To answer this question ask yourself the following questions and answer them as honesty as you can.
Is drinking making your home life unhappy?
Does your drinking make you careless of your familys welfare?
Do you drink because you are shy with other people?
Is drinking affecting your reputation?
Do you drink to escape from worries or trouble?
Do you drink alone?
Have you lost time from work due to drinking?
Has your ambition decreased since drinking?
Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?
Is drinking jeopardising your job or business?
Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?
Are you in financial difficulties as a result of drinking?
Do you turn to or seek an inferior environment when drinking?
Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?
Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
Do you want a drink the next morning?
Do you drink to build up your self-confidence?
Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of drinking?
Has your doctor ever treated you for drinking?
Have you ever been in hospital or prison because of drinking?
What's your Score?
If you have answered YES to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be 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.
Why do we say this? Only because the experience of hundreds of thousands of recovering alcoholics has taught us some basic truths about our symptoms and about ourselves.
If you admit you are an alcoholic theres hope for you.
Admitting you are an alcoholic may seem today like the end of the line to you, but there are thousands of people in AA who can testify that acceptance of their powerlessness over alcohol was not an end, but a beginning: the beginning of their recovery and a new, useful and rewarding life.
AA have a simple, workable programme. It is a down-to-earth programme designed BY and FOR alcoholics. If you honestly want sobriety above all else and are fully willing to follow this programme without qualification, you have written your own guarantee for sobriety.
THE ONLY REQUIREMENT FOR AA MEMBERSHIP IS A DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING.
This does not mean signing up, or paying a subscription fee. You simply come along to an AA meeting, where you will find people who have been through exactly the same sort of things as you. Get to lots of AA meetings. That way you will hear different AAs telling their experience. Among them you will find people with whom you can identify closely people you feel understand YOU.
MAYBE YOU ARE STILL NOT CONVINCED YOU ARE AN ALCOHOLIC.
In which case, a few meetings may help you to decide. All we ask is that you bring with you an open mind.
WHY NOT GIVE THE AA PROGRAMME A TRY? We did, and it works
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
I dont know if we should be putting alcoholism in a 1,2,3 box like this. True these are all warning signs but some maybe just be alcohol abuse rather than powerlessness. Take for instance drinking to escape worry or drinking alone or drinking because you're shy. The real test is the physical craving making it extremely difficult to control the amount you drink once you start and/or the mental obsession which causes you to not be able to quit (assuming you really want to) for any real length of time. And even when these are true the AA program (Big Book) will even then only say you are probably an alcoholic. I just hate the word definitely in this post. JMHO
Im so glad you are here to tell us what is what. Im also glad Bill and Bob and AA world Service think this "PC" stuff is important. Here is an AA published questionare http://www.aa.org/en_is_aa_for_you.cfm?PageID=71 . Notice how they say that when they answered 4 or more yes they thought they were "in deep trouble" (PC for "we" were alcoholic). Another important difference is they say "we" rather than "you".
I doubt if South Yorkshire got this literature approved by the GSB. Why not just use the "is AA for You" questionare?
OK I think I see where this comes from. I searched the family welfare line and only got it at south yorkshires page but when you take the s off family you get more. Apparently this is a questionare from the medical community (Johns Hopkins maybe).
I love all this unbridled enthusiasm to get the message out. A wonderful exhibition of how sincerely grateful we all are and the passion, the beautiful passion we have to share it.
This love and respect for what we all have so freely been given, must never, ever lose this level of intensity and drive.
Thanks for sharing Doll: I especially like the part about it being a beginning rather than an end! Cooncat, thats funny, only 14/20! I'll have to recheck how many I fit in under!
As far as BR's reply. If I looked at things your way I def would not be in this program as I could label myself as a problem drinker......hmmmm......I drink, no problem.... lani
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"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. "
BR wrote: ". True these are all warning signs but some maybe just be alcohol abuse rather than powerlessness. Take for instance drinking to escape worry or drinking alone or drinking because you're shy. The real test is the physical craving making it extremely difficult to control the amount you drink once you start and/or the mental obsession which causes you to not be able to quit (assuming you really want to) for any real length of time"
Who among us quit when we saw the warning flashing in HUGE RED lights! If that abuse continues it's highly likely you will become an alcoholic! If you have to CONTROL anything, then it's out of control! You just defined alcoholism.
But you are right about one thing, only YOU can decide.
Bottom line -. . If drinking causes consequences, then it's alcoholic drinking! And you just defined an alcoholic.
Hey Bob, that's the ONLY test I EVER pass (or fail) EVERY TIME
-- Edited by Doll at 17:04, 2008-04-04
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
If drinking causes consequences it is alcoholic drinking?? I'm sorry I have to side with BR here. Craving and compulsion, not consequences. Not everybody that drinks is an alcoholic and not everybody that loosens up with a drink or two at a social occasion is alcoholic .
What about the person that has three drinks at a wedding and gets nailed for a dui. What if they only drink every few years at occasions like this?
Now that drink had consequences. Certainly you wouldn't label someone as alcoholic because they had to pay fines lawyers, threatened job loss, family strife and court induced poverty., certainly these are all consequences.
Now you say because they suffered consequences, they are alcoholic?
You leave no room for the classes of alcohol use in the Big Book. They clearly differentiate between types of drinkers in two diffeent places and do it very clearly.
This looks more like a test a wife would answer about her husbands drinking instead of a test for an alcoholic to take himself.
These are some good consequences though. I would say they could be made to show the unamnageability of our lives. First you'd have to convince me I care about any of these things because my first answers would be stuff like I like my family unhappy down to Hospitals? no big deal.
I remember profusely hemoraging and it stopped when I stopped drinking and then it started when I started.
AND IT WAS A_OK. My conclusion as I curled around the toilet seeking some cool porcelain for my belly.
Well. At least I know its not cancer....
so everything is ok.
The idea that I was alcoholic or addicted or dying from alcohol mattered not for one bit because I THOUGHT i was doing it because I wanted to. Only after I tried to stop and found I could not did the fear that I might be without the power I thought even concern me.
I remember going over this list shortly before I came to AA. I scored a definite yes on #5, 6, 8, 11, and 17. Less so on the others. I remembered thinking hey, only 5 out of 20... not bad. Then I read this part:
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If you have answered YES to three or more, you are definitely an alcoholic.
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Ya know, I really don't care if I fit the true definition of an alcoholic or not. I'm the son of a man who drank himself to death at the age of 57. That's not my opinion, that's the coroner's: "ruptured esophagus and accute cirhossis of the liver due to chronic alcoholism". That's running in my blood. I didn't lose my job [yet] due to drinking, I didn't get divorced on account of drinking [that happened after I was sober], I never went to prison [yet] or got a DUI [yet].
"Yet"... this treatment for alcoholism works well for me. My life has gotten nothing but better as long as I have been imperfectly trying to work the steps and practice the principles, and I haven't had to take a drink no matter what happened. Maybe to some hard core folks, I'm not alcoholic enough. But thankfully you guys let me in the doors of AA anyway. I'm glad I didn't have to die to qualify.
I really dig this type of 'discussion' - goes back to proving what works for one doesn't work for all. That we each really are individuals and we must find what works for us as such!
After reading all of the above, I still come to the same conclusion, that apples are being compared to apples :)
Awesome thread!
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain.
Lani - The requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. Why would thinking you have discovered a labeling loophole matter? It reminds me of the question of heaven or hell. If you knew there was no hell would you start drinking? For me the answer is no. I joined AA because I couldnt stand my drinking life and had a desire to stop, not because I knew it was wrong.
Doll - Yes "control" does better define alcoholism from AA's point of view. I say AA's point of view because I would never argue with a doctor about what he thinks is alcoholism or why he thinks his patient is alcoholic. Since this forum claims to be affiliated with AA then I do feel like I have the right to point to my opinion on the matter and sight the AA book for back up. I dont however think telling people to get over their bullshit when they do offer a concern or opinion is very much in the spirit of our fellowship.
If you guys would just read the big book with this subject in mind you would understand that I am correctly stating AA's position on this matter and I have gotten more than just "one thing right". I'd also consider the last page of Working with Others also because I think such black and white language as "you are definitely an alcoholic" if you do this or that possibly shows some intolerance for drinking.
Oh man, I totally skipped this thread, because I have no doubts about my alcoholism, and haven't since age 15. For me it wasn't if I needed to quit, it was when I was going to quit, as my mother had been in AA since I was 14 and leaving pamphlets in my sock drawer from just about day 1. I knew that I was headed for this wonderful place, I was just going to give it one hell of a run, which I did.
As far as the OP test is concerned, it doesn't bother me. Erring to the side of alcoholism vs. problem drinking wouldn't hurt anyone. After all there is no good reason to drink, ouside of this red wine is good for your heart bs.
I do like John Bradshaw's definition of addiction though- "A pathological relationship (love to/have to) to a mood altering substance or event, that has life damaging consequences". What does that have to do with drinking? you might ask. Well it might have something to do with Not drinking and switching addictions.
