Am I an Alcoholic?

The only person who can answer this question for you, is you.

To help you determine for yourself, honestly answer "yes or no" to the following questions:

Do you ever drink alone?

Do you ever have to hide your drinking?

Have you ever lied about your drinking to a doctor, employer, or loved one?

Have you ever been pulled over for drinking and driving?

Has a doctor ever told you to cut back on your drinking?

Has drinking ever negatively affected your life, job, or relationships in any way?

Do you order extra drinks at last call or finish other people's drinks for them?

Do you ever black out?

Have you ever set limits on your drinking (e.g. "I'll only have one drink, then I'm leaving" or "Only wine and beer, no more hard stuff" or "No drinking during the weekdays, only weekends", etc.)? Did you ultimately fail at those limitations?

Have you ever felt like your drinking has held you back, that your life might be better if you didn't drink?

If you answered "yes" to one of these questions, you might be an alcoholic. If you answered "yes" to two of these questions, you're probably an alcoholic. If you answered "yes" to three of these questions... you're DEFINITELY an alcoholic.

As a newcomer, I didn't want to believe I was an alcoholic. "I never drank during the day... I never blacked out... I never, I never, I never..." I was looking for the differences, rather than the similarities.

How many times have we heard of someone who died of a heart attack because they only had "a few" symptoms of heart failure, so they decided to ignore the problem? Perhaps they had numbness and aching in their left arm, but they didn't feel pain or tightness in their chest, so they disregarded it. Looking for the "differences" in their symptoms, rather than the "similarities," resulted in their death.

The same goes for addiction. Just because you only have a few symptoms of alcoholism doesn't mean you don't have the disease. You're not off the hook.

For me, it came down to "Control and Enjoy": 

I could absolutely control my drinking. I'd say to myself, "I'll only have one drink at the bar, then I'm leaving"**  I'd have one drink and I'd leave, no problem... but I didn't enjoy that drink because I knew it wasn't enough to get me where I needed to be.

I could also enjoy my drinking by taking the governor off and imbibing until I was sated (AKA "passed out"). In other words, control had to be set aside so that enjoyment could be had.

I had the ability to control, I had the ability to enjoy, but I was incapable of doing them both at the same time. For me, the inability to control and enjoy, simultaneously, makes me an alcoholic.

At the end of the day, as previously stated, nobody can tell you if you're an alcoholic. The only person who can determine that truth for you is you.

So, are you an alcoholic? That's not the important question. The real questions is, what are you going to do about it?

** Do you know who never says this to themself? People who aren't alcoholics.