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Are you an Alcoholic?

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 315

I believe Alcoholism is the only disease that tells the sick person they are fine. It is a progressive disease that only gets worst over time. When I told my friends and family that I had quit drinking and joined AA everyone of the them said "about time". I thought I hid it from everyone but thats the alcohol telling me I am just fine. lol.

I am a happy alcoholic and will stay that way as long as I dont take the first drink. I refer to myself as Alcoholic because booze beat me. Admitting my loss to booze keeps me humble. I fought King Alcohol a long time at first thought he was my friend eventually tried to kill me.

8 years ago 0 +0 / -0 421

Hi Trysomethingnew---if you can go 4 or 5 day's without drinking you have seen to a degree how good you will feel when you get it out of your system. And I have to say in my opinion--if you can go 4 or 5 day's you can get it under control without a treatment program. (just my opinion)

The irritable and anxiety are your brain trying to get you to drink. You're working your way up to it. Our brain is like an alarm clock....will go off about the same time everyday with a trigger. Lack of sleep is huge. Sleep deprevation can really mess with your brain. Hunger is another one that can be tricky. You will find you'll sleep better and more when you are away from the booze and once it's out of your system. Sounds to me like you don't give yourself any time to let yourself heal.

How do you begin? Post often and ask for help. (which you've already done). Alcohol dependance is a slow process...it takes a long time for our brain to set up it's little pleasure/alcohol center. That's why folks often say---"I could handle it for years, don't know why I'm different now". There's a point that you don't handle it anymore---it handles you. That's when you need a break....as in a several week or month break. Hard to do---so worth it. Check out the "Smart Recovery" website. That website, along with this site and time (it doesn't happen overnight) has saved my life. You can do this. If you didn't want to help yourself you wouldn't be here. :-) Hang in there and know we are here for you.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1562

Do you think I have a chance at quitting on my own? How do I begin?

The book Alcoholic Anonymous talks about 3 kinds of drinkers.

The normal drinker, who dirnks 1 or 2 drinks occassionally or even consistantly and is done with it. He/she does not obsess. If liquor is not served/available he/she is perfectly fin with it.

Then there is the hard drinker. Who drinks heavily and almost like the alcoholic. However: given sufficient reason, ill-health, family situation (wife threatening to leave, couple of duis....) he/she can stop or even moderate with little therapy/hospitalization at the initial stages.

Then there is the real alcoholic, who cannot stop no matter what. He/she will come up with excuses, attempt various options: switch from beer to wine, hard liquor to natural wine, only drink at home, only at parties, not during work hours..........but in variably his mind will tick him into taking a drink and then the craving kicks in. Worst of all he/she is not ease. Snaps at people, can't handle normal life situations, can't have a decent conversation, always argumentative, road rage may be rampant.

You will have to see where you fit it. I had to seek a spiritual situation. My shrink suggested that I try AA. And thats what I did and today, I am convinced, deep down within, I am an alcoholic BUT I follow few simple rules: Meditate, watch my character defects, be of maxium use to fellow human beings, alcoholics especially. There are some great workshops you can listen to and get more understanding of this condition. Visit my blog and you will see few links.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2

Hello,

I am wondering if you can help me determine whether or not to seek out a real treatment program or not. I drink almost daily and at my best can go 4-5 days without alcohol. I find that lately it has become more difficult to stay sober for any reasonable length of time. It affects my work and relationships but for the most part I would say I am a functioning alcoholic. Lately it is affecting my mental health severely. I find myself extremely depressed, anxious and irritable with all the people who are most important to me, which I have blamed on my lack of sleep (I get about 5 hours a night if I'm lucky). I know these are all the symptoms of drinking too much.

I really, really would like to quit drinking because I can see how terrible my life has become because of it. Do you think I have a chance at quitting on my own? How do I begin? This site has already helped me begin with my recovery just in deciding that I need to do something about this and I can if I put my mind to it. Any other advice would truly help. I am not living up to the full potential of how wonderful a person I am and I deserve to be amazing and the people around me deserve the person that I know I can be.

Please help.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1562

i meant to say, show absolutely no control over the amount of alcohol they consume...

but thats not the problem. the problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind. they always keep going back to that that 1st drink, no matter what.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1562

From what you said, it seems like she could be alcoholic. Its a false persception that alcoholics are skid row bumbs, but there are functional alcoholics that live among us.

To be an alcoholic, one should see if they show signs of irritability, restlessness, discontended, always edgy, argumentative you can add other symptoms. They obsess about alcohol when they are not drinking and then when drinking at times, they show absolutely show control over the amount they drink.

From your posting, I see she hides alcohol from your dad, its one of the trait of an alcoholic. Always looking for ways to hide from others. Never admit to how much they drank. Its always, "I just had 2 drinks".

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1

Hi,

I have a question about alcoholism, and have tried researching on the internet regarding a situation my family and I are dealing with. Any help/info would be appreciated :-)

My mother, an absolutely beautiful, caring & compassionate person has no problems working, taking care of the house, care of grandchildren etc - and does not drink every day, from what she tells me, and my father confirms this as he said he knows if she has had a drink, and can go all week (Mon-Thurs) without a drink.

There have been many situations in which my mom has consumed a lot of alcohol at gatherings, as do others, but every time she has a drink, it's excessive amounts, and has been seen on more than one occasion, while she's on her own, drinking from a bottle of vodka, or putting vodka shots in her coffee. She drank last Sunday morning and was found by my father passed out on the kitchen floor - with rice everywhere.

My mom has hid bottles bc she knows my father will check to see if the alcohol has been consumed, and will add water so the "level" of alcohol looks unchanged. Apparently, this has been going on for years, and has wanted to keep this a secret from my brother and I, but we are now aware, and scared for her health. From what I just learned, she has asked people to buy booze from the LCBO as it's not on her transaction statement, asked others, while out, t get her a drink as she knows my father is watching.

Is it possible to be an alcoholic and not drink daily? I'm assuming all of the info above points to what an alcoholic would do ... but there are times when she would consume 2 glasses of wine and be drunk, yet can drink a bottle of vodka?

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 44

It depends on how much they drink everyday or every week. Like me I asking my self if I am alcoholic because I drink 4-5 glasses of beer and 3-5 glasses of wine everyday and night. The question is what will be the effect of too much drinking to our health.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 421

Hi All,

I read the article and links. Great stuff. Thanks for posting. Very interesting. When I took looked into the links it was interesting to note they did imply that you can take the survey at different times in your life and get different results. Thus changing our category. Dave, that's a great point you make. I think that most people are striving for some type of change--always even if we don't realize it. If not changing we are stagnant. Regardless of what direction we are deciding to take-- moderation or total abstention---we wouldn't be here if we weren't reaching for evolution of some kind. Just my 2 cents anyway.

And TS and swig....it is poison. I do think it is very much like cigerette ads were in the days past. Very interesting point! We do have tons and tons of advertising for alcohol. When watching tv w my family tonight I noticed (after reading your points) that nearly every other ad was for alcohol on the program we were watching.

9 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1009

Hi swig, TS,

It's interesting.....I took an online survey that defines the extent of an alcohol abuse problem. It was around 20 questions and I filled it out 2x, based on how I used to behave 16 months ago and I scored really high, about 95%. I then filled it out based on today and I scored extremely low, like in the no-problem zone because I don't drink, nor do I feel I am influenced by a lot of the factors they listed.

So what I am finding is through this extended period of time, combined with a lot of re-thinking, re-wiring, and continued resolution through self-discovery and addressing root problems has put me in a much different place. So even though I previously behaved like an alcoholic I don't feel I fall into that category anymore. That is a big difference from introducing myself as "I'm Dave and I'm an......." and then programming myself with a lot of other ideas that, in all likelihood, lead to a catastrophic relapse because they are ingrained into my belief system.

All the best,

Dave

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