Alcoholism and it's stages

You start out drinking like everyone else.

Later you find yourself to be the last one at the party, or drinking before you go out for the night. There are alcohol related incidents.

Your family starts to complain about your drinking. Then your friends start noticing and mentioning that you seem to be drinking too much. Your friends mean a lot to you. You don't want them thinking you are some kind of loser, and you resent your family's remarks and criticism about you drinking too much. So you start hiding your drinking.

You start drinking alone so no one really knows how much and how often you drink.

At first you still talk to everyone on the phone while you are drinking alone so you still feel connected. That is until you realize the conversation is degenerating on your end and everyone still knows you are drinking too much. So you stop answering the phone when you are under the influence.



Every spare moment you can, you drink. Now you are drinking alone the majority of the time. You start to develop a relationship with alcohol. It has become kind of a friend. It eases tensions, helps you cope with unpleasant or upsetting situations, and not only can you count on it to be there, you know exactly what to expect as you drink, because the feeling and outcome is predictable. There's a certain amount of comfort in that predictability. So you come to depend on alcohol as a cushion and a kind of insulation from the unpleasantries and sometimes pain of life.

You will do most anything to protect your drinking. You want to be sure it is not threatened in any way because you want to continue to drink, which by now has become a daily ritual.

When you feel lonely because drinking has isolated you from other people in your life, you will notice that when you get drunk yet again, those feelings of loneliness are amplified. They get bigger. You wish there was someone around to keep you company while you are drinking. But there are no takers.

So you drink alone.