Have you got a drink problem?

Alcohol causes all sorts of different problems to different people in different ways - There's no single entity as 'the drink problem', 'alcoholism' or 'an alcoholic'.

So we'll have to look at a wide range of things to get a good idea about where you fit in.

A good place to start is by asking yourself these questions about the effect of your drinking on the rest of your life:

Is your drinking causing you problems with:

  1. Your physical health? (this might be liver disease, or having accidents, or eating badly, or getting withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking)?
  2. Your mental health? (eg feeling depressed, anxious, bad-tempered)?
  3. Work? (getting in late, not doing your job properly, getting sacked, your business failing)
  4. Relationships? (with your partner, friends, family, colleagues)
  5. Money?
  6. The police?

Secondly, let's think about your actual drinking:

  1. Do you find yourself thinking about when you will next be able to have another drink?
  2. Is drinking more important than anything else you might do during the day?
  3. Do you feel your need for drink is too strong to control?
  4. Do you plan your days around getting hold of and drinking alcohol?
  5. Do you drink in a particular way in order to increase the effect it gives you?
  6. Do you drink morning, afternoon and evening?
  7. Do you feel you have to carry on drinking once you have started?
  8. Do you want to drink more when the effect starts to wear off?
  9. Do you find it difficult to cope with life without drink?

And thirdly, and very importantly:

  1. Can you control when you start drinking?
  2. Can you stop drinking once you've started?

I don't think you need me to interpret your answers. But please don't think that answering no to any of them means you haven't got a problem. Answering yes to any of these is cause for concern.

What most of us do when faced with problems that we've created is to minimise the significance of our role. Maybe blaming other factors or even other people. It's a psychological self-defence mechanism that drinkers in particular often use.

So it might be a good idea to ask someone who knows you well what they think your answers should be.

Remember: if you minimise your responsibility for drinking, you minimise your ability to take control and stop drinking.

Now you've answered those questions, and decided what you think, I'd like you to complete a couple of questionnaires.

These have been carefully designed and tested to come up with accurate results - as long as you answer honestly.

The first one is The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), which you can find here

It'll indicate if your drinking is:

  • HARMFUL
    you're drinking too much, but haven't run into problems yet
  • HAZARDOUS
    you're drinking too much, and it's already damaging you

    • or

  • DEPENDENT
    You're driven or compelled to drink and you're having trouble controlling it - despite the trouble it's causing you. Severely dependent drinkers may have physical withdrawals when they stop.

Alcohol Dependence

The nub of alcohol dependence is losing control of when you start drinking, and of stopping drinking once you've started. You can be a dependent drinker without drinking every day. We can think about two broad types of drinker here - the everyday drinker, and the binge drinker.

Daily drinkers will usually have a similar drinking pattern every day. Your tolerance to alcohol is raised - you may not even get drunk any more, but just need drink to feel normal.

You may experience withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking: most commonly shaking, sweating and retching. More about this 'physical dependence' later on.

A lot of dependent drinkers have been drinking all day, or most of the day, for years. Others can manage without a drink in the day but drink heavily from late afternoon or evening.

Other people may have days or weeks without a drink, but when they do drink it tends to be in 'binges'. They may well suffer days of awful withdrawal after each binge.

Let's use a second questionnaire to measure your alcohol dependence. It's called the SADQ (severity of alcohol dependence questionnaire), and you can find it here.

Scoring as moderately or severely dependent probably means you'd need a medicated alcohol detox to stop drinking.

You can find out more about alcohol problems and different sorts of treatment for alcohol dependence and 'alcoholism' in my free to download handbook - 'How To Stop Drinking Alcohol'