This is for all those that have struggled with alcohol. Do you call yourself an alcoholic? Or do you say you have alcoholism? I’m interested to see how others feel about this. Personally, I’m having a difficult time going to AA meetings online because I don’t want to label myself. Labeling, for me, means I’m defining myself by something outside of myself, and I’m here because I don’t want to be defined by alcohol anymore. My head thinks labeling myself means I can not change. I know there are many with other opinions. I would like to hear yours.
21 Likes
I say I am an alcoholic. I feel it’s appropriate simply because I fit all the definitions. I live with the disease of addiction. I specifically suffer from alcoholism but it doesn’t define my whole. I’m a lot more than my disease.
Just stay sober! We find what works & we work it. If we don’t, we likely die early with plenty of misery prior.
16 Likes
Yes, you’re right. I was just curious. Enquiring minds wanna know. Lol
5 Likes
I do not refer to myself as an alcoholic. I also don’t refer to anyone as an alcoholic, even those who use that to define themselves and/or others.
It doesn’t suit me. I rarely even say I am in sobriety. I often say, “I don’t drink. I have learned how much it messes me up.”
Each path is followed in different ways. Hopefully, we all end up in the right location - just not drinking or doing drugs. It took me a long time to be alcohol-free for as many days as I have.
I believe that each program and its terminology work for people who embrace it and it suits them.
All the different people often need and work with different things.
16 Likes
I accept the label. For me it feels like a place to heal from. I spent so much of my life trying to outsmart my alcoholism only to keep suffering from my alcoholism. Admitting I am an alcoholic feels like I’m surrendering to recovery.
It keeps me willing to work on recovery every day.
Its like taking medicine to treat my alcoholism. I get good, easy to access medicine 24/7 here.
I get really good medicine in AA too. I get it watching the sunrise sober, out in nature too.
This is my favorite chapter of the big book. I find it to be 100% true for me.
17 Likes
I identify as an addict. That’s how it feels to me because alcohol is just one of mine. I was a crack/cocaine addict, but I do not crave that drug anymore and we’ve parted ways. Drinking is the most detrimental and persistent. I started drinking at 12 years old. It’s deeply engrained in me. I will say that when I am attending AA meetings it is because I am struggling with alcohol and in those moments I identify as an alcoholic. So I say such.
12 Likes
Thank you all for sharing. This is really interesting to me. I appreciate it!
7 Likes
@JasonFisher love that chapter also, the definitions in the big book fit for me. I think the biggest thing is just asking yourself whether you can take a drink or leave it without any mental craving or obsession about it. At one time in my life I could drink like a normal person, my alcoholic behavior began in the military borne out of loneliness and depression being stationed in the middle of Alaska as a single 23 year old. During that time I drank so much I fundamentally changed my brain so that when I take the first drink now my body physically craves more.
Even though I had periods of sobriety up to almost two years at times since then, it was miserable for me because my brain will never go back to being normal again when it comes to alcohol. I can be sober and I can manage and live my life that way but by all accounts I’m an alcoholic for the simple fact I can’t pick it up or put it down and leave it be anymore. If I have one my brain says keep going, there’s never enough for me to drink.
I get the labels piece of it, but I too am okay accepting it and moving forward in my life understanding who I am. It doesn’t define me but it’s something I live with and work through. I find peace in sobriety now working my program and accepting I’m powerless over it and my life is unmanageable when I’m drinking. But that’s me 
I don’t claim to know what works best for anyone but me like my sponsor tells me. That’s why I like working with the guy, he doesn’t dictate to me he teaches me the program and gives advice but ultimately it’s my journey and my choice.
If you are trying AA that’s why the first step is reflecting on alcohol and accepting powerlessness over it. But the 12 steps are not rules, they’re suggestions as it says in the big book. I don’t recall but I don’t believe anywhere in the literature does it say you have to label yourself to accept powerlessness over alcohol just the same as when it comes to the concept of a higher power, they use God as a word but really you just have to accept that there is some power greater than you in the universe that can restore sanity to your life without alcohol. For some people this is simply accepting that the AA community as a whole is a higher power than the individual.
The people who founded AA based on my reading definitely did not want to restrict the program and dictate to people, merely offer a way of living to free them from alcohol if they were willing to give it an open minded and honest effort. Long story short, if you don’t want to call yourself an alcoholic I don’t see anything wrong with that, the more important thing is whether or not you accept that you don’t have power to control alcohol like another person who could easily take a drink or not take a drink.
11 Likes
Substance abuse disorder; current state: remission since X weeks.
In the DSM-V (diagnostic statistic manual for psychiatric/psychological disorder) there is only « remission » after you’ve had the symptoms of the disorder. Not « cured ».
That’s a fancy way for saying you can’t un-pickle a pickle. Once a pickle, never a cucumber.
I never say that I am an alcoholic. I just say I don’t drink anymore.
15 Likes
You don’t have to say you are an alcoholic to be at A.A. “The only requirement is a desire to stop drinking.” You can say, “I’m new here”, or you can say, “I quit drinking and have a desire to stay stopped”, or any other thing. If it’s an open meeting, you can say you’re just visiting or listening. For me, after two relapses I have realized that I really can’t drink: even one opens the door to the crazy cravy-ness. Noe it’s much easier to say, and understand, what “an alcoholic” is. It’s hard to walk this dragon-of-a-disease on a leash like it’s a pet. It’s a subtle foe. Subtle and deadly.
11 Likes
I have a somewhat different relationship with alcohol…
So, my primary drug of choice: I identify as a Sex/Love Addict (I could say Sexaholic, but I never do).
However, for me, alcohol is a support drug, or catalyst to my addiction.
Alcohol deadens me, like anesthesia, before I act out sexually. And, it numbs me, like a painkiller after I act out… for that reason, I quit alcohol the same day I quit acting out sexually.
I was able to drink socially, without getting drunk (though I would get drunk at times too). And, I do miss it (though I’m not compelled toward alcohol the same way I am toward acting out sexually) -
So, with regard to alcohol, I don’t really know what I am - I just know that I can never drink again.
EDIT: Also, I had no technical knowledge of any of it before I decided to quit. But, after quitting, I began to study up on it (through various channels), and that’s when I came to identify my true addiction, and how alcohol relates to it.
10 Likes
I am an alcoholic but I don’t know if I will always use that label. I’m coming up on 5 years sober from alcohol and I think I might try out a new term then, in recovery, recovering addict etc.
Accepting the term of alcoholic was very therapeutic for me and a big reason I don’t throw that term around loosely. I would never force that term on anyone.
When I came to this site I was asking questions about decades of problematic substance use. Once I started reading I realized I wasn’t alone. I don’t want to stop at one drink and after 5 or 6 I never want to stop. I’ve always had an unhealthily high tolerance. I’ve ruined relationships and jobs and opportunities due to my alcohol use. Once I could see this and talk it all out with others I had a term for it. I will never drink like a normie so I will never again assume I can. I am an alcoholic recovering and always will be. If I pick up a drink again I will be right where I was almost 5 years ago but worse off. That term will always apply to me.
15 Likes
In my experience…
If you are ever in a position to question whether you might be an alcoholic, just being at the point of even needing question it is usually a pretty big indication in itself..
I know several alcoholics that ‘‘dont have a problem and aren’t alcoholics’’. I definitely convinced myself for the last 2 decades that im not an alcoholic.. pride, ego, got everything i ever wanted, married, children, house good career, lifes generally okish, bills paid ect.
I definitely couldn’t be an alcoholic though.. so i kept telling myself. I just want to drink everyday because i dont really need it, its more ‘‘ive earnt it’’, ‘‘i deserve it’’. its my reward, everyone else does.. so on so forth.
Some people don’t like the term, some people are in denial, some people call it something else, its not alcoholic, its alcohol abuse disorder and the like.. but the way i see it is you can have a shovel or a spade, both will dig you a deep hole you get stuck in and cant easily climb out of. When you are at the bottom of that hole, does it matter what you labelled the thing that dug it ?
13 Likes
I have been thinking about this a long time. And I have now admitted that I am an addict. Because for me it is not just alcohol, there were many other addictions in the past. And alcohol is the last addiction I have to work on.
In my mind the term alcoholic or addict always came with a stigma for me. So to be able to admit that was big for me.
12 Likes
I think the term alcoholic is very subjective, to some the alcoholic is the old homeless man on the park bench with his whisky in a paper bag, to others its someone who drinks everyday, i dont think labels are required just a knowing and accepting that you have an issue that is ruining your life is enough to know things have to be looked at and change needs to be made, if i have a label its an addict, i will always be an addict even in recovery i am a recovering addict…thats all good with me though i embrace it, if id never been an addict id have never sought to look at myself so closely and i can safely say some of the most emotionally intelligent, compassionate and wonderful people ive ever met are recovering addicts.
12 Likes
I have never quite heard it put that way before. I can certainly resonate with all that you have mentioned. I guess the flaw in me is that I don’t understand how people can quit drinking alcohol if they are absolutely powerless over it. That’s the part that I’m not grasping. I want to believe that either me and/or God can take away the desire to drink alcohol forever. I can not sit here and say that I will never have another drink for the rest of my life, so perhaps that means I have alcoholism. But being an alcoholic sounds like zero control over alcohol, which would be the powerlessness you speak of. Every time you choose not to have a drink, you are strong/powerful. Or at least, this has been my mindset that has gotten me through this past week sober.
But you know what? I could be completely and utterly wrong about all of that. I’m probably way overthinking things, which makes this journey more rocky. I tend to overthink things a lot. Lol Thank you so much for all that you have written. It’s given me a lot to think about!
8 Likes
I have overcome many addictions in my life, too, with alcohol being the hardest to let go. There have been 5 addictions to be exact. And each time I went from saying I am an addict to I have an addiction. It probably doesn’t matter what way I say it. Lol. But if I’m going to say I am something, it would be addict because I’m easily addicted to things. Hoping that all changes though! Thanks for sharing!
This response is also for @Marieke .
7 Likes
@WCan and @EarnIt I LOVE the way you put it!!! That sounds like the most accurate. That’s what I say about the other drugs that I used to have problems with. I just don’t do them anymore. 
@JasonFisher Thanks for sharing. I’m gonna bookmark your post and try to look at that chapter later today.
@Amelie It’s good to know that doesn’t have to be said at the AA meetings. I’ve only been to two so far. One of the meetings was so-so, but I gleaned a lot from the other meeting so I would like to continue as I have time right now.
@EthanHunt That’s very interesting to hear how alcohol has played a part in your true addiction without alcohol actually being the true addiction. Thank you for sharing!
@Jaybeeem and @TrustyBird I can certainly understand and respect that. I think if it helps, definitely say alcoholic. In my case, it hinders my progress. My mind goes to I’m an alcoholic so why am I even trying or I have zero control so I might as well accept my fate.. and that sort of thing which leads to more depression and more drinking. That’s why I’m curious to see how it helps others. Thank you for your responses!
@Starlight14 I lean that way, too. Most of the people that term themselves as addicts… I’ve known them to be very aware and very intelligent as well. Certainly not all of them, but many are.
7 Likes
That’s why step two is “came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” So basically, since I’m an AA member I’ll use myself in the first person. I have zero control over alcohol and my life is unmanageable with alcohol in it. I accept that I can’t resolve this insanity myself and that only a Power greater than me can resolve it (steps 1 and 2).
So I openly admit that it’s going to take me surrendering to something greater than myself and nothing of my own power to beat this thing daily. The two concepts or “steps” go hand in hand. There’s no “Jake is powerless over alcohol but he’s a strong guy so he could be sober.” It’s Jake is is powerless over alcohol and nothing he does of his own power is going to put his mind back to a place of sanity, so only a power far greater than Jake is going to be able to do this so Jake can continue on and live a full life truly free of alcohol in relative peace.
Insanity means our mind is unsound so only something stronger than my own selfishness and self centered unsoundness of mind will overcome all that and return my mind to a place of soundness so that I can continue my journey to living a full life.
7 Likes
If I pick up a drink again I will be right where I was almost 5 years ago but worse off. -
One hundred percent worse off (which is the whole core of the matter anyway); I’ve experienced that sh*t so many times myself.
the way i see it is you can have a shovel or a spade, both will dig you a deep hole you get stuck in and cant easily climb out of. When you are at the bottom of that hole, does it matter what you labelled the thing that dug it ? -
Damn, if this ain’t an absolute nugget right here. Any label will do; standing in that deep, dark hole is what really identifies the problem for me.
I dont think labels are required just a knowing and accepting that you have an issue that is ruining your life is enough to know things have to be looked at and change needs to be made -
This is so completely true. Look at the results. Is that activity f**king up my life? Then I need to avoid that activity and make some changes.
7 Likes