
Alcoholism Support Group
Alcoholism is the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, even when it is negatively affecting your health, work, relationships and life. If you think alcohol is causing you to lose control, it's time to seek help. Our group is a safe place to vent, check in, get back up if you fall, and reach sobriety.

deleted_user
So when do you really know that you drink too much? I.E. a lot of my friends say that I drink a lot, but it's never affected my career or home life, besides the fact that when I ask for a drink (expecting a soda or something) I'm handed a beer. I can burn through a bottle of wine in one sitting (I'm half way done with this one as a matter of fact), and have done every day for the past few days....come to think of it it's been almost daily for a long time now. People think I can handle an exorbitant amount of alcohol, but I just play it down. a lot. The last time I blacked out (last week) nobody thought I was even drunk until I passed out. I'm just confused, because a lot of people say that alcohol is affecting their lives so much, and I guess it's definitely one aspect of mine, but I just don't know where to draw the line...
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When you ask for a drink and you want a soda, just say you want a soda. That way you don't have to blame your friends for giving you a beer when you want a soda. I'm always specific and I hang out with mostly non-drinkers. When you go to a restaurant do you ask the server for a drink and let them decide what to bring you?
I'm sorry to be sarcastic, but you're blaming your peers for the amount of alcohol you're consuming. When you say 'people think' you could handle an absorbitant amount of alcohol I'm assuming you're including yourself.
Again, it's up to you to decide if you're an alcoholic, but I've found that if you're questioning your drinking habits, there is a good chance you are one. Have you tried AA? You could sit in an open meeting and listen, you don't have to identify yourself as an alcoholic. See if you identify with what's being said. Good luck to you, whatever you decide to do.
I agree with morgainev that regular drinking keeps you from reaching your potential (or even getting close to it).
Also, a therapist I've been seeing said something that really hit home. When you ingest a depressant on a daily basis, even if the amount isn't necessarily a lot, the net effect long-term is (duh) it makes you more depressed!
After that conversation, I knew I would have to try to get sober again. It took a couple of weeks to start to let go, but today I'm three weeks sober.
Tomorrow, I start an outpatient program (three nights a week for three hours each night), which is something I didn't do the first time around.
There are no easy answers, but if you are questioning whether or not you are an alcoholic, you already know...
As other people have pretty insightfully noted--the fact that you're evaluating your drinking is in of itself a warning sign--people who don't have any issues w/alcohol and just have a drink (note A drink not TEN drinks)here and there never even really think about it one way or another (or so I've heard....I don't think I ever had just one drink at a sitting!!)Also the blackouts, again, are a bad prognostic indicator....people w/ a predisposition toward problem drinking/alcoholism tend to experience them more (I'll have to look up the pathophysiological reason for this again....I forget). The bottom line is, drinking is counterproductive to an effective life (I always found it so hard to manipulate those damn calculus equations when my BAC was above 0.2!! :) ) and can be ultimately devastating to your health (despite what the red wine industry would have us think about how it helps cardiac health--the type of extremely light drinking they are talking about is practiced by about 2% of the population--and if you have more than one drink a day (2 for guys), you've eradicated any health benefit).
Only you can decide for yourself where you're at with this--it looks like you're still associating some good times and fun with your drinking at this point, and unfortunately, that makes it really hard to rationalize quitting--however, if you ARE an alcoholic, it will become definitively NOT fun at some point, and then it will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to stop.
I wish you luck--I regret that I did not have the insight to examine my own drinking at your age--it would have saved me years of misery--but four years sober now, and life is exponentially better for me (even if I am a "slow learner"!!)