Posts by Donna Martin

Carl Brown152 said:Someone drinking all day long—probably not. Some people just act like jerks and happen to be drunk while doing it... it's not always the booze that's the problem, right?

I'm with you on this one, 100%

Carl Brown152 said:Those sound like extreme cases, though. People here seem to be saying alcoholism is more like, I don't know, having one too many over the weekend and realizing you crossed a line, so next time you try to scale it back. Or am I totally missing the point? 🤷

Look, having a few drinks on the weekend isn't exactly some massive crisis, at least in my book, but if I recall that first post correctly, we're actually looking at someone drinking almost every single day

briskbison47 said:I wouldn't go that far. Alcoholism sneaks up on you incredibly slowly—so slowly, in fact, that the drinker doesn't even realize it's happening. They'll end up calling anyone who tries to point out the truth "crazy." By the time someone actually starts questioning the habit, they're usually already too deep in...
It's a slow-moving addiction that manifests in all sorts of ways, often masked by cultural norms that excuse getting wasted under the guise of tradition. You know the drill: a glass of wine with dinner for "heart health," or a shot of whiskey for "medicinal purposes," blah blah blah...

It sneaks up on you, and if you actually try to confront them, they’ll turn on you instantly, acting like you’ve lost your mind just for suggesting it. They’ll swear up and down that they could go five years without a single drop if they wanted to, but hey, they aren't "an alcoholic," so they don't have to prove anything to anyone. But if you actually manage to force them to stay sober for even a few days? Their hands start shaking, they spiral into delirium, and things get incredibly ugly, very fast...
Admitting you're an alcoholic takes massive guts, which is exactly why that's the very first thing you have to say when you walk into an AA meeting.

The practical way to define any kind of addiction isn't really about how many ounces of alcohol someone gulps down in a sitting, but rather whether their entire demeanor and emotional state would absolutely crater if they couldn't get their hands on a drink for, say, ten days straight. If just the thought of being without it sends you into a spiral of pure anxiety and dread, then yeah, you’re looking at an addiction, plain and simple. If a person can't even navigate their daily life without it, that's the bottom line... We aren't going to measure addiction by the ounce, nor are we going to base it on some subjective feeling or the unsolicited opinions of every old lady on the block (and that includes my own 😁)

briskbison47 said:You’re an alcoholic.
Look, you’re still functioning, I get it—your eyes aren't yellow from liver failure and you haven't completely lost all your inhibitions—but you’re a drinker. Period. If I took some lonely, drunk old woman wandering the streets of Chicago, someone who hasn't showered in a year, and played her life in reverse, she’d sound exactly like you.
I’m sorry, but it’s just the truth.

You can't just quit drinking until you actually turn your life around, start building healthier habits, and deal with whatever it is that makes you run away into a cycle of excuses and booze.

I feel terrible for the OP, I'm actually dying over here 🤣

And as for answering the question—yeah, you've got an alcohol problem. Honestly, you don't even need a survey or a test to figure that out; just reach out to those anonymous AA groups. I hear there are people from every walk of life in there, so you'll get the support and the roadmap you need to pull through. Taking this first step by making this post is already a huge move. Just keep moving forward... 🙂