How do you know it is not affecting your school work? Are you carrying a 4.0? How are you competently studying if you are getting drunk so often?
I've seen this criteria before and I always thought it was silly...A person can sober their whole life but decide to drink one night and maybe drink too much which would lead them to fulfill 3 of the above. So you're suddenly an alcoholic? Nah.
You're an RN, aren't you? So am I. I've worked in psych and addictions for years, and this is the initial criteria that is used. Like you, I've always thought it was crap. To the OP - do as was suggested and quit for a week or two. If you can't do it or struggle to do it, then you should get that checked out. Still though, I'd call 3-5x/week worrisome. Even weekend binges can have serious adverse effects on your health.
It seems from the responses in this thread that there is too little emphasis on the physical impact to your body of drinking so much, so regularly. Being able to function, not being physically addicted, etc. all all important, of course. But as noted, you could not fit any of those categories and still be doing significant damage to your body, from a long-term perspective. I am definitely the type who can function shortly after significant alcohol consumption, and do not have a terribly addictive personality - after smoking regularly for 5 years, I finally realized how stupid it was and just quit cold turkey. It wasn't that difficult for me - there was definitely a physical addiction, but it wasn't that difficult for me mentally to overcome. So I could drink regularly, and heavily, function properly, not have it affect my life or others lives, still wake up and be effective at work, and also quit cold turkey if I wanted. But the fact that I was doing it at all would still make me an alcoholic, no? And it would still be messing with my body in negative ways.
How is your health? How is your waistline? If you are healthy and hit the gym a few times per week, eat healthy and have a healthy HDL/LDL balance then a few drinks per day isn't going to hurt anything. If you are a glutton, drinking daily an then eating pizza and crap after you have been drinking then I'd say you have a problem and are headed down the road for diabetes and heart disease.
One of my college roommates was like this. He and his friends casually referred to themselves as alcoholics in training. He'd drink around 14 beers a night whether anybody else was there or not.
Might sound like a joke or an insult, but I figure if you're drinking a lot, and you're having to ask people whether or not you might be an alcoholic, there's a good chance you are.
Most of America is alcoholic, so yeah. You're in terrible company. As you get older, the only thing that really changes is that you get more hungover, and take longer to heal. Every sunday morning, I am reminded of why I primarily smoke instead of drink alcohol.
People say you have a drinking problem when they have a problem with your drinking. Screw 'em. I was an alcoholic for a couple of years. I did a lot of stupid things, lost some friends and some girls, and probably should be dead by now. I was pretty bad about it, too. Ten shots in the morning before work, at least twice that when I came home. Could never just drink one beer, needed twelve or more. My turning point came when I was supposed to drive to SA for my mom's birthday, but I got so drunk before that I passed out in the shower for a few hours and missed it (and made everyone worried as hell). Passing out in the shower was nothing new to me, but missing my mom's birthday was. I never felt lower than that day. I still drank a lot after that, but I noticed it wasn't as much. I've had some rough times with drinking in the years since (being unemployed definitely didn't help), but nothing as bad as those years I spent killing myself. To this day, if there is alcohol in front of me, I will drink it and drink too much of it. It's not that I feel I need it, it's a combination of knowing how much I like it and not being able to stop once I start. I just don't have the guilt that many alcoholics do. I never throw pity parties or whine about my "dependence". I laugh at people who suggest AA. The secret to not drinking is pretty simple: stop drinking. So to answer the thread question: An alcoholic is someone who can't stop drinking. To be fair though, I always tempered my view of drinking with the reminder that everyone has their addictions. It's just so easy to look down on someone as "a drunk" or "a cokehead" or "a smoker", that people think chemical dependencies are the only real addictions. Why do coffee drinkers never catch any trouble from people? There is a huge chunk of the population that openly admits to being addicted to caffeine. But because they say "I just can't function without my coffee" and then laugh, we all laugh with them and take a trip to Starbucks. What about the people who check their facebook or twitter accounts 500 times a day? Or the people who routinely spend days on World of Warcraft without sleeping or going to the bathroom? Or the people who spend all their time in chat rooms (or message boards)? Those people are dismissed as "not having a life" instead of "being addicted to the internet", which is a lot closer to the truth. I guess my point is that there are two kinds of addictions: 1) socially-accepted poisons and 2) poisons that people whose poisons are socially-accepted use to look down on the poor slobs who just can't control their behavior. But it's all poison and it's all addiction. No one but you really knows how you feel (if you're honest with yourself), so no one should be able to tell you that you have a "problem" just because they disapprove of your behavior. Which brings me back to my original point: Screw 'em.
The difference between a drinking problem and alcoholism is the level and degree of physical dependence and loss of control. Witnessing a true alcoholic in full delirium tremen would be the best impetus to get your drinking under control.
This is the dumbest justification post I've ever read. It's like a heroin addict saying people inject themselves with insulin, so why can't I inject myself with crack? People look down on you because you have no control over yourself and use lame excuses to justify it. You don't accept the idea of moderation and lose your self respect as a result. Nerds who play games all day or sit on facebook may be depriving themselves of life, but it really isn't comparable to what your liver and cns goes through at 30 shots a day. Don't turn this into what is socially acceptable or a me vs the world thing... You have a problem.
That's the dumbest analogy I've ever read. Putting aside the fact that heroin and crack are two different substances, insulin saves the lives of those who inject it, unlike your crack-injecting heroin addict. In any case, it wasn't meant to be a justification for anything. I used to act a certain way, I don't anymore, although the potential is still there. Hence my suggested cure for alcoholism: stop drinking. I will drink a ton of what's in front of me, so I avoid buying alcohol. It's really simple. Sitting in front of a computer all day is more than just depriving yourself of a life, it's bad for your health. Of course alcohol is worse, does that make sitting at a computer better? If so, doing a bunch of coke or being a crack-using heroin addict must make drinking not as harmful. One of the points of my post is that certain addictions go unnoticed or are encouraged, while others are demonized. Whether or not something is socially acceptable plays a large part in that, so sorry, but it's part of the discussion. I also had no intention of a "me vs. the world" thing. I told the op that if he was honest with himself, he'd know if he had a problem more than if other people told him he had one. I knew that I had a problem, everyone else knew I had a problem, it didn't stop me from doing what I wanted to do. So no, I don't have a problem. I used to, and I freely admit that. I fixed it by not buying liquor every day or drinking to the point of blackout. Now, I spend my money on dro and I'm a lot happier. No hangovers is also a huge plus.
He posted asking for our opinions, and we responded. Nobody's judging the dude, and nobody should unless he hurts someone else. Alcoholism is self-destructive behavior, and while he has the right to do whatever he wants to his own body, we can advise against it if he asks for our opinions. And I've known a few hardcore caffeine addicts, and while the effects of that aren't quite as bad as alcoholism, it's pretty close.
