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How Do I know if im an alcoholic


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My wife is convinced I am an alcholic. I do open a bottle of wine most nights. She might have a glass but I have the rest. I love coming in after work and having a few glasses of wine. It just relaxes me. I do admit I have to finish the bottle. But I always feel ok in the morning and It doesnt seem to affect my performance at work. I would find it really hard to stop but I can stop for short periods. I could never give it up forever though which is what she wants. Am I an alcoholic? WHen do you know?

Kieran

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everyone describes alchoholism differently. personally, i believe that an alcoholic is one that allows alcohol to interfere with their life: friends, work, health, and most importantly, family. if alcohol is causing problems between you and your wife, then yes, alcoholism may be a problem in your life. do alcoholics run in your family?? it is very often genetic.

 

while i do not think that it is fair for her to ask you to give it up forever, i think you should cut back to 1-2 glasses a night. if you can't cut back to that amount, then you should start going to AA meetings (or get professional help) and cut yourself off completely from the source of the problem: alcohol. if you can't keep your consumption controlled, you must give it up alltogether. hope i helped!! xoxo

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You sound like a functioning alcholic. Functioning alcoholics normally do not check "yes" to the classic alcholic signals such as drinking causing family conflict, keeping you from going into work, personality changes, black outs, etc but if you are drinking a bottle of wine a day, you are an alcoholic. Since it is not changing your personality or effecting your work and such this problem is more going to cause you health problems more than anything else. This is hard on the liver, i am sure you know, to down a bottle of wine every evening.

 

Does your family life suffer in anyway from this? Does it alter your personality a great deal? your sexual performance?

 

Even if you answer no to those questions you have more than likely developed a serious alcohol dependency.

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If you cant stop drinking... then you are addicted to it. Period. I dont care if you think its not affecting your life or not, trust me it is.

 

At the very least its slowly turning your liver into swiss cheese. Nevermind any side affects on your actual current day life ie work, family, friends etc.

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Hi Kieran,

 

While this subject can often be very controversial and most people have their own opinion about it, many psychologists agree that alcohol consumption becomes abusive/addictive when it is used for medicinal purposes. thereforeeee, in order to answer your question you need to think about WHY you drink alcohol. If you are drinking it in order to feel better...such as you have a bad, stressful day at work so you come home and have a bottle of wine on more days than not...then I would be concerned. I would also be concerned if your drinking is affecting other areas of your life and causing problems for you.

 

What concerns me about your post is that you said "it relaxes me"...which sounds like you are using it for at least some medicinal purposes, and obviously it upsets your wife. My opinion here is that you are not an alcoholic, but that you could be on the road to becoming one.

 

I think that you should try to cut down on the bottle of wine a little, and find other ways to relax yourself. I am not at all saying that you shouldn't have a drink after work, because that is fine in moderation. However, you said that you do it most nights and drink most of the bottle. You could take a bath, watch television with your wife, read a book, or do other things to relax.

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My wife is convinced I am an alcholic. I do open a bottle of wine most nights. She might have a glass but I have the rest. I love coming in after work and having a few glasses of wine. It just relaxes me. I do admit I have to finish the bottle. But I always feel ok in the morning and It doesnt seem to affect my performance at work. I would find it really hard to stop but I can stop for short periods. I could never give it up forever though which is what she wants. Am I an alcoholic? WHen do you know?

Kieran

 

One of the wisest men I know--Wyatt Webb (psychotherapist who uses horses to show people their strengths/weaknesses and a recovering alcoholic) once said- "You know you have a problem with alcohol when alcohol starts giving you problems". It's such a simple statement but it's the truth.You're an alcoholic if alcohol gets you into trouble. In other words, does it make you behave differently (e.g. nasty, mean, abrasive, violent)? Does it affect your performance in any aspect of your life? When you start drinking do you have trouble stopping? Do you black out?

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There is the "CAGE" test:

 

Do you Crave alcohol?

Do you feel Angry when people ask you about your drinking?

Do you feel Guilty after you drink?

Do you need an Eyeopener in the mornings?

 

Saying yes to 2 or more of these if you are a man is a sign you may be an alcoholic. (it is only 1 if you are a woman.)

 

link removed

 

take this test also and see what your score is.

 

i hope everything is ok!

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Well I wanted to hear your responses before I gave you the full detial. Yes it has been negatively affecting my family life. It causes arguments and I do often black out on the sofa after drinking my bottle of wine. Im in an unhapy marriage with a very controlling and wife who verbally and emotionally abuses me. I have been drinking to ease the pain and I do like it as well!! It is a problem but I really dont want to give it up because I like it so much. THere is alcoholism in my family. My Dad drank a lot and my sister was an alcoholic before she died. Now I know that if you are advising me on the basis of my earlier posting that I have a problem, then now youll say I definitely have a problem. How do I give it up if I really dont want to? ANd if I try do I just go cold turkey? The other thing is I hate having to explain to people who know I drink socially that Im not drinking anymore. You always seem to have to explain to people. Please advise me friends.

Kieran

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One of the wisest men I know--Wyatt Webb (psychotherapist who uses horses to show people their strengths/weaknesses and a recovering alcoholic) once said- "You know you have a problem with alcohol when alcohol starts giving you problems". It's such a simple statement but it's the truth.You're an alcoholic if alcohol gets you into trouble. In other words, does it make you behave differently (e.g. nasty, mean, abrasive, violent)? Does it affect your performance in any aspect of your life? When you start drinking do you have trouble stopping? Do you black out?

 

There are some people tho who have no issues from the alcohol other than heavy consumption. This is still a problem as it will kill your liver. Chronic alcoholism. I would say a bottle of wine a day is chronic even if he cannot check yes to any of the classic questions.

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WOW. This sheds a whole new light on it. You are, yes, you are an alcholic.

 

I suggest very strongly that you stop self medicating and work on the real issues, i.e. unhappy marriage, and controlling wife. Your genetic predisposition isn't helping much.

 

I suggest talking to your doctor. They can give you a lot of information on drinking cessation.

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I do crave alcohol and I do feel guilty. I guess that answers your questions. It all points in the one direction. But its gonna be so hard giving it up as we live in a culture surrounded by alchohol at every turn, BBQs, parties, visiting peoples houses, weddings etc etc etc. Please give me tips as to how to stop.

Thanks friends

Kieran

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Kieran,

 

You don't have to decide right now if you're an alcoholic.

 

I know people who were/are in your shoes. They were advised to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and to get the needed support/advice by people who have been down/are on that road.

 

Would you be open to doing that?

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ok, to deal with one issue at a time, if your casual friends/acquaintances want to know why you aren't drinking, just say you started a medication, and you are not allowed to take alcohol by doctor's orders, and just end the story there.

 

next, blacking out does sound like it is a problem. and it seems like you are drinking to escape your troubles.

 

Do you feel you should stop drinking?

 

what if you were out of your marriage and lived alone and things were going well? do you think you would be drinking as much?

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At the moment I am away from my wife and staying with my sister and im not drinking much atall. If I was living by myself Im not sure what I would do. Id like to think I wouldnt drink so much. In one way I do feel I should give it up but another voice is telling my dont be silly, you're not an alcoholic: it is one of the things that you enjoy in life and I dont do much else wrong. I dont smoke. So I have this debate going on all of the time.

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hi yes I am open to that. Will that tell me if I am an alcoholic? Do u have to be off the drink to attend?

 

Kieran,

 

No, you do not have to be off the drink to attend Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. They can assign you a sponsor (in other words, someone who has been in your shoes--who isn't drinking anymore). The sponsor offers support 24/7 and holds you accountable for your actions.

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thank you. I did a similar questionnaire before and it said I am an alcoholic. The thing is its all relative isnt it. I know people who go to the pub every night and drink way more than me. My wife would love it if I admitted to being an alcoholic. Something else to control me by. Thats how I feel about it.

 

you can be an alcoholic even if you only have 1 drink, or none at all. it's an illness. and diagnosing isn't as easy as just counting the number of drinks you have a day.

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I used to drown my sorrows just as you do, for the same reasons, and with the same range of unintended consequences. The net effect was the prolongation of my unhappy situation by many years. When I tried to stop is when I realized how much of a compulsion to drink I really had - it seemed like my car would pull in to a liquor store and park without me even willing it to!

 

I hung in there, though, because I knew the daily drinking was going to catch up to me with a vengeance and I didn't want to get 'wet brain' or die before my time. It seemed an impossible task at first and my list of excuses for continuing to pound was long, but I can be as stubborn as anything when I want to be and didn't give up.

 

Once I got to the point where I was going a week or so between drinks, I found that I didn't even crave it on a daily basis any more. Oh, the freedom! The best part was that once I stopped self-medicating, I got my legs under me and was able to deal much more effectively and articulately with my original problems. I couldn't encourage you more strongly to take the same route as I did.

 

I don't deny myself the odd cocktail or glass of ale as an occasional temporary stress reducer, but my slavery to the stuff (and, I might add, to my now ex-wife, bless her stony heart) is done and gone.

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Some bloke.. i love your avator! Where did you get that? LOL

it really hits home cuz we have bears regularly visit our neighborhood. I had one baby bear on my back deck a few years back. He didn't use the loo though!

Howdidigetthere... I thought you were thinking of splitting from your wife.

Did you get back together after all? How did this come about? I read your other post. Bless your heart. My mum cud be the biggest control freak on wheels sometimes, I hated it sometimes for my poor dad.

There was no hitting though... but still it was awful to see your parents argue all the time.

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My wife is convinced I am an alcholic. I do open a bottle of wine most nights. She might have a glass but I have the rest. I love coming in after work and having a few glasses of wine. It just relaxes me. I do admit I have to finish the bottle. But I always feel ok in the morning and It doesnt seem to affect my performance at work. I would find it really hard to stop but I can stop for short periods. I could never give it up forever though which is what she wants. Am I an alcoholic? WHen do you know?

Kieran

 

Kieran,

 

If you drink almost a bottle of wine most nights I would consider that a problem with alcohol.

 

Most people think alcoholics are bums who can't keep a job, who beat up their spouses, and who aren't clean or well kept- but that is a common misconception. Many alcoholics are what's called 'functional' alcoholics- people who get up every day, go to work, care for a family, go the gym, all of it. I actually dated a functional alcoholic for a number of years, he was very neat and clean, worked every day, went to law school, and drank almost every night. If you drink nearly every day, feel that you 'have to ' finish the bottle of wine, and feel the need to drink frequently- it's a problem.

 

A lot of alcoholics try to rationalize their need for alcohol, it soothes them, they use to it de-stress, to think more clearly, to calm down.... they deny that it might be a problem.

 

I remember you posted about this on your other thread about breaking up with your wife. I do think this is a problem for you, and it's going to be an issue in your custody battle unless you get it under control.

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Hey,

 

I just want to mention that alcohol withdrawal can actually be life threatening physiologically, it increases your blood pressure and heart rate and can actually cause cardiac issues and other problems. It should not be done 'at home' or cold turkey, but in a detox facility under the supervision of a doctor who can monitor you and help you get through it with detox medications, so that you can safely detox and keep the side effects under control.

 

I do recommend you looking into this and please don't try to detox yourself at home. Common signs of withdrawal are itching, sweating, headache, the shakes, irritability, tactile or auditory hallucinations....

 

Are there are detox centers or programs near you? Check your local hospitals too.

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