Re: how does one become an alchoholic?
 

Edit: ANSWERS IN BOLD.

Any spelling errors please excuse - I have been drinking with a bunch of knuckleheads.....

I used to see the comercials that said "If you have 3 or more drinks everyday you should not take Tylenol" and think, that person has bigger problems than whether or no they can take Tylenol.

Was having a particularly stressful period at work once and did not realize how much I had been drinking until I went to take a Tylenol one day and thought, crap, i've been drinking like a fish lately, should I be taking this?

So I say if you are worried about taking Tylenol it's time to take stock of the situation.

Scott

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me that a frontal lobotomy.

Well, as a reformed alcoholic who was a child of a alcoholic (yes, I can admit that), all I can say is that the bottle becomes a important part of your life, coupled with a loss of self control.

I think the transition is gradual, drinking just becomes a habit, then it is used as a crutch, and then it becomes necessary to function.

My father and I were what you call "functional" alcoholics - we went to work, never missed a day, would be sober all day long, a few drinks at lunch, then once we got home, crawled into a bottle.

My personal "best" was drinking a liter of Jack Daniels in one night, and then getting in the back of an airplane the next morning - still buzzed from the night before.

I still drink from time to time, a few beers, stay away from the hard stuff, I still have to consciously remind myself what can happen if I'm not careful.

AFJuvat

Better than climbing into the front of an airplane!

Commercial pilots can't do that...pee tests. I forget the exact number of hours, but a friend who is an American senior pilot won't even have a beer if he's within something like 36 hours before a flight.

How does one become an acoholic?

Marry my ex-wife.

i think that if you need medication to counteract the effects of your drinking, you are addicted to the drug, and the drinking is just a precursor to filling the addiction to drugs, kind of like the aura before a migraine headache.

alcohilic is when you go to meetings, otherwise your'e just drunk.

drive sober over the holidays!!!

I may be able to help, seeing as I AM alcoholic. I have been sober now 20 years, but to me and what I have learned from AA is that if you have to control your drinking, your drinking is out or control. I NEVER EVER went out with the intention of having one drink. Compulsive excessive is my middle name, as with most in "the club". Basically if your life is out of control and you can honestly trace it to booze...head for a meeting. Your will see all walks of life in an AA meeting. It ain't just guys sleeping under bridges. Just go, sit down, shut up and listen. You will hear your story time and time again. It was the best choice I ever made in my life. Actually it saved my life. I'm sure I would be dead by now. It is a disorder, you may want to blame other things for your drinking but really those things are just enabling you to justify the habit. Life is good without it. It takes a bit of getting use to, as we are so programmed that "a drink" must be something with booze in it. I drank a lot of club soda for a while till I realized it was stupid to drink something like that just to look like I had a real drink. If you tell someone you are a recovering alcoholic they react quite differently than you might expect. Usually very positively. Plus the women in my life really love me for staying sober. I'm a musician so I'm in clubs a lot. After you quit you look at the audience with new eyes. You start saying "Was I like that?" "Hope not..what an ass".

if your nose is getting big, red and bulbous, thats a hint. ever see WC Fields?

if your hands shake all day, until you get a drink.

if you forget what your kids or wife look like, or names.

if you drink on weekends before lunch.

Aw crap! There goes the Bloody Mary's with brunch ;)

Someone (Ok, a counselor) told me the clinical definition was anything more than 2 drinks with food over the course of an evening was considered a binge (seems like a pretty low threshold to me, too).
An alcoholic is someone who binges. So, most of us here are (by definition) alcoholics. Sm eof us function without any harmful side-effects, others aren't so lucky. If you are showing any problems or health issues as a result of alcohol, you are already well into it. YMMV.

Be safe and smart, whatever you do. A buddy of mine once said "Don't be drunk and stupid. You can be drunk, or you can be stupid, but not both at the same time."

Drago -- and what if it's around 10:00 am Saturday and you haven't gone to sleep yet from Friday night?

That's one of the intractable things about "alcoholism" is most definitions based on when or how often you drink just don't hold up.

I broke up with an all-star alcoholic girl not b/c of the frequency or severity of the drinking, but b/c I didn't like her so much when she was drunk; which was a good deal of the time. A bright girl, never missed a day of work due to drinking, no DWIs or anything. But truly a world-class drinker, pound for pound.

JP

JP. i broke up with a girl once because her dad was a violent alcy. he would always stalk us and try to kick my ass. i should have pummeled him. i didnt drink for 3 years after meeting that bastard.

Just my experience as a recovering alcoholic...

I'm 25, I grew up in a trailer park in North Carolina. My parents were alcoholics, and I was born addicted to alcohol and several prescription drugs.

I never felt cool, comfortable, safe or secure, in any situation, unless there was violence involved. I was beaten by my mother w/fists and various household objects up until I was 9, and finally I couldn't take it anymore. I had been taking martial arts since I was 4, because as the only white kid in a all-immigrant farm worker trailer park, I got in a lot of fights. Up until I learned how to fight, I usually got beat up:) That day when I was nine, my mother was going to hit me in the face with an iron skillet for missing the bus, which she drunkenly had forgotten to wake me up for. So I stopped her, and broke her arm.

Not that this is what made me an alcoholic, but it is indicative of the type of chaos that violent alcoholics grow up with.

I'm of Irish, Scottish and Cherokee descent, so you might say that I'm predisposed to chemical dependency. My father drank 3-5 fifths of vodka every day for almost 35 years, which along with his 3 pack a day Marlboro habit nearly did him in. My mother was a lush, no particular favorites, and she loved pills.

In school, I was always the smartest kid in the building, and was taking college courses during summer vacation from the time I was 7.

I made some poor choices throughout school, mostly because of a mix of apathy and resentment, which were caused by my biggest problem...fear.

Fear is the crippling mechansim in most alcoholics' lives. We are afraid to feel, do, not do, not feel, confront, not confront, and so on and so forth, through almost every aspect of our lives.

After My big brother killed himself when I was 13, I found drugs, and before my thirteenth birthday, I was in a rehab. This continued on and on, until just after I took my SAT's. Three weeks after scoring a 1470, I got caught at school with some LSD, and upon being handcuffed, resisted arrest. This put a innocent man in the hospital, and myself and my future in the toilet.

For eight more years, I treid running from my problems. I tried geographical cures, suicide, every non-capital crime you can think of, women, stealing cars, all the while mixing my self-destructive behavior with a crippling amount of drugs and alcohol.

Eventually, after a 3 year stint with a door to door magazine sales crew as one of the top 5 agents in the country, me and my new stripper girlfriend stole a car and came to California so I could become a movie star. Not so much for the glory, but to have a chance to be someone else without my problems, even if just for a few minutes.

To give you an example of how clear my thought process was, we had $7.00 and a bottle of vodka when we left.

After getting here, she decided to leave me for some crack dealers, and they robbed me at gunpoint on the way out with my woman.

Left with nothing, I went to Skid Row, in dowtown LA. There, I was literally scared enough for the first time in my life to do something about my problem. Incarceration, near death experiences, horrific car crashes, and countless dead friends hadn't scared me that bad, but having no option left but death did. And for some reason, I still wanted to live...

Fast forward to now, 3 1/2 years sober, beautiful wife, a fun job making OK money, bills that I actually pay every month, a nice car and apartment.

But most importantly, I've got peace, and I'm free from the fear that drove me away from reality. My life is amazing, and I've been told my story is too, but the scripts already done, and if you want to buy/produce it, PM me baby:)

BTW - If you're an alcoholic, I'm not going to preach to you ever, but I promise you that it can get batter if you want it more than anything else, and as a million people before me have said, you have to want it for you...Good luck.

It's when drinking causes problems for you, or for your family/co-workers, etc., and you don't decide to stop.

Whoa. Thanks for sharing, Jason. Glad you made it out alive. Few do, as you know. I'll bet you're hard to scare.

I've seen a lot, but the thing that scares me the most, is losing the live and peace I have now with my wife, my family, myself, and the guy that made it all possible, the big GOD.

I'm very fortunate!!!!!!!!

Way to go Jason. Thanks for sharing that life story. Good for you. You are a power of example for many of us. What a success story. Stay on track brother. keep doin' what you're doin'. Never take what you have for granted, you are the one that is making it happen.