alcohol dependent or not?!

I don't really know if I am or have ever been trully alcohol dependent. I have used it to cope on and off for about 15 years ,always stopping ok when I wanted untill my mother died 29 months ago then it got really bad and I couldn't stop I did two dettox successfully one for 6 months and second I lasted for 11 months but I purchased alcohol then tipped it down the sink to prove I could ! Twice , then I started drinking it occasionally but in complete control no problem! This has been the situation for about 12 weeks now even though I am in a serious mh crisis I am keeping control, I am wanting to drink every day lots and lots am I actually craving it I am not sure? I don't really know where I'm going with this except I just felt the need to come here an get this off my chest I suppose . Thanks for reading i would appreciate your thoughts

I've been asking myself the same thing a lot lately... I never get any withdrawals so I figure I can't be dependent. However I am drinking most days, and on days when I tell myself I won't drink or only have one etc I still find myself drinking too much. I don't really know the answer... I don't really know where the line is between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence...

Anyone who drinks is looking for whatever effect they receive, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. For example:

"For most normal folks [who are able to drink with complete control], drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good." ("A.A.", page 151)

But that can quickly change when either of two factors is present:

1. Some people drink to escape reality rather than learning to deal with it;
2. Some people cannot drink for any reason at all without losing control.

Trying to prove she or he is "normal" (rather than self-medicating while expecting more than the alcohol can actually produce) and/or trying to drink with control rather than having each drink physically demand more alcohol -- an actual phenomenon of physical craving beyond all mental control -- are symptoms of alcoholism.

If one thinks they have a problem with alcohol then they usually do.

Im in my late 40's .. When I was 23 I quit drinking because it was becoming a problem. I was getting aggressive and waking up ashamed.. I quit drinking 4 times before I put the plug in the jug.

Staying sober was no problem once I got through the craving period.

Fast forward a decade and I get sick .. doctor gives me Dilauded.. I fell in love.. I really believed it was what was missing all those years..

Another decade later, I am an addict / alcoholic. Its a progressive condition that gets worse and worse if we use or drink. Maybe even if we don't .. Today I can't just stay clean and sober on my own willpower.. Those days are gone..

I hope that helps.

Our intellectual-emotional need for the effect can circumstantially grow over time, and then there is also the matter of our becoming less able to physically tolerate the substance...and that is what is meant when A.A. shares experience with there being no such thing as making a normal drinking out of an alcoholic and/or over time we get worse -- more loss of control -- never better.

Same here. Will power is/was effective only for as long as the intellect and emotions are/were in agreement about staying sober...and then Mr./Ms. Feelings typically wins out while hollering from the back of the bus...and that is why "Don't drink, one-day-at-a-time" almost never works for the real alcoholic.

There are clear and rigid diagnostic criteria (look DSM or ICD) for alcoholism.

Thank you all for your replies I really appreciate you sharing your experiences with me , but I still don't know ! . Thank you thedotseparator I will look this up.

Ok so I have done some research and it seems to me you can have a mild to moderate drinking disorder without actually being dependant? Is that right????

It is now called "Alcohol Use Disorder" and there are qualifiers such as "mild, moderate, severe" as well as others too numerous to list here. You may be psychologically dependent and not having physical changes that would go along with "severe" alcohol use disorder. Cravings are definitely a warning sign that you're on a slippery slope with drinking. Underlying MH issues also have the potential to make things worse. Best of luck. I hope you are getting what you need.

Sure, depending upon what is actually meant by the terms disorder, dependence, craving, obsession, compulsion and/or whatever else...and the same can even happen with doughnuts until we begin talking about actual alcoholism.

Concerning disorder, dependence and/or obsession:

Having a few drinks to be silly with some friends is one thing, but then "having a few" to try to change how we feel is something much different...and there is where I would guess "mild to moderate" might fit prior to actually becoming truly "dependent" (intellectually and/or emotionally) upon the effect in order to be able to function in life at all.

Separate from those kinds of things, however, and yet alongside them for certain people -- actual alcoholics -- are the matters of physical craving and/or physical compulsion...and those often get confused or mis-construed as being mental or emotional matters such as above. But at least as shared in A.A., some of us actually have some abnormal body chemistry or a so-called "physical allergy" (Dr. Silkworth, 1939) making controlled drinking impossible and beyond all mental control. So in A.A. we have two simple "tests" anyone can take for a bit of self-diagnosis:

1. Try to drink just two or three and quit abruptly (until another day) to see whether the phenomenon of physical craving takes over and keeps you drinking anyway;

2. Try to stop altogether for a year and see what happens.

Few drinkers will actually experience that first problem, but many might experience the second.

Crimsoncat, I'm not a big fan of rehashing the past wishing that things had gone differently.

The only regret I have is that I did not stop drinking when I first realized I had a problem. It was in 2002 and I kept telling myself I;d sober up next weekend. Guess what next weekend never came because the withdrawl shakes were too bad. 3 years of progressivly heavier drinking and I had my first seizure. That got my attention and I managed to cut back for about 6 months, and then it got really out of control. I was sent to rehab, by company, in 2016. but relapsed almost immediately, and was eventually let go from the job.

If been in and out of rehabs since 2017and am only coming up on once again having 1 year sober.

I think I could have had a very better or at least different outcome, if I'd stopped when I was just starting to be physically dependent.

splitimage

You sir are correct!