Warning: This article contains discussion of alcoholism which some readers may find distressing.
An alcoholic who has been sober since 2011 shared his insight on how to tell whether or not you've got a drinking problem.
Quite a lot of people drink alcohol fairly regularly, and that by itself does not make them alcoholics, but there are those who have developed an addiction to booze and suffered significantly for it.
Corey Warren has been sober for over a decade, and he's since turned his efforts towards helping others who had an alcohol dependency figure out how to work on their drinking problem. The first step to solving a problem is knowing it's there, and Warren has explained the question you should ask yourself to work out whether your drinking is normal or problematic.
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He told people that he used to think 'everybody's doing it, it's not that deep' when he had a couple of drinks, but he came to realise 'it was never about how many drinks I had, it was about why I drank'.
"I drank because I was bored. I drank because I was stressed. I drank to celebrate. I drank to escape. And that that's not normal. That's dependency," he said, before outlining the question someone wondering whether they had a drinking problem or not needed to find an answer for.
"So ask yourself this question: If alcohol didn't change the way that you feel, would you still drink it? And if your answer is no, then it was never about the drink.
"If you want to better your life, start by putting the alcohol down."
He said he would obsess from Monday through Thursday about going out for drunk weekends and found himself 'counting down the days until I can drink again', and he knew he was an alcoholic when he kept promising he would stop drinking, but not even he believed it.
Corey explained that normal drinkers have 'a reason for not drinking', whereas he would keep finding reasons to drink.
He explained that at the worst moment he was 'drunk by 10 o’clock in the morning' and withdrew from the people who cared about him.
Suggesting that people who 'drink to relax' might be in dangerous territory, he urged them to think about whether or not they had an alcohol dependence instead.
Please drink responsibly. If you want to discuss any issues relating to alcohol in confidence, contact Drinkline on 0300 123 1110, 9am–8pm weekdays and 11am–4pm weekends for advice and support.
Topics: Alcohol, Health, Mental Health
Joe Harker