When Does Drinking Become a Problem?
I didn't think I was an alcoholic because I didn't drink in the morning. I had a career. I paid my bills. I wasn't getting arrested. I simply believed I liked to drink.
Looking back, the signs weren't dramatic. They were quiet. I planned weekends around alcohol. I kept making rules about drinking less. I couldn't imagine a vacation without it. Every celebration involved alcohol. Every stressful day seemed to require it.
None of those things felt alarming on their own. Together, they painted a picture I wasn't ready to see.
If you are an active drinker, you might have had this thought a few times—do I have a drinking problem?
My best friend has asked me several times if I thought he had a problem with alcohol. I always answered yes. It turned out he didn't. He eventually got married and stopped drinking altogether. I was wrong.
In my case, I always knew deep inside that my relationship with alcohol was problematic. Since the first sip, when I was 17 years old, I knew something was wrong. Time proved that I had inherited the alcoholic gene from my family.
Alcoholism is a spectrum, going from a slight abuse of the substance to fully dependent alcoholism. Let's talk about what problematic drinking means and you can see for yourself if you may have a problem with alcohol.
If you like, you can also take a free questionnaire here. It's not a medical diagnosis, but it is based on the DSM-V definition of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and can help you identify alcohol abuse.
It's not about how much you drink
Many people assume alcoholism means drinking every day or drinking enormous quantities. But quantities and frequencies may vary and don't always point to alcoholism.
There are people who are binge-drinkers. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks in under two hours. Four drinks or more, if we consider only women.
A lot of people can have four or five drinks within the first hours, becoming drunk quite fast. This alone doesn't necessarily indicate an abusive pattern. If it happens only once in a while, it may not be a problem. However, if every time you go out drinking you binge-drink, then it might make sense to investigate further.
Binge drinking can also be considered a loss of control. In other words, once you start, you can't stop. As your body becomes resistant to alcohol, you need to drink more and more, faster and faster in order to reach the desired state of inebriation.
Consider the following:
Do you constantly have four or more drinks in under two hours?
Do you feel like you lose control once you start drinking?
Are you constantly thinking about your next drink?
Do you feel bummed when your friends are ready to call it quits and you still want to continue drinking?
If one of more of those statements are true, you might want to look further into AUD. The NIAAA has a lot of helpful information.
You don't have to hit rock bottom
One of the biggest myths is that an alcoholic is someone who has reached their lowest point due to alcohol. These are the people who have lost their jobs, their families, their friends, their money. The ones who wake up and grab a beer and continue drinking until they go to sleep at night. The ones with absolutely no control over their drinking habits or their life.
Actually, many serious alcoholics are very high-functioning. They can have successful careers, stable families, high income, regular lives—yet still struggle with alcohol.
Many people struggle for years while alcohol quietly and slowly damages their health, relationships and happiness. These are the folks least likely to look for help because they have an image to maintain. How can such a successful person be an alcoholic? How can they admit their disease and even deal with it while also leading busy social lives?
People in these situations end up not searching for help and suffer more than they should. It can take losing a job or losing a partner for them to understand that they need help. Sometimes, alcoholism can also generate other mental illnesses or be generated by other mental illnesses. Rarely does someone struggle with alcoholism alone. This makes the situation even worse.
Ask yourself:
Do you feel like your alcohol consumption might be problematic?
Do you hide your drinking habits from others?
Do you find yourself constantly going through your life obligations while dealing with hangovers or urges to drink?
Do you find yourself constantly thinking about drinking while at work or with family?
Do you get bummed when the activity chosen doesn't involve alcohol?
You keep making rules
When alcohol starts to become a problem in our lives, we tend to rationalize it. I'll only drink on weekends, we think. I'll only have two beers tonight. We start creating rules to give ourselves the illusion that we have control over our drinking.
I remember clearly establishing that I would only have two drinks during weeknights. This rule was constantly overridden due to my inability to stick with only two drinks. After the second drink, I always needed a third and so on.
When I made a rule to only drink on the weekends, I kept it. But the weekends then became intense binge drinking sessions that lasted well into the mornings. The more rules I created, the more I transgressed them.
I'll only drink after 6 p.m., I'll only drink wine from now on, tomorrow I won't drink, I'm having a sober weekend. When you find yourself actively creating rules for yourself, it means that alcohol has become a big piece of your life.
Ask yourself:
Do you find yourself creating little rules around alcohol consumption?
Do you feel more in control when you establish when and how much you will drink?
Do you constantly find yourself transgressing your own rules?
Do you find yourself changing your rules more often than following them?
If you constantly need rules, it's worth asking why. And if you don't even follow them, it might be a warning sign that something is wrong.
People notice before you do
My best friend was the first and only person to ever express concern to me about my drinking. He first called my sister and told her he was worried about me. Then he called me and expressed the same concern. It was the first time I had an actual external validation that I might have a problem with alcohol.
When even the bar owner tells you to take it down a notch, it means things got out of control.
It starts with friendly jokes from your social group. Wow, last night you were WASTED. Boy, you really chugged those beers. It's all fun and games until you start realizing that these are always directed at you.
You may also hear concerns from family. Friends tend to only see the drinking. Family sees the consequences. They see how drunk you arrive home, how you deal with hangovers the next day, they find the empty bottles in the trash.
A telltale sign of alcohol abuse is when you start hiding from your friends. You arrive first at the bar so you can have a few extra drinks before the rest arrive. You take the opportunity that your partner is traveling for work to drink some wine every night. Things that seem normal at a distance but that may indicate that something is going on.
Ask yourself:
Are people always commenting about your alcohol consumption or things you did while drunk?
Do family members express concern with your drinking?
Do you find yourself hiding your drinking from others?
Do you tend to minimize or justify how much you actually drink?
Sometimes it takes hearing from someone else that we might need help.
You drink for reasons beyond enjoyment
The first time I experimented with drinking, I was seventeen years old and simply gave into peer pressure. My friends said they were not going to invite me anymore because I was too naive. I promised them I would drink next time. And I did.
I was the only one from that group who developed alcoholism.
I started drinking due to peer pressure but as the years went by, the reasons started changing. When college came, I drank to have fun with my friends. I constantly skipped class to go have beers at the bar down the street. We would even take beer cans into class. We drank to celebrate when our teams won a game and we drank when they lost.
As I grew older, I started to drink due to stress at work or with family. I drank because I was worried about money, because I was sad, or angry, or bored. I drank when I got fired from a job and then I drank when I landed a new one.
Soon you start inventing new reasons to drink. Ultimately you end up not needing any reasons to drink. It becomes a habit and then a necessity.
Ask yourself:
Do you find yourself drinking every time you experience a strong emotion?
Do you drink to fill up your time?
Do you drink to celebrate wins and to mourn losses?
Do you feel the need to have a drink in order to sleep?
Do you drink at every social gathering due to social anxiety?
Do you need alcohol to feel confident?
Eventually alcohol becomes the solution for every moment and every emotion.
You can't imagine life without it
I've said no to events because they would not serve alcohol. I've skipped kid's birthday parties because I knew I wouldn't be able to drink. I've sneaked alcohol into places that weren't serving any. I just had to have alcohol. I couldn't live without it.
When you start making daily decisions or even major life decisions based on whether alcohol will or will not be involved, it's a sign to take a step back and reassess your life.
Alcohol is technically supposed to be a normal part of social activity. People get together to get a drink. Then life continues. If life starts to revolve around alcohol, then the drinking has gone beyond social and has created a permanent place in your life.
I once took a vacation with a friend. We were hiking and looking at waterfalls. I had a water bottle in my hand—I no longer drank back then. My friend was hiking while drinking a beer. It was my turn to tell him that I was concerned with his drinking. He thought that because he was on vacation that meant that he could drink whenever and wherever he wanted. But alcohol has a time and place. If you are abusing alcohol then it becomes a staple at every time and every place.
Another characteristic of alcohol abuse is that you stop doing things you normally like doing either because you prefer to go drinking or because drinking has kept you from doing them. Things like going to the gym, reading, watching movies, hanging out with friends on non-alcoholic activities. You may quit hobbies you once loved and even stop hanging out with family and friends who don't enjoy drinking as much as you do.
Ask yourself:
Can you picture a vacation without alcohol?
Have you ever stayed sober at a wedding?
Can you watch sports without drinking?
Can you imagine a New Year's Eve party without alcohol?
Have you stopped doing activities that were once pleasurable due to drinking?
Have you stopped hanging out with close friends because they don't drink?
If the answers feel impossible, that's worth exploring.
You've tried to quit before
We've all said that we would take a break from alcohol. Some people "try” doing a Dry January every year. Many can't make it through the whole month. Many can't even make it through the first week.
I quit drinking many times before I actually made it my lifestyle, before I actually went sober. I had been sober for six months when I started to work at a beer company. Three months in, I started drinking again. Another time I went two months sober until the World Cup came and I just had to have a drink during the game.
I've made many promises to myself over the years. I will cut back. I won't drink this weekend. I will keep my drinking to less than three drinks tonight. Promises mean that the social act of drinking has become a hard habit.
Ask yourself:
Have you made promises to quit drinking for periods of time?
Have you broken promises you made regarding drinking?
Do you find yourself constantly thinking that you should cut back on drinking?
Have you tried to quit drinking and been unable to? Even if for just a few days?
If you've repeatedly tried to change your drinking and couldn't maintain it, that's important information.
If several of these points sound familiar, it doesn't necessarily mean you're an alcoholic. But it may mean it's worth taking a closer look at your relationship with alcohol. The earlier you ask these questions, the easier it is to make changes. You don't have to wait until your life falls apart before deciding you deserve a better one.
If you want to see if you might be abusing alcohol, you can take my free test by clicking here.
Please consult with a medical physician if you feel you might have Alcohol Use Disorder. Asking for help is the first step.
