How is a person who is an ‘alcoholic’ classified as an alcoholic? Does it have to do with the number of drinks they need to become drunk, their dependency on alcohol to make them feel good, how often they binge drink with their friends, their amount of alcohol consumption, etc?
It is when drinking becomes a problem to their usual life. When they “have’ to drink instead of just enjoying a drink with friends. When they can’t get through a day without a drink. When they can’t do their job to the ability they used to be able to do it before they started drinking. Another one is when they hide the amount they do drink from family and friends.
I think it applies to most of the things you stated. All in all, an alcoholic can be summed up as somebody whose life is consumed by alcohol, whose life cannot function properly in the absence of it. It is somebody who has neglected many things like their career, family and friends because of alcohol.
If you have to drink everyday then your an alcoholic
If alcohol causes problems. then alcohol is a problem. Easy as that!
How can you tell if you’re an alcoholic?
To the outsider, who has no problem whatsoever with alcohol, this question might seem a bit silly. But it truly can be a baffling question, especially if you are the one who is caught up in the slippery slope of experiencing both fun times as well as some problems with your drinking.
It can be truly difficult to tell in some cases.
Consider, for example, the relatively young person who is still having a lot of fun with their drinking. They haven’t experienced too many heavy consequences yet: no drunk driving violations, no broken marriages, no lost jobs, and so on. But on the other hand, they might be realizing a dependency on alcohol, or noticing that they drink heavily on a regular basis, even when they haven’t planned on doing so.
So the situation can be tricky; it is not necessarily as straightforward as one might think.
The nature of denial is that is very powerful, and the last person to realize that you are an alcoholic will be yourself. The reason for this is because we fool ourselves into thinking that we actually could control our drinking–if we only wanted to. But we tell ourselves that we enjoy drinking, so we don’t want to control it, so therefore we are not truly alcoholic.
In some cases, there are alcoholics who will go weeks or months at a time without drinking, but when they do drink, they tend to binge, and get into all sorts of trouble. So this can be difficult to self-diagnose, because the person can and does maintain abstinence for long periods of time, even though they always return to the bottle.
So really, how can you tell?
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/alcoholic-test.shtml
Well the mere fact that you may be concerned about this a good indicator
The more drinks you can handle shows a tolerance for alcohol is a huge indicator
The need to have a drink to feel great to feel good is a bang out indicator
And binge drinking with all the other factors is a good reason to get help before you hit bottom – at the bottom is a very difficult place to be, it is a long ways back up and by then – you will have lost most everything from income, home, job, education, and your friends, argue with your family, and become accustom to driving around a cramped back seats of cars along with a nice set of pretty silver bracelets
It is so much easier to stop when you haven’t gone down this far and your chances of turning it around is far better now
Chance your habits and friends for a while and see how you do with-out the stuff before your friendly bottle becomes your worst enemy
Life is short and it has so many beautiful things to see and do, that alcoholic impairs
It sounds like you had your fun, now it is time to get real and face life face on – you can do this and you will be glad you did
learn to understand what your fears are and why you need that drink to get you pass them, eat healthy, get lots of rest and take one day at a time, you will be glad you did
Good luck to you my friend, it sounds like you are wise enough to know that the choices are still yours to make :-)
my vote is with audrey well put
A person can be an alcoholic for a number of reasons. Think about this analogy for example: you enjoy to watch baseball. You love going to the games, and you go every chance you get, you’re an avid fan of your team, all your friends go with you, you own their merchandise, etc. However, your friend “Bob” loves baseball to a point that is incomprehensible. He neglects his duties at work, home, and with his friends for baseball. He spends all of his money on baseball tickets and merchandise and therefore has nothing to eat. He goes into a severe depression when his team loses….get the idea? I think what best defines an alcoholic is that he drinks in a more “destructive” manner than most. Hope this helped!