Am i an alcoholic? Really confused!
 

Hello guys :) I have been here before but it was quite some time ago and i didn't really stay for long either. What has been bothering me for a good amount of time now is the question ' Am i an alcoholic?' Basically i am a 20 year old male, been drinking somewhat regularly since 16- ish mostly having them RTD's like Bourbon N Cola Jim Beams 5-6 % drinks, not really vodka/whiskey type of person nor can handle strong liquor really.

However i have noticed that for the past 1 year or so i've literally been drinking almost every day after i finish work, like i'd get home and sit outside having 3-4, 440ml cans of Bourbon and Coke, then i'll just chill out and sleep. Until now i wasn't thinking much of my habit since i've been in a foreign country for a few years now and i don't really have many friends to hang out with, so the only fun thing i know is drink bourbon, listen to some good music. However recently my parents have been making comments on my habits, expressing some concerns and i have started looking into it as well and been asking myself the above question but i am really confused and cannot answer myself.

Part of the reason why i cannot answer is because i do seem to quite enjoy getting a buzz, i been able to control the amount i drink and i don't really wake up in the morning with shakes or having any W/D symptoms in the morning or through out the day. Despite all this i still am confused, am i an alcoholic but just not realizing it yet? Or do i just have a bad habit of drinking? I suppose if you do something every single day it is somewhat of an addiction though.

Recently i went out to a pub, got absolutely trashed with friends and out of drunken anger broke my toe.To this day i didn't really worry or think much of my drinking but because my injury was caused due to drinking and the concerns my parents have been expressing has made me really depressed all of a sudden, i almost feel like i am on the verge to become an alcoholic and will end up just another drunk who probably dies from cirrhosis in their 40's..

All these thoughts are starting to get to me. All of a sudden i start getting worried about my health as well.I live quite the unhealthy lifestyle to be perfectly honest, eat junk food, drink daily, no exercise at all apart from work and it's already showing, for 1 year i've been slowly getting an ugly as beer gut for example.

Anywa, sorry i made this so long but i am super confused and cannot really think straight nor explain how i feel exactly.. I am sorry guys!

Hello V. Thanks for sharing your story. You have mentioned a few things. Drinking nightly alone and enjoying the buzz. You get depressed, are worried about your health, have noticed physical effects, have anxiety and are confused, your parents are concerned and you find it hard thinking about the alcohol stuff clearly.
Regardless of the term alcoholic- I suggest you seek the advice of your doctor. What you mention are certainly wake up calls. Before you know it- you will be 40.
Keep posting, PJ.

Hi and welcome v0da12 :)

Have you tried not drinking at all for a decent period like 3-6 months? Like no drinking at all, regardless of social situations, problems, or moods?

I think that would help most people to decide whether they had an addiction or not.

Thanks for your post. In my opinion, it definitely seems like you have a substance abuse program due to the fact that drinking is impairing your life in various ways. Why not learn to live a sober life without having to worry about relying on drinking and then having to worry about its side effects? My guess is that sobriety will provide you with a much better, fulfilling life. Good luck!

Only you can really say weather you think it has gotten that bad. It's obviously causing you problems. What I CAN say from my own experience is a year before things started to really spiral out of control for me and I completely lost myself, I was doing exactly the same thing you are. In "control" for the most part, could have a few drink's then go to bed, almost every single day. Have the occasional drink too much night with the friends and black out and regret it. But the demon (alcohol) is never sated, and what will happen if you are anything like me, is that those few drinks will eventually snowball. Keep in mind I would only ever drink after work, and never during the day. That was me trying to rationalize irrational behavior on my end. I was in denial that wasn't in control, in my mind I had control I was just a "lush" who enjoyed drinking. I went from bring in control for the most part and drinking every night, to a point where I was unable to stop, it was scary how fast it happened. Obviously my suggestion would be to stop before it gets to that point for. Alcohol is a horrible poison anyways and life without is quite remarkable. You THINK alcohol is giving you something because you get addicted to the buzz but really it is numbing you from truly living your life.

Hi vOda.

What's good is that you are aware that your drinking is becoming habitual. And also that, when you drank too much, you acted in a way that you regret.

I think it would be a good idea to try and stop drinking for a good while and see how you feel. Don't give yourself a 'pass' because it's a special occasion or because you've had a bad day. No drinking at all.

This might help you decide whether you really have a problem with it.

My son is 23 and a while back I worried about his drinking. But he doesn't drink at all during the week now, and just drinks with his friends on a night out occasionally. He certainly had a few nights when his drinking was problematic though, but I now think it was just his age and he moved through it.

You mention that you've nothing to do in the evenings except drink and listen to music because you have few friends. Maybe this is an area to work on. Find people who share the same interests, and get to know them. To give up drinking, we all had to change our habits and routines.

Wishing you all the best.

Your post makes so much sense..... This describes my situation perfectly seems like you went through the same relationship with alcohol but maybe not as young as me, actually thinking about this at my age makes me quite annoyed. I see all young people drink like crazy with no f*** given and here i am worried. Anyway i will definitely put a stop to this, i always justify my drinking by convincing myself is because i am bored but i will try stop completely before it get's to the point where i have no control over it.

I thank everybody for the support and taking the time to reply to this and help me out, i wish you guys all the very best :)

Hi Voda,
Welcome to SR. Maybe stop for a few weeks and see how it goes. Will you struggle? For me only when I tried to stop did I realise just how addicted and dependent I was :(

It really can spiral out of control quickly. For me, the labels don't matter. I have had people tell me recently they don't think I'm "really"an alcoholic. I don't care what they think. I just know that things were getting out of control, and I hated how I was feeling every day. Not just physically, but mentally. I tried to justify my drinking for years - telling myself it "wasn't that bad." And for a long time, it wasn't. But then it was - seemingly suddenly. But looking back, I can clearly see it was a progression. I started like you did, drinking almost every day, but was able to control it fairly well. But then later, I could not control it. If I started drinking on any given day, I could not stop. I was addicted. I wish I had listened to my gut that was telling me I had a problem before it got to that point. You are young - now would be a great time to give not drinking a try - don't be like me and wait until you are 51 to get a handle on it. So much wasted time drinking in my life.

Try not to drink for a couple days. See if your alcoholic voice starts screaming for some booze and see if you can still resist the temptation. You will find out pretty fast who is in control of your drinking if you can't control your AV. Then ask yourself...do I really want to be powerless over this substance for the rest of my life?!

Two simple questions.

Has liquor ceased to be a luxury?

And now become an nessessity?

A yes answer at the very least means -- we may have hit paydirt here.

Mountainmanbob

youre only seeing the young people you are focusing on.
not ALL young people are drinking and probably the majority aren't.

and its only your opinion that no **** is given.
those that are drinking like that are probably hurting,too.

As this older sober drunk looks back on those drinking days and years where it seemed that drinking brought with it no consequences I really was not that surprised to learn later that there would be a great price to pay.

Not many heavy drinkers will escape with no impunity.

M-Bob

Maybe there is a better question than 'Am I an alcoholic?'. It might be more useful to ask, 'Is it a good idea to quit drinking?' If you are harming yourself by drinking and the things that are real and good are slipping from your grasp, then the answer should be clear to you.

The best question to ask is 'Am I ready to make a plan about continuing to use alcohol?'. I made my plan, my decision, and put all that misery in the past. Life is so much better sober. I recommend it.

Welcome to the Forum v0da!! :wave:

Hi everyone
I'm also a bit confused now. If you can go for 3 or 4 months without drinking does this mean that you are not an alcoholic? I binge about twice a month on a Friday or Saturday, black out, embarrass myself, injure myself, say things I don't mean, and give myself a 10 hour hangover where I am vomitting every 10 min. The next day I feel incredible guilt and shame. I swear not to do it again and again, but I do. It happens by mistake, I only mean to have a few drinks. So I was pretty convinced that I was an alcoholic. But then the voice of doubt says that I've stopped drinking for 4 months before. And I can have 1 drink and stop. I have to stop before I start enjoying it otherwise it turns into a blackout. Please would someone tell me if I'm an alcoholic. I'm scared of going to an AA meeting and having them laugh at me.

The only requirement for attending AA is a desire to stop drinking. There's no test to take and no one will ask you to prove you have a problem with alcohol. It's all about whether or not you want help quitting. In fact, you don't even have to say "I'm Rabbitgirl, and I'm am alcoholic" if you don't want to.

Here's the bottom line - do you think alcohol is causing you problems? Do you want to quit? Could you use some help doing it? If yes, you are "qualified" to be at AA. Hope this helps.

Any alcoholic can stop drinking. I did it hundreds of times. It is staying stopped that is the issue. For an alcoholic of my type it is really important to understand what the problem is in order to find a solution. You can't fix a car until you know what is wrong with it.

Alcoholism as I have experienced it is about loss of control and choice, nothing else. I was a binge drinker, which meant short periods of sobriety between drinking bouts. Drinking caused me problems which should have had me honestly looking at whether I should stop altogether, like the op is, but it never occurred to me until things got really bad.

When I drank I could not control the amount with any certainty. I usually lost control and would stay drinking for several days until too sick to continue. The inability to moderate is a symptom of alcoholism that does not occur in normal drinkers. Once alcohol was in my system, a powerful craving took over and drinking became paramount to all other things. I have lost jobs by refusing to stop drinking. I didn't want to lose the job, but at the time, stopping drinking was beyond my power.

Having had a few negative experiences you would think I would realize it was not good and stop, and I did that for a few hours or days at a time. But the memory faded. It proved to be an unreliable defense and often I would find myself on the third drink before realising that I wasn't going to drink that day. By then the craving had kicked in and off we go again.

If you are unable to control the amount you take, or if when you really want to you cannot stop altogether, you may be alcoholic.

You could pop along to aa and have a look. There is no need to join. AA meetings are open to alcoholics and people trying to work out if they are alcoholic or not. That might help you define what the problem is. I have known many people in your position who can just stop, when they make up their minds to. That would be the first thing to try. Good luck.

Has it been bothering you because you are legitimately concerned about where you are headed if you continue to drink as you do, or because you've taken to the idea that only alcoholics can't drink, and you don't actually want to give up the option of getting drunk whenever you really want to?

Confused, or ambivalent about continuing to drink? Does the idea of never ever drinking alcohol ever again feel really, really scary?

If so, you probably want someone to tell you if you can keep on drinking or not. The problem is that anyone can keep on drinking, provided that they are prepared to pay the piper, as you apparently are starting to. Know that the price of doing so will indeed go up over time, just as you presently suspect.

Since you are drinking heavily every day, and apparently really love the buzz you get from doing so, I would suggest abstaining for an entire year, without having one single drop of alcohol. That will give you a reasonably good idea of just how dependent you are on alcohol.

That will also give you a lot of free time to consider whether or not drinking is worth the inherent risk.

No I believe there are various manifestations of alcoholism rabbitgirl.

I started as a binger and ended up an all day everyday drinker.

In this case the original poster has been drinking almost every day, so (in my opinion) abstaining is likely to reveal if there's a problem or not..

Obviously abstaining for months is what some bingers can do anyway, so I wouldn't suggest that in those cases.

D

alcoholism/alcoholic isn't so much about how much is drank as it is about what happens when we drink.

I think that anytime your internal voice is talking to you enough about ANYTHING and making you ask yourself questions such as :

Was I too hard on that person?
Could I have handled that in a different, better way?
Does this dress make me look fat?
and of course:

Do I drink too much?

The truthful answer is usually a Yes

i do seem to quite enjoy getting a buzz, i been able to control the amount i drink and i don't really wake up in the morning with shakes or having any W/D symptoms in the morning

YET.

I drank like you when I was your age and never really thought much about it, most everybody did.

When I hit 30, not many people I knew were drinking everyday, so I started doing a lot of my drinking by myself.

When I hit 40, I was doing 99% of my drinking by myself, and the mornings after were kinda miserable. I discovered that a beer or two in the morning made my hangover misery go away.

Eventually, I couldn't keep it up anymore and ended up spending a few days in the hospital after a 3 - 4 day, 24 hour a day bender. Then my little secret was out.

My point is, alcoholism is progressive. It's only going to get worse as you intake increases (because it takes more to get you buzzed) and you bodies ability to deal with the toxic poison decreases.

If you are drinking most every day to a BAC of .08 to .10 (or more on some days) you will crash and burn. It might take years, or even a couple of decades, but it will happen.

Again thank you all for giving me good advice and trying to help, i really appreciate that. It's been a week since last post and even though it hasn't been that long i have discovered a few things in regards to the question i asked here. Right after writing this post i said to myself i won't drink for a week for starters and see how it goes, well it didn't go so well.

First two days no problem apart from being extremely bored because i off work due to my injury but i managed to keep myself busy with eating,watching movies and YouTube videos but than day 3 my friend rings me asking if i am keen for a drink at the pub and i gave in to temptation and since than 5 days in a row i drink 4-5 beers at home or like tonight getting absolutely smashed to the point where my body hurts from all the alcohol, probably had 11-12 drinks with my mates.

I'd imagine that's a clear sign of addiction, most likely not physical dependance as i don't shake or experience any W/D just pure boredom as i been killing my free time with alcohol for an year or two. I guess if you cannot resist temptation for just a week it would be considered addiction maybe just not a full blown alcoholic addiction but still addiction is addiction.

I don't know why i try to ignore the obvious fact that alcohol has become a big part of my life and i try to make it seem like i am not abusing it in my head but deep in my mind i am aware that i am drinking heavily and i need to stop immediately. I will do the experiment again with stopping see how long i last this time but i think posting here, hearing stories from people way more experienced in life helps to at least for the first time realize i might actually have a big problem with alcohol.

Once again, thank you all !

Experimenting to see how long you last ?

Your going to need instruments for this experiment & boy it's a good experiment

Acceptance, A plan or recovery model programme (secular non secular theres choices) A journal, friends you can turn to anytime of the day or night (us & people you meet at recovery meetings) taking time out from usual social activities no pubs clubs bars for a bit or where the places emphasis is on alcohol or your friends are drinking experiment like I did & see how good it feels it's not easy but it is easily worth it

In short logging in here daily will be a really great idea

Sobriety is a proven experiment of how life gets better learning new skills without resorting to alcohol & I really hope you decide on posting daily it will really help

Why not as part of your experiment log in daily & write a few lines each day reflecting on yourself that's a good experiment

Good luck & best wishes

Such great questions and ideas on how to look at drinking. I totally agree with the idea that labels don't help me though I get it that some people benefit from identifying as an alcoholic. I identify as a person who chose, for years, to self medicate, to buzz out for that nights pleasure without thought or recognition of the toll it was taking on my liver and brain, and dignity. For me, drinking isolated me from activities that might have helped develop friendships or professional relationships, I started drinking at 5 pm every day so any connections needed to be made after that witching hour were impossible. Reading the original post, that might be what is happening, drinking seems comforting at the moment but is ultimately isolating. One day at a time with goal of healthier living, sustaining abstinence works for me.

This is just an idea, but you joined this forum I assume because you probably were thinking about quitting. Why not quit? Whether you label yourself an alcoholic or not, quitting will likely improve your life in the long term.

Its still within the rules to quit even if you don't label yourself an alcoholic. haha.

Trying to see how long I could go without drinking inevitably ended in me drinking again - it was like drinking at the end was part of the 'experiment'....at least that was my experience.

Maybe the idea of a temporary break was less scary than a complete one...or maybe I thought a little time off might reset me as a 'normal' drinker...

Of course it didn't do ant of those things and ultimately I had to accept that any amount of alcohol was not good for me.

Have you considered a recovery plan to help you stay sober..for good? :)
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ery-plans.html

I definitely don't think anyone at AA would laugh at you. I did the exact same thing you are talking about years ago and talked myself out of being an alcoholic ...fast forward to a progressive disease, read some of my threads. Setting limits and not sticking with them is a red flag. Don't worry about the alcoholic label. Ridding yourself of the shame, embarrassment, self-loathing, and debilitating hang overs are good enough reasons in themselves to permanently quit. Do you feel better during those 3-4 months when you don't drink?

Also Rabbitgirl - it can be confusing when sometimes you CAN control it. Please believe me when I say that gets worse. I USED to truly drink moderately 9 out of 10 times - 1 out of ten was the fall down, injury drunk with days of hangover you describe. Then it went to about 5 out of 10 times. Then every other time I picked up a drink. The last time I drank it was to "celebrate" 60 days of sobriety with ONE DRINK and I ended up getting in a car accident in a blackout....absolutely insanity, which all started with telling myself that since SOMETIMES I could drink like a normal person, I had a license to be a drinker