Am I An Alcoholic?

[Carol87]

"Am I an alcoholic?" is a question that I struggled with for at least three years after coming into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was in total denial. Why? Because I am a high-bottom drunk and continually looked at the differences, not the similarities, between myself and others in the program. I was sure that in order to "qualify" for membership that I had to have accomplished all of the "yets", such as being arrested, losing a job, getting a DWI, which I had 'yet' to do. I successfully overlooked all of the red flags that clearly pointed out that I am, in fact, alcoholic. "I don't fit" was something I grew up with and carried over to AA and is something I still struggle with even after many, many 24 hours of sobriety.

I found the answers to MY original question in the rooms of AA and in the Big Book. After getting totally fed up listening to my never-ending litany about whether or not I am alcoholic, a member grabbed me in the parking lot and suggested I read this:

"Could I be an alcoholic without some of the hair-raising experiences I had heard of in meetings? The answer came to me very simply in the first step of the Twelve Steps of AA. 'We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.' This didn't say we had to be in jail, ten, fifty, or one hundred times. It didn't say I had to lose one, five or ten jobs. It didn't say I had to lose my family. It didn't say I had to finally live on skid row and drink bay rum, canned heat or lemon extract. It did say 'admitted I was powerless over alcohol; that my life had become unmanageable.

Most certainly I was powerless over alcohol, and for me, my life had become unmanageable. It wasn't how far I had gone, but where I was headed. It was important to me to see what alcohol had done to me and would continue to do if I didn't have help." - excerpt page 379, Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition, page 354, Fourth Edition

Finally, after all that struggling, I had MY answer. I believe the ONLY person who can truly decide if he/she is or is not alcoholic is that person. Today I know that once I started drinking, there was NO WAY that I could stop. Someone once suggested I try controlled drinking ... I laughed then and still do!

[WolfM]

Dear Carol,
My struggle was not with the alcholism, but with admitting the unmanageablity of my life.
It was easy for me to admit being an alcoholic. I passed the 20 questions (from Johns Hopkins University) when I was 17. I did not stop drinking until I was 34. It is just that my being an alcoholic was not a problem (for me) until my last black out. From then on it was easy to admit the unmanageablity part and I have been in the fellowship ever since.
WolfM

[albertawind]

Thank you for posting that because I too went through years of total denial. Even though I was out of control I still believed I could handle it. I am still in the infancy of my sobriety (29 days) and my mind is playing devilish tricks:

"Hey," my mind whispers, "you've gone 29 days without a single drink, surely you must have a lot of self control. Maybe you could have a few drinks now and then without losing it again. Come on, you can do it. I know you can."

Every day I repeat Step One. Every single day. I do it in the morning, in the shower, on my way to work, after work, while doing homework with my kids, and before going to sleep. I have to constantly remind myself that my life had become unmanageable with alcohol. It's a battle, Carol, a battle for my life. Thanks again for that post... it will help me so much today.

[samf]

I had a friend who used to say, "If I'm not an alcoholic, why does my mind try so hard to convince me that I'm not?"

Gosh, I loved that.

Sam

[MIKEYBEEF]

Thank you Carol for that post.I went from drug addict(crystal meth from 86'to 88')and switched to beer,thinking that I was actually helping myself,and I used to tell myself that I wasnt an alcoholic because I wasnt one of those bumms you see on the streets.How wrong I was.

[MattV]

In an amazingly short period of time, I went from a three bedroom house in the 'burbs to a tent in a swamp. I finally came to the realization, after trying to drink myself to death and failing, just how powerless over alcohol, and myself, I really was. When I realized that I couldn't control my drinking even enough to kill myself with it, that was the end of the line. I had no control over alcohol or myself. What could I do but return to AA (The incident recounted above came at the end of a fifteen year relapse)?

I'd drifted around the edges of the program for years, but I'd never been able to take it seriously, for reasons that belong to an entirely different topic. So I came back with the attitude that if I just sat and really listened to what I heard, I might learn something. And I did. One thing that a friend used to say before he died unexpectedly, was, "The first drink gets you drunk." I took me a while to understand the meaning in those words. If I popped the top on a beer, and downed it, there's no telling when it might end. Where it ended would probably be the county jail or the hospital. I knew that things were probably going to end badly, but I didn't care. Now I do, not just for myself but for others as well.

[jools]

Hi

When I was drinking I use to think maybe I am an alcoholic and I would try and stop and was never able to stay stopped. So when I got to AA I knew I was an alcoholic. Of Course my life was unmanageable look at what a mess I was in. I went along in AA for the next 16 years with that under my belt. Doing bits and pieces of the Big Book, carrying what I thought was the message of AA. My life at 16 years sober was not real good I was experiencing the the unmanageability on page 52 paragraph 2 in my life. I was dying, not a great deal had changed, sure i was sober physically, I had been living my life on self-propulsion, to show all the people in AA I was happy joyous and freeand so good, yet I was so full of resent and fear, it was killing me.

I eventually met a lady who took me through the Big Book statement by statement turning them into questions. I had to really look at the physical craving with alcohol. Get in touch with my body. Where did alcohol go when I put it in my body, and it was not to be the head. I had to sit with this. As I went thru statement by statement I was having experiences and I was really feeling the physical condition of my disease, and the next question was "?f I had to stay like this where would it take ?" This is how I felt physically I couldn't sleep, couldn't sit still, my body was tense, I had a knot in my gut that it was physically painful, my shoulders were tight, i was round shouldered, my jaw was set hard and I had bowel problems, I had a pain in the middle of me that went from the front right thru to my back. I had to sit with this and feel it and yes I came to see that a drink would fix this. and as I sat with this and imagined taking a drink, it went straight right to the core of my being, my shoulders loosened and I straightened up and my chest went out the knot in the gut was gone, my jaw loosened, I was now beginning to feel alive. Wow what an experience. I became very aware of my body. When I drank I came alive, I feel that if I had not found alcohol I probably would have done myself in. I was so painfully shy and uncomfortable in my own skin, always wanting to be someone else other than myself, I felt I didn't belong to this family I was living with, living even as a child was painful, then along came alcohol, what it did for me was electric.

My unmanageability (page 52 2nd paragraph) takes me to the obsession to drink, I suffered from the unmanageability long before I picked up a drink.

As I went thru each statement in the book, I came to see that I cannot manage my life sober, what an awakening that was. I had been trying for 16 years to manage my life. I tried so hard to do what was right in AA and outside of AA. I tried not to get resentful and stop the fear, tried not to think of alcohol, I could taste and smell alcohol at times and there was none around how I feared that. I came to see this is my disease at work in me 24/7. I cannot stop it. That's why I need to find a power greater than myself. Because I cannot stop all this stuff, I came to see that it is just like my drinking, I can't stop. The steps are there for me to find a power greater than myself who will keep me sober. Lack of power was my dilemma. Now, in sobriety, if I follow the instructions in the book and leave the results up to God the unimaginable happens, and why I say the unimaginable happens is, because the results are usually not how I would have imagined. The first step is the most important step for me. And the Physical craving is the very first part they look at in the book. I didn't know this for a very long time in AA. I am so grateful someone showed me this because of their experience with their sponsor. This has been my experience.