You Know You’re An Alcoholic When…

Recognizing the signs of alcoholism

Recently, in a recovery meeting, a man shared how he went through life continuously having problems because of his drinking, but he never knew he was an alcoholic. 

That is not my story. If you’ve heard me tell it or have read My Podium Story, you know that since I started drinking regularly at like 16-17 years old, I always knew I was an alcoholic. 

How did I know? When I was in middle school, my older brother William kept getting in trouble for his drinking. He got brought home by the police, broke his leg while riding his bicycle drunk, punched out a window in a drunken rage. My parents tried. They really did. They sent him to a prep school, then to one rehab, and then to another rehab. During his stints in the rehabs, we had to go to family counseling sessions. In those sessions, I learned the definition of an alcoholic; I learned it was a disease. Around the house, lying on the kitchen counter by the phone, were pamphlets that asked questions like:

• How often do you find yourself in dangerous situations when you drink? 

• Have you ever tried to cut back or stop your alcohol use? 

• Has your alcohol use changed your interests or relationships? 

And even at just 17 years of age, I answered “yes” to most of the questions. For example, I quit the field hockey team so I could get drunk at a Grateful Dead concert. And every weekend in high school was a new, dangerous situation. (Who wants to jump off the roof of a beach club into a pool? Drunk me!) I knew I was an alcoholic like my brother. Or at least one part of my brain knew. And that part of my brain did its darndest to keep my alcoholism hidden from everyone. 

I knew if someone called me out on my drinking, I’d have to stop. (Case in point: my brother William got sent to rehab.) And I didn’t want to stop,  drinking was my solution. This became even more true when my brother and sister died. I’m not like them, I would try to convince myself and the people around me, I can handle alcohol. Except I couldn’t. Which is why I eventually started drinking alone, so that the world wouldn’t see my alcoholism and couldn’t tell me to stop drinking. 

Knowing I was an alcoholic and yet still drinking was its own form of torture. There’s a saying in the rooms, “a belly full of beer and a head full of AA.” Drinking when you know you really shouldn’t be, when you know there is another way, is not fun. 

There is a new trend out there that shies away from the label “alcoholic.” There are sober influencers who say drinking problems exist on a spectrum.

Sure, the elevator goes all the way down, and you can get off at any stop. I have what they call a “high bottom,” meaning I got sober before my progressive disease really took me down.  I have many “not yets” in my story. Did I get a DUI? Not yet. Did child services take my children away? Not yet. I say “not yet” because those things are waiting for me if I pick up a drink. 

But just because I’m not a homeless person drinking out of a brown bag in the Bowery (what’s with the Bowery? Why is that a thing?), does that mean I’m not an alcoholic?

Holly Whitaker (whose book Quit Like a Woman I threw across the room because I was so pissed off at her AA-bashing) says there is no such thing as an alcoholic. Whitaker says, “That instead of looking at how insane it is to consume the amounts of alcohol we do in this country on any level, we've instead systematically labeled anyone who can't hang in that insanity as having the problem.¹”

Except… my husband Chris can sip a small tumbler of Maker’s Mark bourbon. He rarely finishes his drink and doesn’t immediately order another. This is mind-boggling to me. (Mind-boggling—that’s a phrase my mother would always use.) However, I can smoke one cigarette and not immediately go buy a pack. Chris cannot and has quit smoking for over 12 years now. We are like Jack Sprat and his wife, except with cigarettes and alcohol.  

The whole dry January movement has me baffled. If you’re not an alcoholic, why quit drinking? If drinking is not a problem for you, why stop? If I didn’t have a problem with alcohol, I’d drink every day. ;-)  

This concept that maybe there is no such thing as an alcoholic is very dangerous for me. Dangerous because I could convince myself that maybe I’m not an alcoholic. Maybe it was just that period in my life when I couldn’t drink properly. Maybe I could have a drink now.

If I drink, I die. I am not being melodramatic. I have evidence: my brother, who after being sober for three years and then drank again, died in a drunk driving accident. If I pick up one drink, there is no guarantee I will ever make it back into recovery. And if I don’t make it back in recovery, what’s waiting for me is “jails, institutions, and death.” 

Every year or so, I try to tell my kids how I know I am an alcoholic. They may have the gene which terrifies me. Or they may be like their father and be able to take or leave alcohol. But I want them to know the signs so they are informed, unlike the guy from the meeting who for years never knew he was an alcoholic.  So I tell my kids, here’s how I know I am an alcoholic:

When I put any amount of alcohol in my system, I immediately want more. When I have one drink, I want two, then three, and then all the alcohol that’s in the house. It’s a physical allergy as described in the chapter called “A Doctor’s Opinion” in The Big Book². 

I can remember a specific moment when this allergy was crystal clear to me. Years before I got sober, my cousin came to visit me when we lived in Huntington, NY. She is friends with my sister-in-law and we all sat on beach chairs on our dock, enjoying the comings and goings of Huntington Harbor. It was early afternoon, and we all had a drink. I think it was a beer. 

After having one drink, I wanted another. I can’t remember if my cousin and sister-in-law had another too, but it wasn’t so out of the ordinary to have two drinks on a beautiful sunny afternoon. But then my second drink was finished, and oh my god, I desperately wanted a third drink. But having a third drink would be noticeable. Because I knew I was an alcoholic, I knew that me having a third drink might set off some alarm bells for my loved ones who knew my family’s history. If my cousin and sister-in-law would have joined me in the third drink, it would have been fine. But they didn’t, so I had to stop drinking or risk someone taking a closer look at my drinking. The feeling of having my buzz slowly dissipate that afternoon was painful. So much so that I remember it distinctly 20-plus years later. Not having that third drink made me cranky and itchy, and no longer able to enjoy the scenery and my family’s company. And since I couldn’t get drunk that day, I made sure I did soon after that. That’s the obsession to drink that comes after the allergy, which is also discussed in “The Doctor’s Opinion” chapter of The Big Book.    

Remember that comedian Jeff Foxworthy, who had a bit, “You Might Be A Redneck, If…”? It was pretty funny. In my quick Google search, I found a clip where he said, “You might be a redneck if… you’ve ever been too drunk to fish.” That one might apply to “you might be an alcoholic.” too.

My original plan for this post was, using my own experiences as examples, list some ways you might be an alcoholic. But really, here’s what I think:  

You might be an alcoholic if…

you’ve ever asked yourself, “Am I an alcoholic?” 

If you are struggling with alcohol or addiction, AA can help. Visit AA.org to find a meeting near you.

RIP William Bassler (1968-1990). William chased me around the backyard pretending to be Bigfoot, taught me how to fish, and introduced me to the Grateful Dead.

1. To be honest, I can’t fully address Whitaker’s points because I read her stuff with one eye closed so that I don’t fall into a pit of self-righteous anger. 

2. Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as The Big Book, presents the AA program for recovery from alcoholism. First published in 1939, its purpose was to show other alcoholics how the first 100 people of A.A. got sober.