Anyone remember the band, Kansas? Dust in the Wind?
This is an excerpt from How To Help an Alcoholic, a site I found while I was looking for an easier, softer way... Remember, drinking is merely a symptom of the disease...
QUOTE
Am I An Alcoholic?
When someone asks the inevitable question, Have these questions ready to be answered by them as honestly as possible..
YES or NO 1. Do you lose time from work due to drinking? 2. Is drinking making your home life unhappy? 3. Do you drink because you are shy with other people? 4. Is drinking affecting your reputation? 5. Have you ever felt remorse after drinking? 6. Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of drinking? 7. Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when drinking? 8. Does your drinking make you careless of your family's welfare? 9. Has your ambition decreased since drinking? 10. Do you crave a drink at a definite time of day? 11. Do you want a drink the next morning? 12. Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping? 13. Has your efficiency decreased since drinking? 14. Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business? 15. Do you drink to escape from worries or trouble? 16. Do you drink alone? 17. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of drinking? 18. Has your physician ever treated you for drinking? 19. Do you drink to build up your self-confidence? 20. Have you ever been to a hospital or institution on account of drinking?
If you have answered YES to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be an alcoholic
.If you have answered YES to any two, the chances are that you are an alcoholic
.If you have answered YES to three or more, you are definitely an alcoholic
(These questions were provided by Dr. Robert V. Seliger for use at John Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore, MD, in deciding whether a patient is alcoholic.)
Zac! ~ROTFLMAO!!~ Never thought about it like that, but yes! A perfect score! BRAVO!! I was worried there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with me--come to find out I was just an alcoholic! LOL
Thanks Skq, that's a really useful list for the site. Might be worth re-posting it under a heading about "Are you an alcoholic" or something so that newcomers see it right away.
The rest of this post isn't directed at you any more than anyone else, it's just that your heading for this topic triggered something in me about my experience of AA and how it seems to me to differ from some others' here, and how I feel about that. I want to follow Valarie's example and put it out in the open.
My own experience is that AA does precisely what your heading says....people don't tell you what to do...oh, except those who get to know you REALLY well and who KNOW you and who KNOW that their relationship with you is such that a more direct approach from THEM on THIS topic at THIS moment is not going to shove you away or alienate you from AA or give you an excuse to drink....my experience is that no-one TELLS you to do anything other than in those very rare, special circumstances.....and indeed that's what AA says about itself on the website:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 - Do you wish people would mind their own business about your drinking-- stop telling you what to do?
In A.A. we do not tell anyone to do anything. We just talk about our own drinking, the trouble we got into, and how we stopped. We will be glad to help you, if you want us to.
I just want to say in this thread and under your heading that I'm someone who has a stubborn Will and strong ego and who can Reason his way out of anything. It's taken living with someone I think is alcoholic for nine years, losing my partner, almost losing my kids, losing the family home, almost losing my mind and almost committing suicide, plus sitting in AA for a year and hearing alcoholic after alcoholic describe MY emotions and MY drinking and ONLY going there AT ALL because I wanted to understand my ex - NOT because I thought I had a problem even though I've done stuff that many alcoholics haven't done "yet"......to even get me to even BEGIN to contemplate the possibility that I might have a problem or a potential problem with alcohol.
It seems to me that my HP's been working pretty hard on my behalf to get me to this board....maybe before I end up sleeping under a bridge or dead, who knows.....?
....and yet I don't feel welcome on this board, or believed, or wanted, or accepted.....
.....which probably isn't what the people on this board would want....is it?
I recognise that something in my own approach might be at least part of what I feel...and my feelings are mine....no-one can MAKE me feel anything....I just want to say what's going on for me right here, right now, in this room.....Thanks.
I to received 20/20. I could add to the list to. Wish my vision was still 20/20. But, I'm thankful for my glasses.
Martin,
I for one value your posts and want you here. You offer a different and honest opinion about many topics. You are supportive, loving, intellligent, fair, sensitive, yet a strong person. You do not see everything in black and white. Life has many variables. You point these out to the reader.
Have you noticed you attract many views when you post? You share your ESH like everybody else here, it is your right. Many of our stories are different. Some are similiar. The thing that bonds us is the alcoholism and drug addiction. The struggles the pain and how were changing that, or have changed that.
Perhaps this is why you are feeling like you aren't welcome. I don't remember reading anybody writing anything to the affect that you are not wanted on this board. I think you are struggling and tryng to come to terms about whether , or not you are an alcoholic like your ex, like us who know we are.
I see the signs in you that you are. Something very bad happened that has made you stop drinking. If your not sure try some more research. Ultimately no one can decide this but you.
Please know that you help me more then you know. Much more then some others on this board. I hope and pray you will keep posting on this board. If not, know I respect you and your decision. I will continue to read your writings on the other boards. I don't always agree with everything you say and there are parts I find a bit confusing. In fact there was one post I found quite offensive, it doesn't matter. I overlook them and look for the best parts. Just as I do with others.
What sets you a part from some people, not all. Is I can tell when someone is in need. When someone is in pain. You Martin reach out to them and do your best to help them. Not always sugar coating them either. Yet you are very compassionate. I believe Martin that God's spirit is close to you. You are gift!
Is there something I can help you with Martin? I sense something is bothering you. I'm sorry if I'm wrong. Wishing you a good day.
It's funny, isn't it.....I just posted to Valarie in another thread that I don't seek adulation and then I read your post and am so grateful for a loving response....fancy that, seeking affimation and support on a recovery board...do you think there might be something wrong with me? lol...
My guess is that I find it easier to accept being soothed and stroked (thank you!) when I feel I've done something "good" for someone else than I would if I came here and howled about my own pain....which I have certainly done these past months and over on the families board....I guess my own pain I've always swallowed.....still, it's not much pain, so I can eat it.....it doesn't touch the sides, look how strong I am....strong enough to kill in revenge for it, I suspect, if the wrong person at the wrong time did the wrong thing and unlocked it all at once......not a good thing to drink on really......and I was learning to drink. I was an amatuer compared to my ex and many of my friends at AA, but I've enough of a problem to jump the hurdles set by any of the tests on the web, like the one skq so kindly posted.....and I was getting better at it too.....funny isn't it, I never even knew blackouts were an issue until I heard recovering alcoholics mention them as if they were markers for the disease.....it happened to me when I started drinking and so I just thought that's what always happened when you were free to drink....you drank and drank and woke up the next morning wondering how you got home....I was always (until recently) a very happy drunk....so it was never a problem.....until recently.....no-one died...by the grace of God.
I don't know, maybe I'm becoming paranoid. All I know is I felt so welcome at AA, so inspired by such good people, accepted, not judged, cared about....I felt the same on the families board and I feel things have been different here. I felt as if I wasn't accepted for who I am - WHOEVER THAT IS - I felt I had to fit someone else's idea of what an alcoholic might look like, sound like, think like, behave like, have done, want to do...and maybe that's all just me. If it is, I just have to wonder why I only felt it here, that's all.
By the way, I'm very sorry one of my posts offended you. It's entirely possible I go around doing it all the time without knowing it so please tell me what it was. I'm very sorry.
I really, really appreciate your very supportive words and all I can say is I'm trying to give a little back of what this wonderful life has given me out of gratitude and love and before I die. If anyone has a negative response to that statement all I can say is unless you've lived in my skin for a bit and know differently, why on Earth would you doubt it?
