5 Signs Someone Has A Drinking PROBLEM

In this video, we're going to cover the five major signs that your drinking is a problem. Even if you're not drinking every day, and even if your drinking isn't a problem every single time, these really are major warning signs of an alcohol problem that you definitely shouldn't ignore. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. I am a master addiction counselor. I've been helping people and families overcome addiction for more than 20 years now. And. And one of my big missions for this YouTube channel is helping people to recognize the problem way earlier in the cycle when they can still do something about it. So let's take a look at what these five signs are that you need to keep your eye on. Do you often find that you over drink, that you either drink more than you intended, that you drink longer than you intended? Maybe you promise yourself you're only going to drink a little bit, and you regularly go over your own limits and lines with that. If that's happening to you, the reason that's happening is because alcohol turns off our off button. Yes, Our off button lives in the front part of our brain called our frontal cortex. And when we drink, alcohol pretty much takes that part of our brain and turns it not all the way off, but way down to a crawl. And that limits our ability to keep the lid on it and stick to our promises. Do you find that maybe not every time, but a lot of times bad things happen when you drink, meaning you do something you regret, you embarrass yourself, you make terrible life decisions. Maybe you get in fights, maybe you call. Call your ex, maybe you say all these bad things that you've been holding inside for so long against a family member or a friend. If you find that you frequently do things that you regret, that you wish you hadn't done, that you're ashamed of and embarrassed about, this is a sign that you definitely shouldn't ignore. Now, I know that you promise yourself you're not going to let that happen again, and you're going to control that by limiting your drinking. Do people around you worry about how much you're going to drink? Like, for example, do you have friends or family members or a partner who maybe mentions to you before you go out for evening a drinking hay, let's not make it a big drinking night. Let's only drink this amount or that amount, and you can tell that they have some anxiety about what's going to happen. This is another sign that you should definitely pay attention to. These are the people closest to you. And if they're worried about it, it means that you've over drank enough times that they're concerned about what's going to happen. And trust me, it's a really awkward conversation to have with you. So if they're having it or even hinting at it, it's a problem. And this next one kind of goes along with that one. Do you find that your drinking harms your closest relationships? Are people around you getting upset with you about your drinking? Are they starting to avoid you when you're drinking? Do they feel like they can't trust you? These are all signs that despite your best intentions, alcohol is interfering in your life in a major way. Now, it's very, very easy when this happens to just build a resentment back against those people or blame those people, or minimize the problem. But I want you to take a serious look at this. And one more little secret I'll tell you is usually it's the person closest to you that sees the problem first. So, like for example, your boyfriend or girlfriend or your parent, whoever's the closest person in your life. And sometimes it's only that person who's on your case about it. And everyone else thinks you're fine. And when that happens, it feels like, oh, they're just overreacting, they're just being all uptight. They're always like that. Or maybe you tell yourself, oh, they always think that because their brother was an alcoholic and they're just oversensitive. You may find that you're minimizing their concerns, finding a way to push the issue away, maybe even making it their fault. But even if all your other relationships tell you, nah, man, you're cool, you don't even drink as much as I do, or you don't have a drinking problem, it's easy to go to those relationships and maybe even search for that validation when we have this one other person over here is on our case. But usually that one other person is the one that knows us the best and unfortunately is oftentimes the one that takes the brunt of the problem and maybe even experiences a lot more of the negative parts of your drinking. So don't allow your drinking buddies to, to influence you by telling you, oh, dude, you're cool, you don't have a problem, you don't need to listen to her, she's all uptight. You definitely need to listen to those people closest to you. And sign number five that you really need to pay super close attention to is do you harm yourself or the people around you with Your drinking meaning, are you hurting your self esteem, your self confidence, your job, your grades, your relationships we talked about? Are you hurting yourself? Are you making bad decisions? Are you causing yourself a lot of financial distress or building up maybe tickets or DUIs or fighting in bars, legal problems? All of those are things I would consider hurting yourself. Are you holding yourself back in your career or with your dreams because of your drinking? Please do not ignore that. And the same thing goes for are you hurting other people in your life? Now, I know we've talked in a couple of these other examples about the relational aspect, but to really hit this point home, I want you to ask yourself, what do you see as your role in regards to your closest family and friends? Do you feel like it's your obligation to look out for them, to be there for them, to protect them? If so, does your drinking interfere with your ability to consistently do that? Maybe your drinking even causes you to be the harmful person in your loved one's life. Ask yourself this. If someone else treated my loved one the way that I treat them when I drink, how would I feel about it? Would I be mad? Would I be protective? Would I tell my loved one to stop going around that person? It's way too easy to take any one incident or bad thing that happens to us. Those bad decisions, those relationships were hurting. We can make an excuse in our own minds and make it why that's okay. And that happens to everyone, and everyone over drinks too much. But if you're seeing these problems on a regular basis, I'm not saying it happens every time, but I'm saying it happens, you know, like regularly. Please do not ignore these signs. These are actually signs of alcohol use disorder, which is basically the fancy way of saying alcoholism. And unfortunately, most people don't recognize alcohol until they're drinking every day, until they're drinking in the morning, until they're like lost everything in their life or they wake up with the shakes. But the truth of it is, people have alcohol use disorder or alcoholism for many, many years before you get to that point. And it's in these earlier stages that it's a whole lot easier to acknowledge and address. If you're relating to this, then I want you to watch these videos next because they're going to go more into detail about what to do about this problem.