Are You Convincing Yourself You're Not An Alcoholic?

Are You Alcoholic? 

When you want to make changes in your life it's easy to fall off track because that’s how we're wired.

Change is hard and changing habits is hard because we are hardwired to stay the same.

One of the things that makes it easier for me is when I have things laid out, super simple, to keep me on track. 

That’s why I make you all of these worksheets and cheat sheets- the road to success is keeping things very simple, and getting consistent. When you can master consistency, that’s when your true power kicks in and you can accomplish anything!

This conversation actually leads me perfectly into today’s topic- there is a saying that floats around all over the internet, and it is powerful:   

I have no idea who said it or where it comes from- I’ve seen it hundreds of times over the years and it strikes such a deep chord with me. 

I was never a person in denial. I never tried to convince myself I wasn’t an alcoholic because I don’t really care about the word or the label.

I just knew I didn’t drink like other people. 

When I say other people, I don’t mean my friends. Because all of my friends were drunks like me and I knew they didn’t drink like other people either. 

I knew that alcohol was more important to me than it was to other people. I knew I did it too much. I knew I didn’t like myself because I was doing it too much, and I knew I would be better off if I stopped. 

So, take out the word alcoholic- I don’t care about the word. I was clear that I didn’t do it well. 

The absolute worst part of my whole drinking life was when I knew I needed to stop 100%, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. 

You know what I’m talking about.

All the different ways you try to control your drinking to convince yourself that you have some control- all the rules you put on your drinking to prove to yourself that you can handle it, all the promises you make to your self and your family that this time is going to be different and you VOW to yourself that you are going to try harder than you’ve ever tried before and this time it’s going to work- you are going to drink in moderation. 

What makes me the most sad, for you and for myself- is how much time I wasted trying to figure out how to drink a little bit, because I was so scared to not drink at all. 

There are a couple of things I want to talk about here. One is, when you are trying to control something it’s because you’ve already lost control. 

And two is- just the fact that you expend so much energy and time trying to control your drinking is a great indicator you are an alcoholic.

Because non-alcoholic people don’t drink enough to have to control it and they don’t THINK about alcohol EVER!

Non-alcoholic people don’t have this distorted and obsessive relationship with alcohol where they spend their time worried about how much they are going to drink or wondering what everyone else will think if they don’t have a  drink and making all the plans to drink and buying the glasses and creating excuses to drink and worrying they’re going to run out and yada yada yada- 

Non-alcoholic people do not have that relationship with alcohol!

They never have to make rules for their drinking and they never have to plan ahead about how they’re going to control their drinking because they don’t care about alcohol!

Alcoholics care about alcohol. No one else does. 

In another episode I talked about how I use a non-alcoholic person as my gauge for how screwed up my thinking is- do you remember this? I always think about my mom because she has zero issues with alcohol, she never cared about booze or drinking, it just didn’t interest her.

So, when I catch myself in some weird thought process, I ask myself: would my mom be thinking about it like this? 

When I would be at parties and hiding beers in the bushes because I was afraid to run out or sneaking booze in somewhere that didn’t serve alcohol - in those moments I would think: would my mom be doing this right now? 

And that’s when you realize how crazy you really are, lol.

Our way of thinking becomes so normal to us that we are desensitized to how messed up it really is. But when I have a totally non-alcoholic person to compare to, it becomes very clear how broken my thinking was. 

Same thing when I had some fears about being sober. The one thing I really remember is I was afraid I wouldn’t be funny anymore- like I was only funny because I was drunk. And I thought- does my mom worry she won’t be funny if she doesn’t have a drink? Absolutely not! Because she doesn’t depend on alcohol to create her whole life!

Is my mom sitting around wondering if she will never have fun without drinking? Heck no! Because she doesn’t rely on alcohol to create fun for her! She’s a normal functioning human being who has a whole life that doesn’t revolve around alcohol!

My mom doesn’t know the best liquor stores to go to for the best price on certain booze, she doesn’t know which liquor stores carry certain wines, she doesn’t know how much a bottle of wine costs or what is expensive or not expensive, she doesn’t know who sells alcohol on Sunday and who doesn’t or what the liquor store hours are or the names of the people who work at the liquor stores. 

Because those things aren't a normal relationship with alcohol!

And you know I don’t like using the word normal, but I need you to understand my point here- none of these things indicate a NORMAL relationship with alcohol. 

I want you to recognize how much time you are spending trying to convince yourself you don’t have a problem with alcohol. 

How many times have you put rules around your drinking-

• you’ll only drink on the weekends
• you’ll never drink more than 4 drinks in a night
• you’ll only drink after 5 pm
• you’ll just have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner
• you’ll only drink after the kids are asleep
• you’ll drink a glass of water between every drink
• you’ll only drink wine or beer, but no liquor
• you’ll only drink one drink an hour
• you’ll only drink a couple of times a year, on special occasions or on vacation 

Does any of this sound familiar?

Do you think my mom has any of these rules in place around her drinking?!? 

No! And if she did, I would be taking her to rehab right now!

And the most sad part of all of this is how much time is wasted playing these games with ourselves.

Wanting so badly to convince yourself that you don’t have a ‘problem’ that you are willing to waste another 6 months or another year of your life trying to prove it. 

In the meantime, in those 6 months or years that you are investing trying to convince yourself you don’t have a problem- you continue to suffer.

Your family suffers, your kids suffer, your job suffers- you feel like crap, you get more and more angry with yourself after every failed attempt, you continue to create chaos and drama in your life- and for what?

Because you think you can’t live without alcohol? 

Well, here’s a truth bomb for you- it’s not doing you any favors! So what are you really committed to? Hurting yourself? Hating yourself? 

Are you so concerned with what other people will think of you if you aren’t drinking? How will people act? How will they treat you? What will they say? Will they be supportive?

All of this is ego- worried about how you will look to other people or what they will think about you. 

Worry about what YOU think of you.

Make decisions in your life that YOU are proud of.

We all want our friends and family to support us in our sobriety- but it’s not their job. 

You are perfectly allowed to make changes in your life to better yourself.

If your doctor told you today that you are diabetic you would have to make some huge changes to your diet.

And that would probably be different from all the yummy foods and sweet desserts that your family eats. But are you going to sit around and  wonder what they are going to think about you because you can’t eat the cake anymore? 

Are you going to continue eating the cake just to make them comfortable? I sure the heck hope not. And the cake is just as socially acceptable as alcohol.

You see how twisted our thinking gets about alcohol? 

When you put it in perspective, it sounds crazy. 

Do you really want to continue on this path of feeling bad, trying to convince yourself you can get control of something you have no control over? While you suffer mentally and emotionally and physically? 

I mean, that’s a big sacrifice to make for booze. 

This is another thing to think about here-  your level of commitment to continue drinking.

Look at how much time and energy you put into trying to control it. How many months and years you stay on the roller coaster trying so hard to convince yourself that you’ll figure it out. 

The definition of insanity- doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

You are willing to try, over and over, and over, to control your drinking. 

I promise you, my sobriety has never felt as bad as the self-loathing and dread I felt every day when I was a drunk. Never. 

Let's read that quote one more time: 

"I would rather go through life sober, believing I am an alcoholic, than go through life drunk, trying to convince myself that I am not."

You have to be honest about what your situation is if you want to start to change it. 

There is a major relief that comes with letting go of all the BS  and drama and nonsense. When you stop trying to fight a battle you’ve already lost 100 times over- you start moving in a positive direction and feeling better. 

Now, I get to live my life with total freedom. I don’t have anything to hide from, I don’t have any chaos and drama left to clean up, I don’t create any new chaos and drama, I am not a prisoner to my drinking habits and all of the energy that went into it, I don’t wake up hungover, I get to function at full capacity every day, I treat myself better, I treat other people better, I get to live well because I love me. 

I learned all of that because I’m an alcoholic. And I would definitely rather go through my life KNOWING I am an alcoholic, and get to live sober and happy than continue on the dead-end of trying to convince myself, and everyone else, that I’m a ‘normal’ drinker.