Well, it's time for me to ask y'all, as y'all are quite honest and fair in your judgements.

I like to drink. I drink brandy. I can drink two or three shots in a any given night. I like it after work, I find it relaxes me - better then anything. I am also an on and off smoker. When I start feeling the pain, I stop smoking. But I usually start up again in a moment of total relaxation, be it a vacation, a party... Mainly being amongst other smokers...

Drinking/smoking is common in my family. I'm not sure if these tendencies are genetic... My mom is not an addictive personality, but dad is. I suppose it could be a psychological trait inhereted from the father, weakness towards "drugs".

Am I an alcoholic? Possibly. I've seen alcoholics, I don't drink as much, but I do drink frequently. I have no company, so I usually have my drink alone. It doesn't affect my work, I don't wake up with a hangover, but I simply enjoy numbing myself to sleep at night.

I realize now that the one important thing it does affect - is my relationships. When people leave me - they say my bad habits are one of the major reasons they don't want to be with me.

I want you guys to tell me if the perception of a girl with a drink in her hand, who is otherwise very lucid and has all the usual qualities, is always the same, i.e. is every person who is seen with a drink in their hand perceived as somehow defective?

I am judged for it by my friends, family and boyfriends. Why don't I just quit? One, those people are probably the reason for which I feel like I need a drink in the first place. I tune out with it. It gives me a pleasant buzz - for a change. If I'm worried and thinking 100 miles an hour, it calms me down... They call it "self-destruction"... Like Marlon Brando's abuse of food. I just can't see it that way. The drink is my anti-depressant. I just want to enjoy my drink when I come back from work, without anyone giving me shait for it. Why is that so hard? Why am I constantly under a microscope?

I drink because I CHOOSE TO. Not because I have a psysical dependence. And the more negative perception I see, ironically...:) The more resentful and rebelious I get. In plain English, I am sick and tired of judgemental people. Why can't someone just share a glass with me instead... :confused:

From your description I would call you an alcoholic. You are in denial over the nature of your drinking activities. Once in a while or one with dinner is one thing, but you are drinkingto get the effect of numbing, behavior change, etc. You have family friends or others commenting, and not positively. You "choose" to do this.

All classic alcoholic symptoms.

Why do you have to run away from reality? It is what YOU choose to make if it, no drink is gonna do that for you. All it does is masks the symptoms, while the disease continues to gnaw at your guts and eat you from the inside out.


May you find peace my dear. Counseling maybe?

From your description I would call you an alcoholic. You are in denial over the nature of your drinking activities. Once in a while or one with dinner is one thing, but you are drinkingto get the effect of numbing, behavior change, etc. You have family friends or others commenting, and not positively. You "choose" to do this.

All classic alcoholic symptoms.

Why do you have to run away from reality? It is what YOU choose to make if it, no drink is gonna do that for you. All it does is masks the symptoms, while the disease continues to gnaw at your guts and eat you from the inside out.


May you find peace my dear. Counseling maybe?

Good point. I do run away rom reality. I don't like it. I can't change much about it. I've tried to make a life for myself, worked hard, I have not let my self go physically, all that... But I got nothing in return, I suppose justifiable unhappiness settled in slowly but surely. At this point, I feel like I just don't care what happens. I realize it could be much worse.... But I am not happy in my own skin.

I feel like Bridget Jones. Singing "all by myself" in her pijamas, choosing vodka and Chaka Khan... See, someone like Bridget Jones, in the real world would never get a man like D'Arcy. Chick flicks are the biggest BS ever invented to entertain the miserable female population of this shitty world.

And thank you for an honest evaluation.

HI. MY NAME IS BLAH BLAH BLAH, AND I'M AN ALCOHOLIC.

If your drinking is interfering with your professional or social life, then you have a problem. If you can't go a few days without alcohol without feeling some sort of withdraw, then you have a problem. If it doesn't interfere and you're fine without it, then you don't have a problem and everyone else is just overreacting.

You're going through a tough time in your life right now. There are many ways to deal with it, some more healthy than others. You've decided to self-medicate with alcohol. That's better than self-medicating with cocaine, but you'd be better off if you picked up some kind of constructive hobby to help take your mind off your problems instead. (like dancing! I know you love it!)

I suggest some counseling. Honestly, there's no way to make an accurate stab at a "diagnosis" of alcoholism or addiction over the internet. I would suggest some better coping mechanisms though.
Good luck.

Since you mentioned honesty in your first sentence--I'd have to say--if friends and family are hinting or adressing a drinking problem--then you most likely have a problem. If it were just one friend or fam member saying something, then it might be on them.

You just need to be honest with yourself before you can adress the problems.

If your drinking is interfering with your professional or social life, then you have a problem. If you can't go a few days without alcohol without feeling some sort of withdraw, then you have a problem. If it doesn't interfere and you're fine without it, then you don't have a problem and everyone else is just overreacting.

You're going through a tough time in your life right now. There are many ways to deal with it, some more healthy than others. You've decided to self-medicate with alcohol. That's better than self-medicating with cocaine, but you'd be better off if you picked up some kind of constructive hobby to help take your mind off your problems instead. (like dancing! I know you love it!)

No, my drinking is not interfering with any aspect of my life, aside from relationships. Just seeing me with a drink, men are turned off.

C'est la vie. We are who we are.

I suppose I could just drop the drinking in order to preserve a relationship, but something inside me rebels every time. Why should I hide my enjoyment? Why should I pretend?

And in the end, it just means that I will not get what I want because I have hedonistic tendencies. I overindulge.

I'm really perplexed. I don't want to regret my tendencies later, however, I hate it when people demand from me to change myself. :hmm:

Do you need alcohol to feel good, or to prevent yourself from feeling bad?

Mister E - it puts me at ease. I don't go around every day feeling bad. I do however feel the stress - tension. Alcohol relaxes me. Like a hot bath or a massage would help others, I think...:hmm:

If these two habits - drinking and on/off smoking - are the only two bad habits these people use as an excuse to leave you, you should stop hanging out with Mormons. I was raised as an SDA, who have the same restrictive views on tobacco and alcohol as Mormons. To my entire family, I'm a hopeless alcoholic with the worst tobacco habit ever, and will surely be banned fron heaven.

Like you, I enjoy a few drinks a day. I have a beer with dinner, another later in the evening, and I often have a glass of wine before bed. (This is one more drink than is supposed to be beneficial for your heart.) Like you, I live alone, so I drink alone. I also eat alone, watch movies alone, and mostly work alone. I like people, it's just that right now the work I need to accomplish doesn't lend itself to socializing. And yes, getting buzzed before bed keeps me from tossing and turning, agonizing over an injustice or business worries, or second-guessing tomorrow's agenda. The alternative would be to stay up a couple extra hours until I'm REALLY sleepy, then being sleep-deprived and off my game the next day.

I confess I'm addicted to cigarettes. Also coffee - if I don't start my day with coffee I'll get a splitting headache. Also food - if I don't eat, I drag. Also a daily shower - some people might call that compulsive.

I suppose by some standard I'd be addicted to alcohol as well. However, I tend not to pay a lot of attention to opinions of people who have not demonstrated that they have my best interest at heart. I wasted too many years trying to measure up to somebody else's ideal only to discover they were playing head games with me. So if someone thinks I drink too much coffee or alcohol, or decides to get pissy with me because I smoke or shower every day, they're not a good choice for me to associate with, family or not.

Btw, how do you do that on again, off again smoking thing?! The only friends I've had who could smoke without it becoming a habit were Mexicans and American Indians. I envy them that.

Well, basically, after a year or so of smoking, if I get a bad cold, it lingers for weeks. If I don't stop smoking, I can't get well. So I stop cold turkey. My body can't take it for too long. But then after a year or so of not smoking, I feel well again, and I make the stupid decision to light up again. It's a vicious cycle. A person like me should never, ever light up after quitting.

It's not that I hang out with mormons. The percentage of smokers in the society is rapidly reducing. Non-smokers don't tolerate smoking for various reasons. It stinks, it costs, and it causes rapid deterioration of the lungs, the heart and blood vessels - i.e. you are probably not going to live a long life. For women, it's worse, because it can affect the foetus. The link between smoking and cancer is clear and nobody wants to be with someone who is intentionally reducing their life on earth, will die before them and leave them all alone in their old age. I understand. I am not justifying smoking. I just can't help myself when it comes to people insisting that I change. I'd rather if they would show gentle encouragement to do so, instead of giving me an ultimatum. Ultimatums in relationships... My instinct tells me it can't be right. I would never give an ultimatum to the person I love. And if I can't do it - then I cannot accept that being done to me. This is all really depressing. I'm so disappointed in people, you guys have no idea...:( But I guess people are disappointed in me as well. :(

I want you guys to tell me if the perception of a girl with a drink in her hand, who is otherwise very lucid and has all the usual qualities, is always the same, i.e. is every person who is seen with a drink in their hand perceived as somehow defective?

I am judged for it by my friends, family and boyfriends. Why don't I just quit? One, those people are probably the reason for which I feel like I need a drink in the first place. I tune out with it. It gives me a pleasant buzz - for a change. If I'm worried and thinking 100 miles an hour, it calms me down... They call it "self-destruction"... Like Marlon Brando's abuse of food. I just can't see it that way. The drink is my anti-depressant. I just want to enjoy my drink when I come back from work, without anyone giving me shait for it. Why is that so hard? Why am I constantly under a microscope?

I drink because I CHOOSE TO. Not because I have a psysical dependence. And the more negative perception I see, ironically...:) The more resentful and rebelious I get. In plain English, I am sick and tired of judgemental people. Why can't someone just share a glass with me instead... :confused:

Just having a drink in your hand shouldn't cause that kind of overreaction from others, unless they're complete teatotallers who judge others by their own strict standards. If your friends or family also feel free to knock back a few themselves, and you still feel they're seeing you that way, then you may have a problem. Does your personality change, do you become more argumentative, prone to the blues, or anything like that when you drink? If you ask these people what exactly it is about you that they are reacting to when you're drinking, you will know what they're finding problematic about it then. You probably won't like what they tell you, but if you're asking us here, you already are wondering about it.

Just having a drink in your hand shouldn't cause that kind of overreaction from others, unless they're complete teatotallers who judge others by their own strict standards. If your friends or family also feel free to knock back a few themselves, and you still feel they're seeing you that way, then you may have a problem. Does your personality change, do you become more argumentative, prone to the blues, or anything like that when you drink? If you ask these people what exactly it is about you that they are reacting to when you're drinking, you will know what they're finding problematic about it then. You probably won't like what they tell you, but if you're asking us here, you already are wondering about it.

Good point.

The reason everyone is looking at me fearfully is because alcoholism runs in my dad's family - and I obviously draw from them (physically and emotionally). However, that type of alcoholism is severe, and I don't see the resemblance. It takes a large amount of alcohol daily to turn into such an alcoholic. I could never take that physically, I consider my tolerance level low, but naturally, higher than someone who doesn't drink at all.

The point I'm trying to make is - people know my family history, and are afraid I'm following in their footsteps. I must say, that my dad's drinking did not interfere with his work either. He would wake up and clean up every day, no matter how much he would drink the night before. He functioned regardless. But just like in my case, his nights were difficult to bare. Too many problems, too much responsibility in life, too much stress, too many disappointments. He was a very generous and kind person, and people took advantage of that, which pushed him further into internal dispair. I understand him.

So yes, a preference for a certain drug is inhereted, obviously. Hard liquor over beer/wine for example. But as for the severity of the dependance, I just don't fit the alcoholic category.

Does consumption of alcohol alter my behaviour? Yes to the point of being more straight forward. But we must revert to the triggers. When you're surrounded by negative people - with or without a drink, they will always trigger a negative response, no matter how high/low you may be feeling.

I find that in my relationship I was holding back a lot, I had to bite my tongue frequently because I knew that one word from me would trigger an avalance of criticism. That's just not normal. It shouldn't be that way.

Generally I try to avoid doing anything that becomes a crutch. That said, this year's winter fast is the hardest I've ever gone through and I'm a coffee fiend most of the time.

Forget about whether or not you are an alcoholic for a minute. Because that doesn't really matter in any practical sense unless you need the label to convince you to try to better yourself in some way, in which case: sure, you're an alcoholic.

Here is what you need to decide: are you going to change your drinking habits, or are you going to change your friends? Honestly, if you want to be happy you have to be around people that are at least accepting of who you want to be, if not outright supportive and similar. And if it helps, I've had female friends come over and share a cognac and a cigar, and I'm of the opinion that it is kind of hot. And while I acknowledge that I have weird tastes, there's a lot of people out there that aren't like everyone else, so keep looking.

Now, if on the other hand you find that your drinking is making you unhappy, and you are unwilling or unable to quit but would like to, for that I suggest getting counseling.

You could try smoking/drinking when you're around friends who accept it and lay off it when the others are around. Imo if someone's using those 2 things as deal breakers they're not the right kind of people for you anyway... either they're just using them as an excuse or they have a life style and personality incompatible with yours and it's likely they want someone who will do whatever they say. Plenty of people like that emotional manipulation game... "if you don't do blah blah blah then it just proves you don't care about the relationship so you have to bend to my will if you expect this to work"

If it doesn't interfere and you're fine without it, then you don't have a problem and everyone else is just overreacting.
That is not across the board, 100% correct. I know a few people that are completely functional in their life and they're fine without a drink for 2+ weeks. They still have a problem with the mind altering substance of their choice, in this case, booze.

I'm probably one of them. I'm not an alcoholic, but booze does have a negative impact on my life. I'm actually currently in the process of finding the right therapist to help me make my life better, and this is one thing (of many, it isn't the catalyst) that I plan on discussing. My work doesn't suffer, my relationships don't suffer, and I don't drink 5 days a week. It's still something I need to address.

That is not across the board, 100% correct. I know a few people that are completely functional in their life and they're fine without a drink for 2+ weeks. They still have a problem with the mind altering substance of their choice, in this case, booze.

I'm probably one of them. I'm not an alcoholic, but booze does have a negative impact on my life. I'm actually currently in the process of finding the right therapist to help me make my life better, and this is one thing (of many, it isn't the catalyst) that I plan on discussing. My work doesn't suffer, my relationships don't suffer, and I don't drink 5 days a week. It's still something I need to address.

Could this be the end of your awesome drunk pics? :( :(
(seriously, though, I hope you find a way to be happy & healthy with or without booze. Therapy is a huge help if you use it.)

There are worse ways to go thank drinking yourself to death.
Actually, if you're going to smoke, I would suggest it. Lung cancer sucks.

That is not across the board, 100% correct. I know a few people that are completely functional in their life and they're fine without a drink for 2+ weeks. They still have a problem with the mind altering substance of their choice, in this case, booze.

I'm probably one of them. I'm not an alcoholic, but booze does have a negative impact on my life. I'm actually currently in the process of finding the right therapist to help me make my life better, and this is one thing (of many, it isn't the catalyst) that I plan on discussing. My work doesn't suffer, my relationships don't suffer, and I don't drink 5 days a week. It's still something I need to address.

If you're fine without it, and it's not interfering with your life, why do you call it a problem?

Could this be the end of your awesome drunk pics? :( :(
(seriously, though, I hope you find a way to be happy & healthy with or without booze. Therapy is a huge help if you use it.)
Oh, I seriously doubt that. And I didn't mean to make it sound like my life sucks and booze is a factor in that. I've just decided that there are things that could be better, and I think therapy could help.
If you're fine without it, and it's not interfering with your life, why do you call it a problem?
I don't have an alcohol problem, I just notice the negative effects it can have. It's a depressant, and you don't need to have it in your system for it to have that effect. It's more of a general effect it can have on someone's personality, lifestyle, feelings of self-worth, etc.