Admitting that you have a problem with drinking is difficult for many people. Social drinking is something that’s common, and it can be tricky to know when your drinking has crossed the line into alcoholism. In fact, we get a lot of calls at Alpine Recovery Lodge saying:
I’m afraid I might be an alcoholic. How can I tell?
Asking that question might very well be the first step to recovery. The key is knowing how to answer it accurately. In this post, we’ll talk about the questions you can ask yourself to decide whether drinking has become a problem for you.
The first question to ask requires some definition since “excessive” is a subjective term. There are two kinds of drinking that might be considered excessive.
If your drinking falls into one of these two categories, you may be an alcoholic. However, it’s important to note than an occasional bout of heavy or binge drinking is not, by itself, confirmation that you’re an alcoholic. If it happens all the time, you probably have a problem with drinking.
Another red flag of alcoholism is drinking in dangerous or inappropriate situations. Here are some examples:
Alcoholics tend to disregard societal and moral restrictions about when it’s appropriate to drink. If that sounds familiar, you may be an alcoholic.
You may have heard that the person you’re in a relationship with is the one whose calls you always take. That idea applies to drinking too. If you always answer the call of alcohol while ignoring responsibilities, it’s a clear sign that you have a drinking problem.
Let’s look at a couple of scenarios to illustrate what we mean. First, what happens if you have a bill to pay but doing so will leave you without the money to buy alcohol? If you put off the bill-paying to go to the liquor store, that’s a clear sign that alcohol is playing an unhealthy role in your life.
Likewise, do you have plans with friends and cancel, so you can stay home and drink? Or do you find yourself spending less time with non-drinking friends, so you can go out and drink? These are both signs that you might be an alcoholic.
This question is a key one because for many alcoholics, it’s the thing that alerts their loved ones to the fact that they have a problem.
Drinking in secret might involve hiding a flask in your desk drawer at work, or even keeping bottles hidden around your house, or drinking only when you’re alone.
Lying about drinking might mean denying that you’ve been drinking when you’re asked a direct question. It might also mean lying about where you’ve been, who you’ve been with, or what you’ve been doing. Any one of these things is a red flag for alcoholism.
Anybody can overindulge in alcohol, but if you’re routinely blacking out or forgetting what you did because of drinking, you have a serious problem.
Sometimes, alcoholics deny having blacked out. It can be very frightening for family members and friends to see you out of control or be unable to wake you. Denial is a common response – but if you’ve had people talk to you about behavior you don’t remember, you must acknowledge that drinking has become a problem for you.
With any addictive substance, a key warning sign that you have a problem is when you need more of the substance to get the buzz you want.
For example, when you first started drinking, having one strong drink might have been enough for you to feel the effects of the alcohol you’d consumed. Over time – and with repeated heavy drinking – you might find that you need three, four, or even five drinks before you start to feel intoxicated.
To answer this question, it’s helpful to think back and ask what your tolerance used to be. Then, be honest about how much you’re drinking now. If it’s increased dramatically, you might have a problem.
How do you react when people talk to you about drinking? It’s very common for alcoholics to have one or more close friends or family members talk to them about drinking. If you reacted with anger or defensiveness, that could be a sign that you’re an alcoholic.
For example, you might turn on the questioner and bring up something that they’ve done. This is a form of deflection. Another sign might be if you yell at the person questioning you and act as if they’ve personally attacked you.
A question has to do with making excuses for drinking. Here are some examples:
Any one of these things could be acceptable to say for someone who doesn’t have a drinking problem. But if someone confronts you about your drinking and you answer with one of these statements (or something like them), you’re making excuses – and that’s a problem.
Sometimes, a person who is an alcoholic may convince themselves that they don’t have a problem because they don’t drink all the time. However, that’s only one way that alcoholism manifests itself.
If you can go hours (or even days) without drinking, it doesn’t mean you’re not an alcoholic. The question to ask is if you think about alcohol and physically crave it when you don’t (or can’t) have it. It’s common for alcoholics to feel depressed and experience other withdrawal symptoms when they can’t drink. If that sounds familiar, the chances are good that you’re an alcoholic.
This last question is an important one because it encompasses many of the things we’ve already talked about. Here are some signs that your drinking may be taking over your life:
If any of these things sounds familiar to you, the likelihood is strong that you have a drinking problem.
—
Answering “yes” to one of these questions may not be enough to indicate that you have a problem with alcoholism. However, if you’ve answered “yes” to three or more of them, you have a problem with drinking and may be an alcoholic.
Alpine Recovery Lodge