The questions "Am I an alcoholic?" or "Do I really have a drinking problem?" never occur to normal drinkers. These questions never cross their minds, even if they get drunk on New Year's Eve or at their sister's wedding.
Alcoholics already know deep down inside that something is wrong, but because denial is an essential element of the disease, they fail miserably to see that the problem in their lives is alcohol.
Often alcoholics compare their drinking with the stereotype of the bum on skid row. The truth is, only 3 percent of alcoholics fall into that category.
If you can identify with the stories in this book, you do have a problem. To check out the validity of this statement, try the following ninety-day experiment.
Today set a reasonable limit on the number of drinks you will have every day for the next ninety days. The number—as long as it is reasonable—doesn't really matter: it could be two or three or even four. Regardless of what happens in your life for the next three months, stay with that number. (Death, birth, wedding, change of jobs, graduation, your birthday, or Saint Patrick's Day). If you go over the number you have chosen, you have an alcohol problem. No excuses, no denial.
The following test may also help you decide if you have a drinking problem.
To answer this question, ask yourself the following 20 questions and answer them as honestly as you can.
| 1 Do you lose time from work due to drinking? | Yes | No |
| 2 Is drinking making your home life unhappy? | Yes | No |
| 3 Do you drink because you are shy with other people? | Yes | No |
| 4 Is drinking affecting your reputation? | Yes | No |
| 5 Have you ever felt remorse after drinking? | Yes | No |
| 6 Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of drinking? | Yes | No |
| 7 Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when drinking? | Yes | No |
| 8 Does your drinking make you careless of your family's welfare? | Yes | No |
| 9 Has your ambition decreased since drinking? | Yes | No |
| 10 Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily? | Yes | No |
| 11 Do you want a drink the next morning? | Yes | No |
| 12 Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping? | Yes | No |
| 13 Has your efficiency decreased since drinking? | Yes | No |
| 14 Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business? | Yes | No |
| 15 Do you drink to escape from worries or trouble? | Yes | No |
| 16 Do you drink alone? | Yes | No |
| 17 Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of drinking? | Yes | No |
| 18 Do you resent the advice of others who try to get you to stop drinking? | Yes | No |
| 19 Do you drink to build up your self-confidence? | Yes | No |
| 20 Have you ever been to a hospital or institution on account of drinking? | Yes | No |
If you have answered yes to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be an alcoholic.
If you have answered yes to any two, the chances are that you are an alcoholic.
The foregoing test questions were developed at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, to help determine whether or not a patient is an alcoholic. Reprinted by permission.
Some of the contributors to this book offer their help in answering the question "Are you an alcoholic?"
If you think you have a problem with alcohol, you probably do. Because people who don't have a problem with alcohol don't think they have a problem with alcohol. I think that's real simple.
If you think you have a drinking problem, you've got one. And everybody else knows about it.
Each alcoholic is so different. That is why we have such terrible times pinpointing or helping people. People can take the slightest amount and be alcoholics or they can have two or three drinks and never be alcoholics. It's very mysterious.
Alcoholics don't understand why they can stop at a bar one night and have three drinks and control their drinking and on another night go to the same bar and end up having twelve. What they don't realize is that they are experiencing a symptom of alcoholism, a very early symptom, called loss of control. Very rarely will you talk to alcoholics who get drunk every single time they drink. But then there will be times when they have every intention of having only three drinks and are not able to stop at that. Some new research tells us that there is a very interesting biochemical reaction that takes over and does not allow the alcoholic to quit drinking.
An alcoholic is a person who is unable consistently to control either the start of drinking or the amount consumed or both, and because of that experiences harmful consequences. All you really need is the loss of control. You don't need a bunch of automobile accidents and wife beatings. The loss of control, I think, is the most essential part of the definition.
I think every alcoholic lives with a dilemma and denies both aspects of it. Every person who comes into Hazenden's front door has a terrible fear: "My God, they're going to take my alcohol away from me and I can't live without it." At the same time they say, "I really don't need to be there. I can control my drinking if I really want to," even though the evidence is that they can't. There is a double whammy there, a double burden of, "My God, I can't live with it and I can't live without it. What can I do?" That's a horrible dilemma. No matter which way you turn, the anxiety level goes up, and that's a terrible, terrible fear.
The most significant difference between a problem drinker or abusive drinker and the individual with the true disease of alcoholism is the presence of compulsivity. That means illogical, irresponsible, irrational, continued use of the drug as it destroys his or her life. Not stopping. Every alcoholic I've ever known has been able to stop. It's staying stopped. As an alcoholic myself, who now has a considerable number of years of recovery, I realize that I stopped a hundred times. My problem, when I crossed the wall from the abusive stage into the addictive stage, was that I couldn't stay stopped. That is what compulsivity is. It's not staying stopped. It's the continued use of the drug as it destroys your life.
We can't really say that an alcoholic drinks because the alcoholic is unhappy, because sometimes that isn't true. Through happy periods of my life I was as much addicted to alcohol as I was in periods when I was sad.
The first person who told me I had a drinking problem was my wife. I disregarded what she said. You should listen to what people tell you.
How important is alcohol in your lifestyle? Ask your best friend if he thinks you drink too much. Tell him to give you an honest answer. Ask your wife. Ask your mother-in-law. Ask them, "Am I behaving differently?" Ask your kids. What is the group consensus? What do the people who are important in your life think about your drinking?
You can't be a drunk without hurting people. I'm sure I hurt my family. I'm sure I hurt everybody around me.
Let's face it, alcohol is a depressant. It takes all the negative thoughts in your mind and magnifies them a trillion times. You imagine things that aren't even there. You make up things. You get used to it. Alcohol starts as a habit. You feel you have to have it. The habit becomes a physical need. Once it becomes a physical need, you have to stop. That's it!
When you get into drinking, you have got to understand you're responsible for it—if you hurt anybody, if you hurt yourself. Look at the chance you're taking. You don't think about this when you're drinking every night. You know you're going to have a hangover in the morning. You know that. And in spite of that, you go on. That's punishment.
Admit that nobody is pushing you to do it. It's happening because you let it happen. You want it to happen.
"Look at the drunk I am. Look how I fall down. Look how I vomit. Look at the foul language I use. Look at the fights I get into. Look how I punish myself. Look at what I'm doing." This is calling attention to yourself in a negative way. Do you want to go through this? Do you want to debase yourself like this? For what? Is it worth what you are doing? Who are you getting even with? Who are you showing? What are you doing? Get up and do something with your life again.
You can't blame it on anybody. Look at yourself. Nobody is doing it to you. Nobody is forcing you to take the drink, and if you want to stop drinking, take the responsibility for your own life. Forget about the people you're with. Don't do it for anybody else. Just for yourself.
Verbalize it. "I'm an alcoholic." It's out. You've said it. You have actually said the words you dreaded. Once you say it, it goes away. It's like a big sore; it breaks and all the pus comes out.
When you yell for help you are admitting, "I need help." I don't want that other personality. I don't want him. I've had enough punishment, and from now on he's going to listen to me. I'm going to be the boss here. No more of this. No more self-punishment. No more. If you have anything left in yourself, you have just got to turn yourself around. No more. That's it. Once and for all. Know what you're going to go through. Be prepared. It's gonna be tough. Gonna shake and rattle and roll. But it's worth it, boy. A couple hours of shaking, that's not bad. Especially if you're in the hospital. They take care of you.
I couldn't take it anymore. It's not worth it. It's really not worth the pain. It truly isn't. I can see it now, but at that time I couldn't see it. The pain is horrendous, and I was doing it to me. Nobody was doing it to me. I did it.
You've got to hang on to yourself. Believe in yourself. That's what I had to do.
When I go out now to have fun, I enjoy myself because I appreciate it. I found out that enjoyment is appreciation of where you were and where you are now. That's enjoyment, and I appreciate it all.
Alcoholism is a disease. It is not a character weakness. It's a legitimate disease. It's an O.K. disease. You don't have to be ashamed of it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with will power. If I had diabetes, would people tell me to use my will power to get rid of it? No, they wouldn't.
The alcoholic has to realize that he is an alcoholic. It's very important for a person to listen to his inner voice. I have heard so many alcoholics say that they knew they were alcoholics.
Every once in a while an inner voice said, "You're drinking too much. You ought to quit drinking." My own opinion is that whenever that happens to you, you already have a problem. You're already an alcoholic. I never knew of a social drinker who had to worry about taking too much to drink or quitting. Whenever that voice says something to you, that's coming from way inside and it would be well to think about it.
If people are beginning to say something to you like, "Do you feel good today?" and do that every day, they are saying that they are noticing something about you. Maybe they don't have the nerve to say directly to you what they think, but look at yourself a little.
Alcoholism is a progressive thing. It creeps up on you without your knowing anything about it. You can be an alcoholic and be the last one to know it. Begin to look at yourself, look at what you are doing. Ask people around you, "Have I changed any? Am I doing things differently?" Make some inquiries about yourself. Remember, alcoholism has a fatal design. The bottom floor of the elevator lets you out at the insane asylum or the cemetery, one or the other. I've seen people in asylums who have lost their minds completely from drinking alcohol, and I have seen people die of alcoholism. It's a horrible death. That's the final floor. You don't have to wait to get off on the final floor if you just look at yourself and analyze yourself a little bit. You have to be honest with yourself.
I think an alcoholic needs to have a good physical examination for one thing, but don't go to a doctor just for that. Get his opinion. Be honest with him. Tell him how much you drink, the reaction, the feeling you get from it, and what's happened to you. Then he'll have an opportunity, because you are honest with him, to diagnose your case properly. Go to a doctor who understands alcoholism. The doctor can determine whether you need to be hospitalized, whether you need to go through a treatment facility, or whether you can do it on your own, with or without Antabuse.
There should be no more embarrassment about being an alcoholic than about having TB.
Anybody who is trying to get sober in the beginning needs hope that he can do something that somebody else has done. He needs to know that it is possible to quit drinking a day at a time. Not for life, but a day at a time. He needs to know that people out there have done it, and because they have done it, he can have hope that he can do it. It is a highly treatable disease, the most easily treated of all our diseases, once a person makes up his mind that he wants to quit drinking and asks for help. That's all he has to do. The rest of it can be taken care of. He can then be shown how to stay sober the rest of his life.
Alcoholics are afraid to change because they're always looking at the glass as half empty instead of half full. No matter how miserable their situation is, they feel if they change it's going to be worse. Alcoholics never think it's going to be better. They always look at change as moving toward something worse. Somebody says he has to quit drinking. The first thing he thinks is No, I can't change. Never does it dawn on drinking alcoholics to say, "Hey, it might be good." Alcoholics are very negative. That's what alcoholics dwell on.
A lot of people ask, "How do you manage in a social situation when you stop drinking? How do you manage not to drink?" Well, it's amazingly simple—I just don't drink. No problem.
It's very evident that people don't go to AA or even think about AA because they don't think they're alcoholics.
Human beings are lost. We don't know where we are so we don't know who we are. To help understand ourselves, we label. With the label alcoholic, the question is whether or not it's useful. I think generally it is because accepting it is a way by which a man can say, "I have a constellation of problems that surround the use of alcohol." So the label of alcoholism may have some benefit to people dealing with that problem.
If I can admit that I am an alcoholic, I have taken the first step toward dealing with my problem. If I can't accept that I have an alcohol problem, if I can't make that initial admission, then there is no way for me to begin to deal with that problem or to find an answer for it. A person certainly can't climb up the stairs from the basement unless he recognizes that he is in the basement.
(An excerpt from his book Unknown Man No. 89)
He watched her, after a moment, take another sip of wine.
"You want to get there, what're you fooling around with wine for?"
She didn't answer him.
"I used to drink mostly bourbon, over crushed ice, fill up a lowball glass. I also drank beer, wine, gin, vodka, Cuba Libres, Diet-Rite and scotch, and rye with red pop, but I preferred bourbon. Early Times. I knew a guy who drank only Fresca and chartreuse. I took a sip one time, I said to him, 'Jesus, this is the worst drink I ever tasted in my life.' He said, 'I know it is. It's so bad you can't drink very many of them.' A real alcoholic, though, can drink anything right?...What time you start in the morning?"
Without looking at him the girl said, "Fuck off."
There was a silence. He watched her raise the glass.
"Okay, then, how much you drink a day?"
"I don't know," the girl said. "What do you think would be about right?"
"If you're not working, have the time, I'd say a gallon, gallon and a half. Depends what time you start."
"Early," the girl said.
"Right before you throw up?"
"Before," the girl said, looking directly at him now. "Before I get out of bed. Then I might throw up or I might piss in the bed, whichever comes first. You want to come home with me? You're so fucking interested, I'll show you what I did this morning."
"I've seen it," Ryan said. "I've been there. And you know what? I don't ever want to go back."
The girl turned to her glass of wine, subdued. She stared at it for a while before saying, "I'm not ready for you yet."
"Why put it off? Because you're having so much fun?"
"I'm not ready."
"You're close enough," Ryan said. "Every day you put if off you're going to hit harder when you quit. Maybe you want to crash and burn first, end up in detox. It's your choice, I'm not going to argue with you, try and convince you of anything. But listen"—he took one of his business cards out of his wallet and placed it on the bar next to her glass—"you've got to have a very good reason to want to kill yourself. Have you got one?"
The girl, staring at her glass, didn't answer. Ryan got up from the bar and left.
You either quit drinking or you die or you have a wet brain. Those are the three options for an alcoholic. There are no others. That's it. There is no pope for drunks. You are or you aren't, and there is nobody to rescue you but yourself.