How To Tell If You Are An Alcoholic
And some thoughts on why it might not really matter.
Four years into my sober life I’m still ambivalent about identifying as an ‘alcoholic’. I’m more comfortable saying I am almost alcoholic. Or an apprentice alcoholic. Or a potential alcoholic.
But what’s the difference? How do you tell if you really are An Alcoholic? Does it even matter?
High-functioning alcoholic?
In Sarah Allen Benton’s book, Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic (HFA) Benton explores this sort of drinker in great detail. An HFA drinks alcoholically and succeeds at life. They manage to hide their drink problem, but often at great cost.
HFA’s don’t lose their jobs, don’t go to prison, and don’t have public drunken meltdowns (until they do, at least).
But anyone who knows an HFA closely, knows that the idea of the high-functioning alcoholic is one of the most dangerous oxymorons on earth. It says far more about the UK’s crazily permissive drinking culture and poor understanding of addiction than it does about any individual’s drinking.
If your drinking is a problem for you then it is a problem
When I first started attending 12 step meetings I found it hard to relate. I used to drink a bottle of wine in front of my laptop, instead of socializing with my friends, and often I had nasty arguments with my boyfriend. I couldn’t fulfill my potential when I drank and it agonized me.
Meanwhile, other people had spent time in prison, stolen from their loved ones and been kicked out of whole countries.
For a long time, I had a serious case of imposter syndrome. Luckily for me, it was outweighed by an urgent desire to change my life, and so I kept returning. I listened and shared my lightweight experience, and tried to get a better handle on why I couldn’t seem to stop getting drunk, no matter how much I wanted to.
Gradually, I overcame my perverse reverse shame about not having a sensational criminal record, and I grew more confident in what my new sober community was telling me: that my drinking was a problem because it was a problem for me.
You don’t have to identify as an alcoholic
I spent months struggling to identify with the label ‘alcoholic’.
My new sober friends told me, “it’s just a word” and that “drinking problems fall along a spectrum” and that “it doesn’t matter what you call yourself, so long as you remember you can’t drink.”
But identifying seemed essential, the key to truly changing my life, and feeling a sense of belonging.
Four years on, I know that it’s not essential at all. In fact, the label ‘alcoholic’ is sorely out of date.
“Physicians should use terms such as “person with an alcohol problem” rather than “alcoholic” or “addict,” which are commonly used but demeaning shorthand terms.” — Warren Thompson, MD, Medscape
The most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders (DSM-V) discusses alcohol abuse as existing on a spectrum. It does away with the binary of ‘Alcohol Abuse’ and ‘Alcohol Dependence’ in exchange for a single category of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), but with different levels of severity.
AUD is the latest name invented by doctors to communicate the destructive and baffling pattern of human behavior, thoughts and feelings that we talk about when we talk about so-called ‘alcoholism’.
AA was formed in 1935, but getting sober in 2020, you will find plenty of places that will help you become abstinent without asking you to identify with any label whatsoever. Soberistas, Hip Sobriety, Smart, She Recovers, to name a few.
My point is, it honestly doesn’t matter whether you call yourself an ex-pisshead, an alcoholic or a non-drinker. What matters is that you understand the mental twist around alcohol that all of these words are attempting to describe.
Do you have it? A specific weakness for alcohol which allows you to swear off drinking and then get drunk within the same 24 or 48 or 72 hour period?
A strange condition that means you cannot stick to your own most sincere desire not to drink? Or not for as long as you would hope.
Make the language work for you
These days, I regularly identify as an ‘alcoholic’ and when I do, it is shorthand for this:
‘I have an infuriating brain-twist regarding alcohol which means I cannot remember its negative qualities at the same time as I have excellent, technicolor recall of its positive qualities; as such, and because I hear your stories that describe the same twist, I would love your help in holding a realistic perspective on this substance which made my life painful and narrow, and yet which I often long for with a fervent and inexplicable thirst’.
Catchy, isn’t it?
The label ‘alcoholic’ is out-of-date, but it sure saves time. And it can help a person access the support they need to get their life back on track. It certainly helped me.
Besides, there is power in taking a negative term and turning it into something positive. My sober alcoholic friends are some of the finest people I know.
Owning this label, after years of denying or bargaining with it, can be very healing. It can be the beginning of finding the strength to change your life.
The relief of arriving in a group of people who are admitting their problem and trying to solve it, rather than denying they have an issue while getting smashed is hard to describe.
And that’s why I will always be grateful for everything I learn from AA, including how to say, with surprising comfort and even pride (in that context), “Hi, my name is Chelsey and I’m an alcoholic.”
If that isn’t the path for you, then that’s ok, too. There are so many other resources.
Your drinking doesn’t have to be any worse than it is right now to quit
There is almost no evidence of how my drinking was destructive outside of my own psyche. Which is not the same as saying there is no evidence of my drinking problem.
I wanted to quit drinking and I couldn’t.
I wanted to live a beautiful life, and I couldn't.
I wanted to feel peaceful and content, and I couldn’t.
That is enough. That is plenty.
My story has so little drama, and that’s why I’m compelled to share it. Because I believe there are thousands of people out there, just like me.
People who keep drinking because they aren’t ‘bad enough’ to identify with the 12 steppers. Who keep drinking because their friends tell them that they don’t have a problem. People just like me.
Blogs helped me to understand that help was out there. And that’s why I write these posts. To pass it on to the next ones coming through.
So please:
Stop waiting for your situation to get worse before you take action.
Stop asking for permission to quit.
Stop gaslighting yourself.
Find a community and ask for help
Or the likelihood is that you will end up drunk again. Maybe not the first time. Maybe not even the second time. But eventually. Just look at your previous experience.
How many times have you sworn off before? How many times have you failed? And remember, seeming to have control of your drinking is part of the pattern of a drink problem.
If you can’t control your drinking, life will be better once you quit. You will have no choice but to solve the problems that drink allows you to ignore. Gradually, your life will improve. It has no choice!
Just don’t try to do it alone. And stop worrying about whether or not you are truly an ‘alcoholic’.
Stop thinking about what you are giving up, and consider what you might gain. Stop telling yourself your drinking isn’t bad enough. Ask yourself, How good could life be?
If you’re struggling with drinking, know you aren’t alone.
If you relate to this, and you’re ready for something different, try the alcohol experiment. Do whatever it takes to stay sober for 30 days: go to your doctor, try Smart or AA or Hip Sobriety or Soberistas. Listen to Recovery Elevator and SHAIR podcasts. Read This Naked Mind. Try Moderation Management.
Quitting drinking alone is boring, difficult and for many of us, impossible. There is a whole community of people just waiting to help you. Reach out. Something better is waiting for you.
Chelsey Flood is the author of Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, a lecturer in creative writing and a dedicated truth-seeker. She writes about freedom, addiction, nature and love.
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