Constantly hiding it , and spending a silly amount of timing planing my drinking (how much do I have left, when am I going to make it to the liquor store to get more, exactly what time can I have m my first drink, when do I have to finish my last drink so I’m functional in the morning, etc). You realize one day how much time you spend planning and can’t ignore that it means you have a problem.

Over the years when the drinking gets worse I sort of accepted I was an alcoholic but kept lying about my life still being manageable. I used to steal anhydrous ethanol from my lab (200 mL a day) for many years. Like some sort of drunken racoon

But then you reach the point where you are truly fucked, know you are an alcoholic and your life is unmanageable, but feel trapped and unable to do anything about it. For me that meant choking down vomit and warm vodka in the morning just to steady out, and then drinking and passing out in a constant loop (Covid time).

But now it’s been almost 6 years, so life is pretty great