At what point are you an alcoholic?

Check out /alck/ threads.

You'll know when it's alcoholism.

>At what point are you an alcoholic?
When you cannot function without alcohol; i.e. you have become dependant.

Drinking once a month has nothing to do with alcoholism. Drinking every day because you can't function without booze is a different story.

This kind of thinking is what makes people alcoholics in the first place. You look at the worst cases of alcohol dependency and categorize that as the minimum requirement for alcoholism. If you NEED one or two beers every night or you don't drink at all on weeknights but NEED to get hammered on the weekend or you drink irregularly but whenever you do you wake up with a deadly hangover, which is to say you don't have any instances of having a few drinks and calling it a night, you have a problem with alcohol.

I say this as someone who drinks 10-15 drinks a week. I think I have an unhealthy dependency on alcohol. The only time I'd rather not have a drink is when I'm feeling hungover. I have some self-control which is why I'm not a full blown alchie but I have all the hallmarks.

The only healthy relationship with alcohol is one where you drink for pleasure and socializing but can easily go without it for long spells and you don't need to ever get drunk to enjoy drinking.

The guy at the liquor store once stopped at my house because I hadn't shown up in a week and he was worried about me.

When you can't stop, when you don't feel good if you don't, when you drink alone, when it affects your life and those around you

I get the shakes when I don't drink. I get aches when I don't drink. It's 145 pm, I started my day three hours later than I wanted to, I'm three beers in already and driving around because I need to. Definitely an alcoholic. I have a baby on the way with my wife, halfway there. I want help to stop before it gets here.wanna break the cycle.

Dr drew says it's when your drinking produces negative.consequences

As a self admitted alcoholic it's not about the amount you drink, it's when you realize you can't go without one. When you start your day and all you think about is the next time you'll be able to drink. When it affects what you do or don't do with your friends and family. You plan your day and what you eat and drink around it. I'm a mostly functional alcoholic currently and I hope it doesn't get worse. Life is pretty shitty right now and without a few drinks a night I feel like there isn't anything else to look forward to. It's a fucked up situation.

An alcoholic feels the "click" in their brain when they have their first drink.

Just seek professional help dude, no one will think lesser of you, you're doing right by your future kid. Failing that, tell your family you want to stop and need their help. Secrecy and denial is the foundation upon which alcoholism is built.

This is a much more succinct way of putting what I was trying to say here

Everyone has their drug of choice that gets then through the week. For some of us that's alcohol, for others it's pot, still others might drop acid on the weekends. Hell, some people just go to church on Sunday. Alcoholism is a whole other thing. It goes beyond having a few drinks to take the edge off. The alcoholic drinks to forget. The alcoholic drinks until all thoughts are obliterated.

>alcoholism is a whole other thing. It goes beyond having a few drinks to take the edge off. The alcoholic drinks to forget. The alcoholic drinks until all thoughts are obliterated"

I'm definitely dependent on it and for me that's how I know it's a problem. That being said I drink a few beers simply cause I enjoy the buzz. I don't get shithoused and hangovers are extremely rare. If it were legal perhaps I'd switch vices and smoke pot, but that's not an option currently. Not that trading one vice for another is a great idea but yea. That said I don't drink socially or for the fun of it, I drink to get a buzz rolling. It's interesting to see all the different types or levels of alcoholism so to speak. Chef I used to work with said in the 80's half the cooks on the line where he worked were intoxicated through the shift and they would drink straight cooking wine !

I have 2-3 drinks a night, everynight, except if I have something to do or people to hangout with. Whenever I do, I don't even miss drinking for a few nights in a row.

I live by myself, now in a very rural area, so I have very little social interaction.

I drink to dull the boredom, does that make me an al/ck/?

Thanks, friend. That's the plan, I cant keeo it in the dark much longer. Father's problem really ripped my family apart when I was a kid. Always said I'd never be like him, but here I am.

If you don't miss it and don't think about it when you aren't drinking then I would say you're fine.

This. Normal people don't have to ask about controlling their drinking.

>month

>If you have to ask, you're an alkie.
What a load of bullshit.
>"If I drink a beer a year am I an alcoholic?"
>"yis, if u hev 2 ask u r alrdy n alco0hoolic"

Similar to me. My mom was a functioning alcoholic (she still drinks but it's under control now, only on the weekends and only a few longer binges once or twice a year) and it was like a specter over my childhood. I'd sworn to never take it up myself. I drink too much now but luckily I hate the thought of drinking in the morning after a night of heavy drinking. This is unlike my mother who loved trying to keep a buzz going for days before her body gave out due to lack of proper nutrition and drinking.

If I can give another piece of advice it would be to stay away from al/ck/ threads or the like. While it's healthy to talk about your problem, by doing it here instead of in front of real people you're weaseling out. Getting the load off in a very small way so you don't have to do it in a real way.

Sorry for the sermon.

fucking al/ck/ies are the biggest cancer in this board
massive ban vvhenn?

When you can't have just one drink.

when you feel bad without alcohol and feel normal with alcohol

no you fucking dweeb. quit wasting our time with your bullshit

I'm pretty sure what that user meant was this

I have no friends in college. The only fun thing I like doing is getting drunk alone in my dorm room on the weekend. Usually have have some sort of take out food, a big bottle of wine and some snacks while I watch some movie off my laptop. I always finish the entire bottle of wine and sleep drunk. Am I an alcoholic?

The last time I did this, it was some Indian food with a bottle of grapefruit vodka and mini powdered donuts while watching a James Bond flick. I drank so much that I actually vomited on my pillow and bedsheets (horrible).

Honestly I just wish I had friends. I have acquaintences, but do any of them give a fuck about me outside of class? No. Do we study together? Not even. I can't wait to get out of college. My colleges years has been the worst time of my life, worse than the years I was bullied in middle school.

meth cures any alcoholism disorder

I would argue that regular abuse of alcohol (becoming drunk) is considered alcoholism. I used to get drunk once every other weekend and people called me an alcoholic. They can go fuck themselves.

>tastes good
Surefire way to spot a non-alcoholic not knowing his place on the chart, enjoying the booze a bit too much while not yet (but close) to reaching dependancy. /alcs/ will down whatever that is the cheapset/has most alcohol per volume/is readily available/will give the least shits and hangover the next day in order to somewhat function in normal society.

Ive read posts of anons catching the trots while getting booze on a gas station on the low while their relatives thought they had food poisoning.

The sooner you stop kidding yourself about your condition (slippery slope), the sooner you may recover and get back to normal.

t. bout to finish this bitch

Yikes

Sure hope you studied something useful in college and not art history

Chemistry

Then you've got a chance. Find yourself a nerdy science broad now. Otherwise you'll end up a step dad

This, dependency comes in all kinds.

Although everything pales in comparison to the misery of needing your bottle like a junky needs his needle, feeling yourself getting sick because you hadn't had any vodka in six hours.

Ask a guy who cooks in an Alano Club some things.

>At what point are you an alcoholic?
>Like, you drink a whole bottle of wine because it tastes good, but you do that maybe once a month. Is that alcoholism?
All alcohol can be delicious. Being delicious should be unrelated to why you would exceed the recommended amount. If you think the wine will spoil, buy a vacuum sealing cap.

Binge drinking can indeed be alcoholism, and it is certainly hard on your body to down that much at once. A female can do binge drinking for hormonal reasons once a month and get to craving alcohol actually if the binge drink once a month.
It's really a problem if you can't stop yourself while you are in the midst of the binge, have regrets, and/or have consequences that you do not plan for happening, from bad choices about driving, ignoring obligations, going to work still hungover, etc.

Hey no shit it cured mine. Cured my uncle's too. I've been drunk for 14 years. Whiskey, every day. Started smoking dope, got clean within 2 months. Haven't picked up the pipe since. I've wanted to about 4 times but I can handle those cravings. I couldn't handle the alcohol cravings. I tried drinking socially just a few months ago. I woke up 3 days later. I had binge drank and drank until I blacked out every single day for 3 straight days until the booze ran out. I was so ashamed of myself. Meth cured my cravings and I no longer had the shakes.

You aren't rich enough to be an alcoholic, you're a drunk

What is your movie interest? Join a club related to just one single interest. Sailing? Gotta be some saturday kayak people, or some hiking people, or astronomy buffs who park their telescopes on saturday nights at the park. Join a film festival season ticket, food festival. Volunteer for something. Get that weekend gig that lets you be an usher at the local arena for concerts, or the symphony. Go volunteer for one professor in their lab, offer your services, grunt work, washing beakers, doing computer data entry, and watch yourself make real coworker friends. Day 1 in every semester, and only on day 1, trade phone numbers with the 3 people sitting near you aggressively like if you get sick and need notes, and vice versa, then immediately text them "for study group at noon Saturday at library" and then meet once and maybe they don't show but they might in a couple of weeks do it, and then say "ehh, let's go eat" and then do something off campus after a cursory study session. Also, don't study at home, go to the library, find your table and quiet spot, you'll start to see regulars from your classes with their little corners and the groups can just happen from there.

Also, have your 2 shots, get the buzz going, then maybe 1 more within the hour, and then stop. No more. Although I don't agree drinking alone is bad, cause you're food pairing and trying new thing, but throwing up on a pillow could have killed you. You can aspirate vomit and end up in an E.R. with a week of intensive care, you can coma or stroke with lots of brain damage, or you can even die. After you eat you do not get anymore buzz, really. Call it quits and come down from your buzz and then just relax. This is age and experience speaking now.

>getting drunk alone.
stop this. if you make friends, they can watch out for you if you drink socially.

get your head out of your ass, make the effort to be a chill and friendly person. yeah, it will be fake, but people will warm up to you sooner or later. you sound too familiar to me, and while there probably won't be a bad end to your story, it's gonna suck.

bottom line, if you get drunk alone, there's nobody watching your back and you can't trust yourself.

I'm not sure, I probably get blackout drunk twice a week but I never go on a bender longer then 3 days

Meh I had 'friends' who left me in the middle of the street passed out drunk. Coulda died, now I trust nobody but myself.

You're a problem drinker currently, only time will tell if you're an alcoholic. If you keep at it, you can eventually make yourself an alcoholic if you didn't have the predilection for it before.

>Like, you drink a whole bottle of wine because it tastes good, but you do that maybe once a month. Is that alcoholism?

uh, not even close.

though strictly speaking, being an alcoholic isn't really about volume, it's about how alcohol controls your life. if your drinking is having negative effects on your job/family/relationships then you're an alcoholic

if you drink a lot (which i wouldn't call an entire bottle of wine once a month very much) but it doesn't really have a negative impact on your life, then i'd say you're fine

>the clerk at the liquor store knew you in school

You are addicted to something if you just can not go without it for 1 or 2 days so if you drink at least a bear every day you are pretty much an alcoholic just not a heavy self destructing one. Get help if that is the case as long as its mild

...

binge is a very strong word for a bottle of wine a month regardless if it's paired with mild

I usually one drink once a week, but I feel anxious when I don't have any alcohol at home and I also find myself thinking about the next time I can drink

For a couple years I was a heavy vodka drinker: about a 2 handles every week.

Eventually it stopped feeling good. No more relaxing buzz and euphoria. Just an instant hangover: headace, nausea, flulike.

I continued drinking to chase the dragon, trying to feel that same euphoria from past experiences. It never returned. I stopped completely.

I haven't had any alcohol for roughly 18 months.

>The only fun thing I like doing is getting drunk alone in my room on the weekend.
That was me a few years ago, though every second to third week, I'd do the same with friends. Still do, but that's not the point I want to make.
It became a habit for me. I need my half-bottle of hard liquor on friday and saturday evening. While at first it was only to make the films I watched better, now I actively get drunk to even enjoy shitty stuff.
Then I was unemployed for... half a year. Upped drinking up to 4 times a week. One of the main reasons why I even stayed unemployed for so long, desu. Was a real struggle to force myself to only drink on the weekend again.
Make of that what you will, but do be careful about this.