Hello Justice397,

Some people maintain that alcoholism is partly genetic but I dont think that there is much evidence to back that up one way or the other. In any event what past generations have done is not that relevant to where you find yourself now. You seem to me to be in the early stages of an alcohol problem but you still have choices and you have some hard decisions to make.

Since you are new to D.S. and may not have read earlier posts I will tell you a little bit about how alcoholism develops and what you need to do in order to recover from it. Alcoholism is now recognised as an illness and there are two components to it.

The first thing that happens is that the person develops what is known as a mental obsession for alcohol. This obsession of the mind will convince you that you need alcohol in order to function. It is something that develops gradually over a period of time. Very often, the drinker will use alcohol for dealing with various uncomfortable feelings and will get to like the buzz that comes from taking a few drinks. The mind learns from this and when another problem occurs, it will remind you that when you felt like that before, you took a few drinks and everything became easier to handle. Your mind will then tell you to take a few drinks and all will be well again. This way of dealing with life becomes a habit and after a while the way of thinking changes. Now, instead of drinking to deal with problems the person may drink in order to avoid the negative feelings that come from dealing with everyday situations. He or she will have become obsessed with alcohol.

This mental obsession will cause you to take a few drinks and that in itself would be no great harm as many people take a couple of drinks in order to relax and feel better. However, some people develop an abnormal physical reaction to alcohol, something that is similar to an allergy. These people can no longer process the alcohol in the normal way and the result is that a chemical called acetone, which is a by-product of what you get when alcohol is broken down, remains in the body. Once the person takes one drink, this acetone causes a strong craving to develop for more alcohol. Another drink is taken in order to satisfy the craving and the second drink doubles the craving. Before you know it you have reached a blackout or something similar.

This physical craving for alcohol is what makes an alcoholic different to normal drinkers and once it has developed it cannot be reversed and therefore the person can never drink safely again. However, the craving can never develop if the first drink is avoided and therefore, the solution to the problem is to find some means of not taking the first drink. This brings us back to the thinking that leads up to that first drink, the mental obsession for alcohol. Some way must be found to remove that obsession of the mind that convinces an alcoholic that despite all of the trouble that went before, it is still safe to take a drink.

You are probably in the very early stages of this process and as such you may be in a better position than most. In the early stages of the onset of alcoholism you may be able to use your willpower in order to either cut down on the amount that you drink or to quit drinking completely. However, you may find that willpower alone is not enough and that the obsession for alcohol will overcome your determination not to drink.
I would be impossible for me or for anyone on this forum to determine if you are an alcoholic as only you can make that diagnosis. I think that you do have a problem with alcohol and it is something that I would urge you to take seriously. You can try controlling it but my gut feeling is that controlling it will not work for long and that you will end up drinking more. That leaves you with the options of drinking on, which will lead to a great deal of misery, or quitting which may be hard to do.

If you decide that you would need to stop drinking but find it difficult to do so, I would strongly urge you to reach out for support. One place that you will find that support is at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA can offer you a means of changing your thinking so that you will lose the urge to drink. However, there is much more than that on offer as you can also learn a way of dealing with people, places and things that will give you a better chance of success and happiness in the future.

You have asked for the truth and the truth as I see it is that drinking does not agree with you. You may or may not be in the early stages of alcoholism and it is unlikely that you can drink normally. This will seem like a great disaster to you and you will feel sorry for yourself, asking why me? It is natural to feel like that but if this is an accurate assessment of where you are at, it is vital to pick yourself up and to look for help. You will not see it that way now, but what looks like a terrible disaster in your life can turn out to be a huge blessing. You have an opportunity to change course and to find at a young age something that many people look for throughout their lives and fail to find.

Whatever you decide to do, please know that you are not alone. Keep posting here and keep asking questions. This is something that you can overcome.

i have an alcoholic/addict father and an alcoholic mother and the apple, sadly, fell pretty close to the tree for me. part genetic predisposition and part upbringing and what i had access to growing up. but i dont blame anyone else for how i turned out to be just like them.

no one ever poured the alcohol down my throat or made me take the drug. its always a choice, no matter how awful, difficult, and hopelessly frustrating it may seem. my only advice is to get various people opinions. if you have family members you trust, talk to them, ideally if they have substance abuse problems. if not, find an outside resource, like this site, or a counselor.

my other piece of advice is dont wait. you may not want to be an addict or alcoholic and you may not care if you become one, but it helps to knows early enough so that you at least know your own signs and what you might be able to do.

dont drink so much you become physically dependent, ie, shakes, needing a drink in the middle of the night, sweating, constant craving, etc. at that point the only way to stop is treatment, because its life-threatening to detox from alcohol on your own.

hope this helps and keep writing. i was in your shoes once.

oh, and the suicidal thoughts and possible actions are really dangerous. i was never a self-injurious person and i couldnt imagine getting to that point. but after drinking for a few years my other addiction was cutting and burning and fantasizing about suicide.

thats when my addiction was scary to me. so, if nothing else, ask someone about the relation between the drinking and the thoughts of self-injury/suicide. Alcohol is a Depressant. Its the Fastest way to start Hating yourself. Thats what i learned.

Justice397 There isnt a single person here that wants to be an alcoholic. The truth of the matter is if alcohol is having a negative impact on your life and you still continue to drink you may have a bigger problem than you know. You can start off by asking yourself a simple question. If somebodt else did to you what you do to yourself would he still be a friend. If you find yourself waking up in someones bed you dont even know would that be his problem or yours.You may not want to hear this but Alcoholics Anonymous may be the answer to your questions. There are a boatload of young peoples meetings in Irvine. (I live just up the road) I suggest you find one. No one wants to admit that they are alcoholic and that their lives had become unmanageable.Just the fact that you're here seeking help is telling us that you think you have a problem. No where is it written that you have to like it but please consider counseling or AA or a program of some sort before you end up having to pay dues that you didnt sign up for.Alcoholism is a disease and could be genetic in nature thats still up in the air .What is concrete is that black out drinking is not normal and to force yourself to drink in order to fit in just may be the worst thing you could do. There is life after alcohol. You dont ever have to feel this way if you dont want to.
Greg

Based on what you wrote, my guess is that you will never be a "normal drinker." I don't see that is matters that much whether you call yourself a problem drinker or an alcoholic.

You've seen where this leads.

Good news -- you can stop drinking before you lose everything or it gets worse. And I guarantee that if you keep drinking it will get much much worse.

PJ, I'm pretty sure it's acetaldehyde, not acetone. But doesn't matter really... Close enough. That was an excellent description ya gave there

Hello GOTtheGroove2001,

Thank you for the words of praise. Although most people seem to be uninterested in the mechanics of what happens in the body when alcohol is taken, I think that it is important for any alcoholic to understand. I sometimes hear people at AA meetings suggest with great gusto: Dont lift the first drink but when I ask them why it is the first drink that does the harm they have no answer.

When a normal drinker takes a drink, enzymes in the body begin the process of breaking down the alcohol, which results in several chemical changes along the way. Firstly, the alcohol is broken down into acetaldehyde; then the acetaldehyde is broken down into diacetic acid; the diacetic acid changes into acetone and finally, the acetone becomes water, sugar and carbon dioxide. The water, sugar and carbon dioxide are then disposed of by the body in various ways. Approximately one unit of alcohol per hour can be processed in this way, so if a person drinks no more than that amount, he or she would never get drunk. If more alcohol is taken by these normal drinkers, they will start to feel a little light-headed, become giggly and may feel nauseous.

The process of dealing with alcohol in the body is the same, up to a certain point, for an alcoholic. The difference is that the body does not have enzymes of sufficient quality or quantity and therefore the job cannot be completed. Not all of the acetone is changed into water, sugar and carbon dioxide a certain level of acetone is retained in the body. It is the presence of this chemical which causes the body to develop a physical craving once another drink is taken.

Taken From: Enzymes The Whole Story:

Enzymes are protein molecules that speed up chemical reactions in all plants and animals. Without enzymes, these reactions would occur too slowly or not at all, and no life would be possible. The human body has over 1,000 types of enzymes. Each kind does one specific job. Without enzymes, a person could not breathe, see, move, or digest food.
In simple language, enzymes keep us alive! Truly, enzymes are our "biochemical agents of life." These unique proteins are essential components of over 90 trillion cells, composing every tissue of every organ in our body. Without them, very few of our essential metabolic processes would even take place. They regulate the digestion of our food, the production of energy, the production of hormones and other important body secretions, and the destruction of foreign substances. Even the process of phagocytosis, an important activity of the immune system in protecting us from deadly bacterial infections, involves enzyme action. In short, maintaining adequate enzyme levels in our bodies is critical.
The liver and the pancreas are two of the organs that suffer the most damage from alcohol abuse and are also two organs which produce enzymes.

Therefore, when one of those old-timers bangs the table at an AA meeting and loudly proclaims: Its the first drink that does the harm he is quite correct. For an alcoholic, when the first drink hits the acetone, a physical craving is set off which demands more and more alcohol.