Expert: Druideck - 10/5/2009

Question
I had my first drink when I was 12 but didn't develop much of a habit until about 17. I smoked marijuana throughout high school. I got caught using drugs and alcohol several times in high school and my parents and peers made me attend AA and NA meetings, to try to scare me. I've always had a complex about drinking since then.

Though it has varied throughout the years, I used to drink almost nightly until about age 27. Sometimes it was 3-4 drinks and sometimes 5 and up to 10 or more (and I'm a petite woman). I often would black out and embarrass or frustrate my friends, do stupid things, narrowly avoid arrest or even death. I went through about a year or two of heavy drug use in my early 20s, which started in my teens. Now I'm 30 years old. I'm married and life is mostly stable. My relationship with my husband is good. He has expressed concern in the past about my drinking, which caused us arguments. In high school I once lost a job to drinking. I have missed work and often missed classes due to hangovers. These days I mostly avoid drinking on week nights for that reason. I can go out but I just won't drink much - maybe 1 or 2.

At present I usually have at least a drink every 3-5 days, and my binge drinking has slowed to about 1-2 times a month (I think). I have increasingly better control over my drinking than before, but I still fall off the wagon and binge now and then. I black out less often but I have awful hangovers, worse than ever, sometimes until 8 pm the next day.

This past weekend my husband was out of town and I was alone. I drank a healthy glass of whiskey at home one night, and a full bottle of wine the next. The night I drank wine, I went out and did something pretty stupid that could have endangered my safety. I would not have done that sober. This has really scared me and for the first time I am actually considering if I have a problem, or just "issues."

I drink for social lubrication, because I'm more fun when I drink and I'm often awkward in groups - especially with new faces. All my best friends drink. I like the bars. I don't like being alone. Though I am seldom alone, when I am I always drink at night. I wonder if I really have an addiction to alcohol or if there are other issues I am running from. The fact that I drink when alone makes me think it is bigger than alcohol. I sometimes go a full week without even thinking of a drink, and since I'm in law school I've even skipped some weekends of drinking - a big occasion. I wonder if I need to just deal with the issues making me nervous in social settings, insecure, and afraid of isolation, rather than stop drinking entirely.

Thanks for your help.  

Answer
Alicia,

perhaps the first thing to mention
and you have probably heard it
before is how hard it is to
break through an alcoholics
denial. The illness components
of alcoholism include a mental defense
which makes it very difficult for
an alcoholic to recognize the
extent of their problem and/or
define the problem as something
else.

If you are feeling uncomfortable
after that statement then I
suggest you sit down and
write an honest assessment
of your drinking and
how it affects you and
your family. Also include
all the past events where alcohol
was involved in a negative way.
Once you have this on paper
it will be easier to see
how drinking has affected your
life up until the present.

Second, your life style seems
to be designed to make drinking
regularly seem to be a normal
activity. This is your perception
as you and your friends drink
often.

This all makes your drinking
seem more like an issue rather than
an addictive process.
Calling it an "issue" is a way
of minimizing the real problem.
This is also a means of defending
your drinking. This is how denial
can operate to protect the illness
from being treated.

It sounds like you have ample proof
of drinking being unhealthy for you.
If it is alcoholism it will progressively
get worse over time. Soon you may lose
all control and get into more scrapes
over it. You may reach a point where
drinking becomes more important than
everything and everyone else.
This is what happens when alcoholism
reaches the later stages.

Any mention of quitting becomes unacceptable
and you will start defending your use of
alcohol. Many people have problems socially
but do not use drinking to compensate.
They develop living skills and evolve
emotionally, this does not happen when
drinking. Emotional development slows down
and the alcoholic does not grow emotionally.
This makes learning to cope when sober very hard
but a worthwhile endeavour.

I would suggest at this point that
you do these online tests honestly
and pay attention to the results,
also talking to an alcohol counsellor
might help you see where you are at.

Take care!

Links to tests:
http://www.alcoholscreening.org/
http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/alcohol-mast/index.html
http://alcoholism.about.com/library/blalcoholquiz.htm
http://www.pamf.org/teen/risk/alcohol/quiz.html