Practical Advice How can you tell if you're becoming a problem drinker?

Yeah, i think that's what i have to keep an eye on. I'd started to lapse into this mentality of "i have to drink x amount to promote growth or to be a better person", and that's really dangerous. It was becoming more about the drink controlling me and determining my self-worth than actually enjoying myself.

Thanks for chipping in Witty. I know it's a difficult topic for anyone with their own history of problematic drinking, so it's good of you to engage to give your insight.

I can't live there as that person and you can't live as drunk Lisa.

My feeling is that if you use alcohol to be who you want to be, then you're screwing sober Lisa out of growth and development and letting drunk Lisa steal her opportunity to be happy. Sober Lisa is all kinds of awesome, as well as being smart and strong and resilient. Don't let drunk Lisa stomp on her by putting drunk Lisa on a pedestal in your head.

I learned in recovery that this is a real thing. We stop maturing emotionally when we start using alcohol to handle our shortcomings like social awkwardness, not knowing what to say, how to open up, and so on. So when drinkers such as myself stop drinking, we have essentially the same emotional age as we were when we started drinking. So for me, I ended up as a 45 year old man with the emotional maturity of a teenager. There were some …. problems as a result of that. I left a good job that I could have salvaged if I wasn’t such a jerk back then.

I’ve compared notes with other problem drinkers and I have found 100% of the sample also experience this. It’s almost like disordered drinking is a disease with a predictable trajectory or something.

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I'll be honest, this is really not helping. It's a situation where i know what needs to be done, but i don't have the legal power to make it happen, and the person who does have that power is opting to bury his head in the sand and hope it'll all just work itself out somehow. The. Man. Has. Dementia. He blatantly needs full-time care. Especially because he's only gonna get worse.

Grandad could have died somewhere tonight, alone and afraid, all because his son is being a total coward, and there's nothing i can actually do about it. I have the knowledge and the maturity to acknowledge the hard truths here, but i'm powerless to change anything. I've had to just watch this shitshow unfold for a year, saying the entire time that this was inevitable.

It feels like my options are either just sit in this awful feeling, or drink it away. I so want a whiskey right now, but i know that's dangerous. If i turn to drink now, that's an admission that's my crutch.

I'm really sorry to hear that this is happening to your grandfather, and that your dad is sort of turning a blind eye to it all.

I can't imagine how stressful all of this must be for you to deal with. I can understand wanting to drink away these feelings, but I hope you can avoid it, and remember we are here to support you.

I just want to clarify this: my dad is completely innocent here. He's been a saint about all this. It's not his dad, it's mum's dad, and yet he's been there for pretty much all of grandad's incidents, he's been the one coaching him through how to do basic things, he's been the one fielding grandad randomly freaking out about stuff that's only happening in the fading remnants of his mind. I've done what i can to ease the burden, but the majority of it has somehow ended up on my dad's shoulders.

He's given so much time and energy into looking after grandad, despite being under no obligation to at all. And he's been having to do all that because grandad's actual son, my uncle, is the one with power of attorney he refuses to use to make the necessary hard decisions. Dad's also gotten on board with my argument that grandad needs to be in a care facility, but he's also powerless to change it too. It's part of why i'm so angry about it, i'm mad for both of their sakes. I know it's irrelevant to the overall point of the conversation here, but i just want that on the record wherever the record exists.


As for the relevant stuff, thanks Witty, i appreciate the understanding and kinship. It does help a bit.
I feel a bit daft, complaining i'm white-knuckling sobriety before i even became a full addict, but god it sucks how badly i want to solve this problem with alcohol, knowing what it would imply if i did.

I've moved my bottles into a kitchen cabinet downstairs. Having them openly on display on the mantlepiece of my bedroom wasn't doing me any favours.

Throw the stuff out would be my suggestion. While I can keep it in the house...hiding it is tantamount to the "don't think about pink elephant....wtf I'm still thinking about pink elephant" thing

@Lisa the Goatgirl I agree with @Shinzon1 about binning it.

We're all here and supporting you.

Oh. I appreciate that this is all being said out of genuine concern for my wellbeing, but i'm wondering, are we really at that point already? That seems like such a permanent solution, when i was hoping i could ride this rough patch out, and go back to having the occasional drink or two like i used to. Throwing the bottles away entirely feels like admitting that it's basically impossible for me to have a healthy relationship with alcohol again. Not to mention it'd be literally pouring like £50 down the drain.

Like, i'm not trying to fight with you guys about this, i'm taking what you're saying as it's intended, and seriously considering it. I'm just trying to evaluate if we're really at that point yet that i have to go completely 100% sober in order to recover.

It feels like my options are either just sit in this awful feeling, or drink it away. I so want a whiskey right now, but i know that's dangerous.

i'm white-knuckling sobriety before i even became a full addict, but god it sucks how badly i want to solve this problem with alcohol

I'm just trying to evaluate if we're really at that point yet that i have to go completely 100% sober in order to recover.

Oh come on

I don't like to follow outside links, can you say what this is about?

It's understandable that this is stressful. It's also true stresses in one form or another are inevitable. I wonder if you could channel your stress into protest rather than needing alcohol to cope.

Ok, I understand. I'm just trying to think of some non-alcohol related way to deal with this specific stress, or stress in general.