Signs of Alcohol Addiction (Are you an alcoholic?)

If you've been seeing the signs of alcohol addiction, but you're not really sure, are you dealing with full blown alcoholism? This video is going to be the answer to that question. By the end, you're going to know for certain whether or not you're dealing with alcoholism. And not only that, but you're going to know exactly how severe that alcohol problem is. If this is your first time to the channel, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, master addiction counselor, and this channel is all about keeping you five steps ahead of addiction. So if that's something that you need to do, make sure you subscribe. Now, I'm going to do this for you exactly the way that I would do it with my clients in my office. When a client comes in and they say something like, do you think I'm an alcoholic? Guess what? That's a trick question. Because if I say yes, then they're going to say, oh, you don't know me, or that's what they're going to think. They. They might say it, they might not, but they're definitely going to think it. So this is how I handle that problem. I say, I don't know. Let me get out the official book and we'll diagnose it together. So I get out the DSM 5, which is the book that all clinicians use to actually diagnose mental health and substance abuse problems. And I open it up to the page and I'll say, there are 11 criteria in here. I'm going to read you all 11, and you count along with me and you tell me how many you have. Well, I guess if we're going to be official about it, let's start with what the book calls it. The book calls it Alcohol Use Disorder. So as I go through each of these criteria, you keep a count on your fingers or on a piece of paper if you want to. And then in the end, I'm going to tell you exactly how to score it. Okay, criteria number one. You ready? Get your fingers ready. Start counting. Alcohol is taken in larger amounts or over a longer period of time than was intended. Basically, what this means is you used more than you told yourself you were going to use. So if you're going to social events or on weekends and you think, oh, I'm just going to have a few, or I'm just going to drink tonight, but I'm not going to drink tomorrow night. And those drinking episodes tend to expand and expand and get way out of the bounds of what you originally intended. You can go ahead and count that One, that's number one. Number two, there's a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut back, control or stop alcohol use. You know, a lot of times people start thinking, I don't know, maybe I'm drinking too much, maybe I've got a problem, I'm gonna cut it back. So they make promises to themselves, maybe to their spouse or someone else, that they're only gonna drink X amount. Like maybe they're only gonna drink on the weekends and not during the week, or only on special occasions, or only this much. Like maybe only a couple of beers or a couple of glasses of wine. And sometimes people even decide that they're going to stop for periods of time. Okay, moving on to criteria number three. A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain, use and recover from alcohol or the effects of alcohol. So basically, it's taking up a whole lot of time in your life. Let me give you some examples of some things I've heard, and maybe some of this will connect with you. A lot of people that I know that are struggling with alcohol addiction will be a little bit embarrassed about buying alcohol. So they'll have different places, they buy it at different times during the week because they don't want the same cashier to see them constantly buying alcohol. Another example might be if you live in a dry county and you are driving miles and miles and miles and miles and miles just to have alcohol on a Sunday or on a day when you can't get it, that's spending a lot of time. Or if you tend to miss work or spends a lot of time getting over the effects of alcohol, or maybe you go to work but you feel really crappy and you barely function. You know, one of my clients told me the other day that in his active drinking days, Sundays were his recovery days. And so nothing could be planned on Sundays because the whole day he was going to spend in the bed feeling terrible, trying to get it together enough to go to work on Monday. That definitely is an example of something that meets criteria number three. Okay, now let's take a look at criteria number four, which is craving or strong desire to use alcohol. If you normally drink a certain time of day and it starts to get near that time, you may really start to feel a craving coming on. Or when you're driving home from work in the afternoon, you may have a hard time not stopping to buy some alcohol. You know, craving is a little bit of a hard one to explain because people experience it differently. But I don't mean like you're Laying in the bed, shaking. I mean, like you're thinking about it a lot. Like you're obsessed about it and you really want it. Craving. Okay, number five is a really important one. Number five says continued alcohol use resulting in the failure to fulfill major life role obligations. Like, if alcohol is interfering with your ability to be a parent, to be a student, to be a good worker, to own your own business. Number six says continued alcohol use despite the fact that it's either causing or exacerbating social or interpersonal problems for you. That's a bunch of fancy pants words, but basically what it's saying is it is interfering in your relationships. Like, maybe your spouse is really frustrated with you, or your parents are frustrated with you, or your best friend is upset with you. If you're having relationship problems because of your alcohol, go ahead and count. Number six. Number seven. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of alcohol use. Basically, if it's not mandatory and it doesn't involve alcohol, you don't really want to do it. And number eight says recurrent alcohol use in situations where it is physically hazardous. So that could mean driving a car while intoxicated, or if you work with some kind of heavy machinery, working while intoxicated. Basically drinking alcohol in a situation where you really shouldn't because it could be dangerous. And number nine says continued alcohol use despite the knowledge that it is causing or exacerbating the recurrent physical or psychological problems. Anxiety, difficulty sleeping, restlessness. Those physical symptoms could be high blood pressure, liver problems, or it could mean something as simple as you often drink and fall down and hurt yourself. Number 10 is pretty simple. It's tolerance. Most of you probably know what tolerance is, but just in case you don't, it means you have to drink more or longer to get the same effect. Have you ever heard that saying, like, oh, I can drink you under the table? You know, people say that with a lot of pride, but actually that's one of the symptoms of having an alcohol use disorder or alcohol addiction. So if you're that guy who can out drink anybody, go ahead and count criteria number 10. And lastly, we move on to criteria number 11, which is essentially withdrawal. And so that basically means when you're not drinking, you have withdrawal symptoms. And those withdrawal symptoms can range anywhere from mild anxiety, restlessness, difficulty sleeping, to extreme, which could be shaking, blood pressure problems. You can even have hallucinations when you're coming off alcohol. Alcohol withdrawal can be pretty dangerous. So be careful with this one. Okay, now that we went over all 11 criteria. Let me tell you how to score that. You need to count how many of those 11 symptoms that I've named have happened to you within the past 12 month period. So this, this all has to have happened within the past year. Now, your problem could have been going on for a long time, but the symptoms that we're going to count are only the ones in the past 12 months. Okay, ready? If you have two to three of these symptoms, you have a mild alcohol use disorder. If you have between four and five of these symptoms, you have a moderate alcohol use disorder. And if you have six or more of these symptoms, you have a severe disease alcohol use disorder. And in case you had a hard time keeping up with all that, I went ahead and typed it up for you in a quick checklist fashion. If you'd like to take a look at that, just click the link in the description below and you can download that for free. And now that I've told you the official criteria for alcohol use disorder, watch this video next and I'm going to tell you the secret unofficial criteria. I'll put it right up here. All you have to do is click it.