Am I An Alcoholic?

Am I an alcoholic?or malady.
This is a question every alcoholic has to answer forCertainly if unchecked it will lead to serious long-term
themselves before they get sober. And they will havepsychological physical and mental and spiritual
to answer honestly and without reservation yes!deterioration.
Otherwise sobriety will be hard come by if everI do not believe it is my fault I am an alcoholic I certainly
attained at all. Why get sober if you're not a drunk?believe it is my fault and my responsibility if I add
Years ago drunkards who were of loweralcohol to my alcoholic mind.
socioeconomic backgrounds were considered to beLately there has been much in the news magazines,
people with serious immoral if not criminal behaviors.television, the Internet and other media about binge
The idea that someone could have a genuinedrinking, especially teenage binge drinking.
uncontrollable or near uncontrollable desire to doSome consider binge drinking alcoholism some think it
something so obviously harmful is fairly recent.just a pattern that will lead to alcoholism.
For many centuries the aristocracy or at least higherThere is no doubt it leads to many teenage
socioeconomic backgrounds, usually well-educated andpregnancies, increases High School dropout rates and
from upper-class families were not consideredmost tragic of all, causes thousands of drunk driving
drunkards. They were shielded by their wealth, familyrelated deaths and injuries.
and position. This is a situation not at all uncommonThe national Institute on alcoholism and alcohol abuse
today as long as one avoids the public eye.has determined that binge drinking consists of five
It wasn't until the 1800s that any form of the diseasedrinks in one day for men four in a day for women.
concept of alcoholism became popular. A GermanI'm not a scientist and I don't know if that in fact
doctor translated a book by a Russian doctor andqualifies one as a binge drinker or not. I do know that I
translated the term Trunksucht as dipsomania. Thefrequently had five drinks in one hour. Towards the
medical profession divided dipsomania up intoend five drinks in one day would have been cutting
elaborate schemes of continuous, periodic, intermittent,back.
recurrent, and probably some others that I don't evenOthers I know drank far less and are just as alcoholic
know about. This sounds a lot like Alcoholism to me.as me. How is that? Alcoholism is more a state of
In later years it became popular to call some drunksmind than a state of body.
alcoholic's while others were simply problem drinkers.Its root is an obsessive thought that supersedes all
I have calculated the difference between a problemothers, followed by a compulsion as a strong as the
drinker and an alcoholic to be approximately $75,000 acompulsion to eat food or drink water when starving.
year.Craving is as a friend once described it, "like climbing
They both drink alike, one simply has the money to buythe walls with your teeth." I thank God there is relief
their way out of trouble and the other does not. Oneand release in prayer. That God can and will stand in
can afford the highest quality and other must budgetthe gap for me.
for quantity.The alcoholic mind will be, without proper supervision
However nicely you put it alcoholics drink and drink toflooded with thoughts of alcohol and a craving difficult
excess, they may or may not drink frequently butto explain to those who have never been addicted.
almost always get drunk at the most inconvenient andLeft unchecked these thoughts and cravings will
inappropriate times.produce actions.
I am not as dedicated to the disease concept ofIn the end I have found that I must allow God to
alcoholism as our some of my friends. On the othersupervise my thoughts and meditations lest my desire
hand I am convinced it is some form of mental illnessfor alcohol turn on me and again destroy my life.