Signs that You May be an Alcoholic

Alcoholism is usually a long, slow process and generally catches you unawares. What starts as having a drink or two with friends on the weekends, ends up with you carrying around a hip flask, and taking a shot of cheap whiskey before, during, and after work. Alcoholism is a cruel beast, because often when you’re an alcoholic you don’t even realize you’re doing it. Alcoholism can make it difficult for your friends or family to be around you because alcohol can make someone very boisterous and loud.

If either you or one of your friends are suffering from a long standing alcohol problem you might want to check out, alcohol rehab Brisbane. The facilities and the staff that they have over there are top notch and will no doubt help you on your journey to sobriety.

So, what are some of the signs that you’re an alcoholic? Drinking alone and in secret is a big one. You generally know that your family and friends don’t approve of your alcohol habit, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them right? So, you make it a point to sneak off into the garage late at night with a bottle of gin, or you make it a point to go out to drink, but you lie to your family, or you get really creative with it and mix it with some coke which you drink while on the move. Basically, you’re hiding it from everyone because you know they disapprove.

You will also lose interest in other activities. Alcohol works by stimulating the pleasure chemical in the brain. By pickling your brain in alcohol, you tend to forget that there are other fun activities out in the world, or you just don’t care because they are nowhere near as fun as having that third, fourth, or fifth drink. This is a crying shame because the alcoholic will lose interest in their hobbies, and their world will begin to become narrower and narrower until they are no more than just an alcoholic.

Alcohol also takes priority over responsibilities. For example, when people go out into society, they have an obligation to be presentable and make everyone’s night better. The alcoholic feels no such obligation, they think that being drunk is totally normal and they don’t really care if they embarrass themselves trying to prove it.

Most alcoholics usually have a drink in the morning, to really kick off the day. This is the sad reality that most alcoholics contend with. Food doesn’t taste good, and pleasure doesn’t satisfy if they don’t have something to drink first. So, they drink, as a result of unresolved traumas, as a way of trying to cope with the world, as a way of evading responsibilities.

And one of the key signs of alcoholism is when they don’t stop even in the face of financial stress, social pressure, and stigma. Alcoholism is one of the hardest battles to overcome, but it’s possible if you put your mind to it.