a blackout and thought it was normal to then drink the next night to blackout. On the first blackout night I had become so belligerent that I got into a shoving match with my guy. When I woke up I swore to him that I was done drinking through tears. That evening, during the second blackout night, I became so angry that I kicked a hole in a door. I swore again that I was done drinking (again through tears). I drank to blackout the next weekend....and the next....
2. I knew I was an alcoholic when I received bad results from bloodwork from my doctor and then continued drinking a week later.....for another year.
3. I knew I was an alcoholic when I couldn't remember the last time I went to work not hungover. I never vomited so I was able to mask the headache, sweating, dehydration, diarrhea, bloodshot eyes, and occasional wrinkled clothing well enough I guess.
4. I knew I was an alcoholic when I could not remember the last time any hour of any day was not affected by alcohol. I would be hungover all day and drunk all evening so there was no time anymore that I actually felt normal.
5. I knew I was an alcoholic when I no longer recognized myself in pictures. The bloated, red squinty-eyed, obese person in the pictures didn't even look like me and people often told me this. I stopped posing for pictures, even on vacations.
6. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would promise myself that I would not drink the night before a job interview and then get drunk the night before the interview. How I got that job, I'll never know.
7. I knew I was an alcoholic when every other charge on my bank statement was the liquor store.
8. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would wake up every morning to strange and embarrassing posts on facebook.
9. I knew I was an alcoholic when 3/4 of a fifth of vodka barely gave me a buzz anymore. Buzz? No. Blackout? Maybe.
10. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would pour my first drink within 45 seconds of walking in the door from work.
11. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would salivate in the minutes leading up to my first vodka tonic of the evening. Weird? Yes!
12. I knew I was an alcoholic when I started checking my #2's for blood and then drinking again that night.
13. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would get angry if guests at my house asked me for a drink. I had carefully planned just the right amount to get myself incredibly drunk. If I shared, I wouldn't have enough.
14. I knew I was an alcoholic when beer started tasting like water. How did people get drunk off of beer? Oh, then I figured out that 12-14 did get me pretty drunk. Problem solved!
15. I knew I was an alcoholic when I never had enough money to pay my bills but always had enough for the $300-$400 of vodka every month.
1. I knew I was an alcoholic when I woke up from a blackout and thought it was normal to then drink the next night to blackout. On the first blackout night I had become so belligerent that I got into a shoving match with my guy. When I woke up I swore to him that I was done drinking through tears. That evening, during the second blackout night, I became so angry that I kicked a hole in a door. I swore again that I was done drinking (again through tears). I drank to blackout the next weekend....and the next....
2. I knew I was an alcoholic when I received bad results from bloodwork from my doctor and then continued drinking a week later.....for another year.
3. I knew I was an alcoholic when I couldn't remember the last time I went to work not hungover. I never vomited so I was able to mask the headache, sweating, dehydration, diarrhea, bloodshot eyes, and occasional wrinkled clothing well enough I guess.
4. I knew I was an alcoholic when I could not remember the last time any hour of any day was not affected by alcohol. I would be hungover all day and drunk all evening so there was no time anymore that I actually felt normal.
5. I knew I was an alcoholic when I no longer recognized myself in pictures. The bloated, red squinty-eyed, obese person in the pictures didn't even look like me and people often told me this. I stopped posing for pictures, even on vacations.
6. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would promise myself that I would not drink the night before a job interview and then get drunk the night before the interview. How I got that job, I'll never know.
7. I knew I was an alcoholic when every other charge on my bank statement was the liquor store.
8. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would wake up every morning to strange and embarrassing posts on facebook.
9. I knew I was an alcoholic when 3/4 of a fifth of vodka barely gave me a buzz anymore. Buzz? No. Blackout? Maybe.
10. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would pour my first drink within 45 seconds of walking in the door from work.
11. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would salivate in the minutes leading up to my first vodka tonic of the evening. Weird? Yes!
12. I knew I was an alcoholic when I started checking my #2's for blood and then drinking again that night.
13. I knew I was an alcoholic when I would get angry if guests at my house asked me for a drink. I had carefully planned just the right amount to get myself incredibly drunk. If I shared, I wouldn't have enough.
14. I knew I was an alcoholic when beer started tasting like water. How did people get drunk off of beer? Oh, then I figured out that 12-14 did get me pretty drunk. Problem solved!
15. I knew I was an alcoholic when I never had enough money to pay my bills but always had enough for the $300-$400 of vodka every month.
The Long and Winding Road....
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Brisbane QLD
Posts: 897
when did i know??
in my early 20's.......
got sober through aa at age 26
stayed that way till 32..
have had numerous rehab stays and periods of 3, 6 months, almost had a year again, busted due to a number of reasons.
1 day sober, starting over
v
got sober through aa at age 26
stayed that way till 32..
have had numerous rehab stays and periods of 3, 6 months, almost had a year again, busted due to a number of reasons.
1 day sober, starting over
v
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 301
I knew I was an alcoholic since around my early twenties too. When I was homeless I justified it because smoking and drinking kept you warm (even if it doesn't, but it felt like it did), kept your spirits up (momentarily), kept you from feeling hungry and most importantly, it made time move faster.
So at that point in my life I knew I drank far, far too much, but I felt of it as a way of survival, as dumb as that sounds.
When I got off the street, I kept drinking, but then I justified it as a celebration, hey, I'm not homeless anymore, lets get some beers! Then another party, then another, until it was just me on my own. Then i tried to quit, I started drinking by that night. Then I tried to quit again, and again, and again and failed. Then I realised I was not in control.
That's when I knew.
So at that point in my life I knew I drank far, far too much, but I felt of it as a way of survival, as dumb as that sounds.
When I got off the street, I kept drinking, but then I justified it as a celebration, hey, I'm not homeless anymore, lets get some beers! Then another party, then another, until it was just me on my own. Then i tried to quit, I started drinking by that night. Then I tried to quit again, and again, and again and failed. Then I realised I was not in control.
That's when I knew.
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