I just… dont know what to do… i cant seem to make it past 4 days without using… i damaged my car causing 800$ im damaged over this stupid stupid drug… something that would have neevr happened sober. Im so disappointed. Its ruining my life. Every other day i would spend hungover (im allergic to alcohol, so i dont have regular hangovers… they last me all day and sometines 2 days)… yet. I went out with some friends who invifed me out. I said id have 2 beers…i even gave myself a long talk in the mirror. I told myself i could do it…well 2 beers ended up being that plus 3 glasses of champagne and 3 shots of tequila. Everyday i tell myself i will change. But its like im not strong enough. I dont thunk im an actual alcoholic ( i dont get the shakes and dont drink it everyday) but i find thst i have no self control. When i do start… i cant stop until i black out and pass out
You just described to a tee an alcoholic. Actually this entire post is describing perfectly an alcoholic. We can’t have just one. Or 2. We always try to convince ourselves that we can but…then the black out drunks.
I highly recommend reading a bit of the AA big book. It shed SO much light on my alcoholism! I never knew I was a true alcoholic before that either…
Is that an alcoholic? I wouldn’t deem it that
I’m sorry this is hard. I’m the exact same way so I simply don’t drink ever. I watched my dad die of liver failure and took care of him in his final days so I know what happens when the body fails from alcohol…he was sober for 15 years before we found out he was sick. Now when I go out, I have to tell myself and remind myself the cost is too great for me to pay.
“We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control, but such intervals - usually brief - were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period we get worse, never better.”
But it’s hard to label immediately as an alcoholic… for anyone. Her description was excessive. Not compulsive… I could say that about my years in college. Heck yes I drank a lot (excess) with my friends on an almost everyday basis, but if there was ever a day where I didn’t , I didn’t drink (not compulsive) and was fine, which I assume she was alluring to. Idk… I just feel the only one to call out an alcoholic is themselves before anyone else
Oh for sure! Takes one to know one after all. I AM and alcoholic. I have an alcoholic mind…I know how it works and just recognize it quite easily when I read key sentences like “once I start I can’t stop”. All that being said, no me acknowledging alcoholism in another will not help. Not till they can recognize it themselves. Not trying to “label”, just was trying to be helpful and shed some light. Perhaps it back fired…
Once I start and can’t stop is too general. Like I said, did that way too often in my college years and didn’t twice about being an alcoholic, just crappy for making a dumb choice. Multiple times. Better to help with awareness of reasons than straight to AA
I’m there with you 
be strong! I suggest you AA meetings (online also !), are very helpfull trust me and be kind with you!
In retrospect, it honestly was not as important for me to tell someone they are alcoholic, as it would have been to just acknowledge that they felt terrible about their drinking and wanted to stop. For that I applaud you @Val0909! I apologize if I came across accusatory. Was not my intentions at all. @Ariel4 I just know that I felt the same way, frustrated w the mess I had made and not sticking to my “I’ll only have 2”, and then the last binge that landed me in detox. I never ever considered myself an alcoholic, and never would have set foot in an AA meeting till I attended a few there. W every story I heard I was in tears and shocked at how perfectly they described me and i saw myself in each and every one. Then after detox I found meetings in my area and related even more. Once I read the big book it was more than clear to me that I was in fact an alcoholic. But knowing this brought me so much hope! I wasn’t alone. Or crazy. Or hopeless. And now there was an answer and help! I just wanted to share that help and hope w another. But I see now that I went about it the entirely wrong way. For that I’m truly sorry. 
Like you I said that I wasn’t an alcoholic. I was on off on drinking. Could go 8, 10, 20, once 36 days without drinking. But over a period of maybe 10 years there maybe a dozen days when I drank “just a couple of beers”. Every other of the many hundreds of days that I drank I got drunk. I did stupid things. Came off the road once. Drunk drove all the time. Meandered through jobs. Messed up relationships. Let friends down. Spent thousands and thousands. Didn’t much like myself.
That wasn’t like other people I knew.
But I didn’t want to accept that I was an alcoholic. Maybe I’m not.
In the end I decided it didn’t matter what my label was. I couldn’t have just one or two and my life was made worse by alcohol.
I had been a heavy drinker for periods that spanned thousands of days. Didn’t I owe it to myself just to try at least a few hundred days without alcohol? Just to see if it was better? I got to 208 days. And life was much much better. Since then there have been odd days. One period of 4 days. A total of 13 days out of 150 days when I drank. Still got drunk. Still can’t have 1 or 2. But what I learned about myself and my life in those 208 days had given me the strength to realise that the very best thing for me is not to drink at all and the second best thing is the day after I slip and drink I must must must find a way to stop the cycle starting again. The physical feeling of needing a drink does pass. It does. Quite quickly. But it requires a huge mind reset to stop the mental desire of old habits and false comfort. I’m still working on it.
I’m not driving drunk, I’ve lost weight, my sister told me the other day how healthy I looked and my career looks like it’s actually going somewhere. Things I thought i couldn’t cope with I find I can. Emotions that used to have me reaching for the bottle I find I can just let wash over me and subside. Not nice but they pass and I’m hangover free afterwards.
So I’ve stopped worrying about whether I was or am an alcoholic. I just know my life is much much better without it.
Please. Give it a try. What have to got to lose? What might you gain?
Or as one person said;
If a friend was talking to you and telling you that it has been 13 days since he’d eaten a banana and that he could have one banana and stop if he wanted to but that there wasn’t really a issue with eating 6 bananas for lunch as the next day he could just as easily eat no bananas or maybe just one for supper.
Which would you conclude? That your friend didn’t have a problem with bananas or that he did?
Don’t take your first drink. I think you have the same problem as most of us. Our brakes are not working. If we drink one, we want many. So for me the answer is: don’t drink the first one.
In the beginning of my sober periode I avoid places were I used to drink. I avoid the wine section in the grocery. I come here every day and I also found a Dutch support group. Now I’m 30 days sober again.
You can do it too!!
Try to not beat yourself up though recognise the misery alcohol causes like it does me. I slipped yesterday and signed up to this today…got myself the Naked Truth book to challenge my less conscious ideas of drinking and actively putting in plans to better my life through no drinking. Like many I can’t have 1 or 2 most of the time…then I black out, wake up feeling like hell and then the guilt shame cycle starts… horrible existence. I want more from life and ultimately I want to be free from the grips of drinking. All the best guys, hope your goals are realised!
Hi Val, I’m having difficulty with this as well. This is my third reset since I started at New Years. Lapsed and reset on day 4, then day 5, then day 2. I’ve stopped posting in the daily check-in because I feel ashamed.
I just want to say don’t give up!!! Get back on the horse!!! You can do it, be kind to yourself. You recognise there’s a problem and want to help yourself. I’m avoiding places where there is alcohol, like bars and the alcohol aisles in supermarkets. Stick around here when you feel you need to. There are lots of people doing the same thing together. Hugs to you.
I didn’t think I was an alcoholic either… and I still hate the label because of the stigma attached. But there are all different types of alcoholics. We may drink differently, have different bottoms, different lifestyles but our problem is the same. Alcohol is the problem. If you cab admit you have a problem then your life can improve. I could go long stretches without drinking at all and didn’t have the shakes or cravings for it… And the majority of times for me I could go out and just have 1 or 2 and be fine. But then there were the other times for whatever reason I just could not stop to the point of Blackout. If alcohol is having a negative effect on your life (with your car, work, relationships, not being able to do anything because you’re hungover) then I think it’s worth really giving sobriety a try. If you’re drunk and hungover you’re not really living.
Well said 
I was the same after a couple resets, I stopped posting in the daily check-in because i was embarrassed. But when i said so I had many people reach out to me and say there is nothing to be ashamed about, the point is you are still here and trying again. Everyone here has tried and failed and tried and failed and tried again, you’re not giving up so don’t be ashamed, everyone understands and is here to support you.
I’m new here but being an alcoholic or not we all have problems with alcohol most of us can’t have one most of us feel guilty in the morning most of us binge drink it’s not good for your body your soul and most of all your health almost 4 years ago I had sudden cardiac arrest I was without a heartbeart for 8 minutes in a comp for 4 days 95 percent chance of not making it after I came through I wanted to know why only one valve clogged my doc said family history stressful job high blood pressure most of the time I eat very healthy except when I’m drinking I go to the gym everyday so I know it was more the binge drinking ive been stopping and starting drinking for the last 4 years this year I’m done there is no reason to kill myself again