I’ve said this before, you know you need help with your alcohol use if when you drink, bad things happen.  It’s so much simpler than asking yourself what I call “denial questions” – do I drink in the morning? no. Does that mean I’m not really an alcoholic?  Argggh! What a great way to make sure you don’t get help.  I mean, how many of us were full-blown drunks but never ever ever drank in the morning so we concluded that indeed we were in full control of our drinking?

Over the last two decades I’ve learned not to roll my eyes when I hear the “denial questions”:

I don’t drink every day (I did, but I know a lot of drunks who were binge drinkers)

I only drink when I’m out – never alone (big deal, where you drink has nothing to do with how you drink)

I don’t really have blackouts (translated: I occasionally do forget a few things I said or did, but it’s not like I forget the whole night!  Good for you! Hope the part you forgot wasn’t too bad!)

I don’t drink as much as X, Y, or Z (comparing yourself to even bigger drunks is an excellent way to talk yourself out of needing help! Sort of like, I’m not fat because I’m only 40 pounds overweight, but that gal is a good 70 pounds overweight!)

I just have really high tolerance – so I can drink a lot more than other people with no effects (you just have really high tolerance because you’ve been drinking a lot for a really long time, oh, and guess what, alcoholics tend to have really high tolerance.)

I’ve never had a DUI (yet)

I have a really good job and make a lot of money. I’m too successful to be a drunk.  (Hope it doesn’t catch up to you – it usually does – plus it’s fun to go to early morning meetings with a headache or sick stomach)

I’ve never done anything I wouldn’t have done sober (are you absolutely sure of that?)

I only drink beer.  (Uh, beer is alcohol, you just have to drink a bit more liquid – one beer = one shot.  Six beers = Six shots.)

I only drink fine wines (this one makes me smile; many times I would buy expensive wines and liqueurs to convince myself I was a connoisseur – gotta research the latest cabs, you know!)

No one in my family is a drunk and it’s supposed to be genetic (often is – and chances are there is a drunk in your family; either no one talks about Great Grandpa James escapades  or that person figured it out early enough and stopped drinking; but if you don’t, congratulations on starting a new branch in the family tree)

Frankly, if you are spending any time whatsoever trying to come up with reasons you do NOT have a problem with alcohol, chances are, you DO.

Sound familiar?  It’s one of the big lies we told ourselves when alcohol or drugs were taking a wrecking ball to our lives.

I wouldn’t drink so much, if…(fill in the blank with the excuse of the day/week/month/year)

I’ve noticed when I see someone now struggling with addiction that I often wonder what the chances are that they will see the light.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of people whose lives are ruled by substances never do. Does it ever make you wonder why you were so blessed to have been able to open your eyes?  Make you wonder how you could break through the veil of denial and delusion and go for this crazy thing called sobriety?  Abstinence from drugs and alcohol?  Who would  have ever thunk it when they were out there believing they just HAD to have that drink or that drug to just feel normal?

Don’t get complacent. Those delusions (I think that’s more accurate than denial in some ways) can creep back in if you aren’t on guard.  They can start as little nagging thoughts, then lead to changes in behavior, and those lead to those old chaotic feelings and sense of needing to fix it fast.

I remember a guy who would “get it” every 60 days or so, get clean, then go back – my five years I saw him come and go, cobbling together a few days or weeks at a time, over and over and over.  Twenty odd some years later I always wonder if he ever truly got it.  I still remember his suffering – he would show up at meetings drunk and help set up chairs.   I remember a friend who was prescribed Xanax by a “doctor” at 15 years of sobriety.  He calmly explained how it was different for him -he had real anxiety and this was okay.  I remember when that led to Klonipin, then that fatal drink on a plane…I say fatal because he was dead 5 years later.

Don’t think that inner addict isn’t looking for opportunities.  Not every one has the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other, each giving conflicting advice.  (“Do it!”  “No, don’t do it!”), so sometimes it’s hard to remember that inner addict just waiting for its fuel.  Believe me, he’s  in there.  It’s up to us to keep him in his place.

I like to occasionally remember specific incidents during my drinking that really stick out as hallmarks of the alcoholic mind. They remind me that I wasn’t fooling anyone, except maybe myself.

Right after college I moved into an apartment with two childhood friends. I had my own room, but it was a tiny cave in an overpriced Manhattan apartment building. This was the point when my drinking really escalated – recently graduated, back from a three-month stint in Europe, it was time to settle down and find a career. I was really too good for all those entry level jobs. A typing test? I graduated Ivy League! Who are they kidding!  My arrogance didn’t really help matters, and I was slowly falling into a depression.  I didn’t know what to do with my life.

I knew my good friends were alert to the fact that I was drinking too much, so I started to go to all sorts of lengths to hide the level of consumption.  One favorite was to put the bag with booze bottles outside my bedroom window, go into the apartment empty handed, then retrieve the bottles in private with my door closed.

But the best “hiding” method was to put a bottle of booze on the kitchen counter and not use it too often – and just use the ones hidden in my room – so it looked like I wasn’t drinking that much.

The roommate situation soured and we all went our separate ways, and soon after I went to rehab. I decided to tell my friends the story – hey, it was kind of funny (in a demented way).

“Hey, I used to put a bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter and not drink from it much, and instead I’d drink from bottles in my room so you would think I wasn’t that bad,” I told my old roommate.

She looked at me strangely and replied, “That’s funny. I used to think that bottle in the kitchen went down awfully fast.”

OMG!  I was horrified, then burst out laughing. Even with my little “trickery” there were times I ran out of my “room bottle” – and hit the kitchen-counter(feit) bottle – and even trying to control the use of ONE bottle was hopeless.

Just one of those moments when you have total clarity.