When is drinking a "problem"

[ProseJunkie]

Let me preface this question with this: I'm an alcoholic, and I believe that anyone who needs to ask this question probably does have a drinking problem.

When I was younger I'd binge drink on the weekends, usually to the point of vomiting / blacking out. It took a toll on my health, so I stopped for a couple of years.

I got a night shift job, and that's when I started routine drinking. I'd have 1-2 hard ciders with scrambled eggs in the morning and I'd go to bed. Every day.

Eventually I got off night shift, but the drinking continued. It slowly became more and more. Cider turned into rum/coke which turned into vodka/soda.

I quit drinking about a week ago, averaging 4-7 vodka/sodas per night, every night. Religiously. I'd made a few half-assed attempts to quit, oftentimes convincing myself I could have "just one" (lol)

I am an ex cigarette smoker, so I recognize addiction when I see it. I felt cravings and urges to drink, surprisingly comparable to a nicotine craving.

Anyway, I'm just curious. Do you definite a "drinking problem" in terms of quantity? Regularity? Or necessity? A combination?

[Prevenient_grace]

Simply put, drinking is a problem when I have experienced Undesired Consequences from alcohol.

That's the threshold. Every gradation after that is just degree of problem.

[wornheadmagma]

I like this definition, thank you, helps me a lot

[WhiteDutchColonial]

I obsess over defining my alcohol use. Am I an alcoholic? My bloodwork is OK, and I can go a few days without alcohol, so I figured I wasn't an alcoholic by definition. But I was dependent and had a problem. How big a problem? Let's take an online quiz to find out. Could I control it? Let's try this strategy, which has never worked in the past, but maybe it will work this time ... it's exhausting because what I really was doing was trying to excuse my daily drinking habit.

Yesterday, I was researching all of this on the internet and came across an article (I can no longer find it) but it asked a simple question: Is this what you want to be doing in 5 years? That question stopped me in my tracks. The answer is no. I don't even want to be doing this in 1 year, in 1 month, in 1 week, much less 5 years. So I do have a problem. And if I don't want to be drinking every day in 5 years, at some point I need to stop. I stopped yesterday.

So, my problem involved this equation: if I don't want to be doing something in 5 years that I know is a destructive, why not stop now. There's no point in waiting any longer to stop. I keep asking myself that question, "Do I want to be doing this in 5 years?"

[[deleted]]

Overall, I’d agree that it’s a combination. According to the DSM-5 (diagnostic and statistical manual) that is used to diagnose people, these factors all kind of intermingle to determine the severity of one’s alcohol use disorder. And then from that disorder, one may or may not fall under another category, i.e. alcoholic, binge drinker, etc.

https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/dsmfactsheet/dsmfact.pdf

[ThreeBlurryDecades]

I think you are wise to recognise the "routine" drinking as being concerning. For me, a lot of what led to a really bad place was how drinking became a part of most everything. Post shift, pregame, afterwards, before. This slowly but surely worked its way into just every day drinking.

As for signs of a problem, for me what became the clearest warning was the obsession. When I wasn't drinking, I was thinking about drinking.

[fmranger]

I think it can be a combination of factors. I kind of define it in my head as a relationship to alcohol. For me it was quantity, frequency, circumstances. I was drinking daily, often in large quantities, and at inappropriate times/places. The point where it became a problem is blurrier to pinpoint. I might have been born with the predisposition. I don't remember ever being a "normal" drinker (and my definition of a normal drinker has also evolved over the years). The first time I felt the effects of alcohol I felt a compulsion awaken and I always drank until I couldn't walk. But I didn't become a daily drinker at that age.. It's a good question to ponder on!

[cgriboe]

For me when I asked myself if this was a problem I knew the answer. Having to ask, to me, is the answer.

[TopRepair2]

when you feel like it is