People who are overdrinking know it, and they often feel guilty about it. But then when they start to feel stressed, it just works SO WELL, and SO QUICKLY. And so RELIABLY. And it is so easy to get…

People drink to change how they feel. There is the taste, which may be bad or OK or good. But there is the effect, which is EUPHORIC. The going UP! That’s SO nice, and it only takes a few seconds to get into their blood stream...

That’s the healthy use of alcohol, to feel that ripple of relaxation loosen you all through your body. It’s not wrong to feel it, and it’s not wrong to like the feeling. That initial softening is all fine, and all for you. Just the first part of it, and just for the first 20 minutes or so. The first drink—maybe two—will take you to that pleasant place of relaxation and rightness. You feel that nice fuzzy feeling in your limbs, but you still have all your mental faculties. You are affected slightly but not impaired by the alcohol. At this point you are properly using, not abusing alcohol.

But if you keep drinking beyond that alcohol is no longer helping you. It is working against you. Many or most of us may have done that, especially when we were young. We went too far. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. We liked the initial feelings, and wanted more. We wanted to extend the comfort so we kept drinking. But before long we were no longer feeling just relaxed. Our speech began to slur and our balance was a little off. We began talking louder and our answers were not so well put-together. If we drank even more we got drunk and we may even have gotten sick. And the next day there was that hangover, right?

If you are overdrinking you are self-medicating, which strongly suggests that you are calling out for some help. You may be drinking—occasionally or regularly—for the same reason that other folks resort to obsessions or compulsions: to feel better. But abusing alcohol is a foolish way to try to feel better, because you almost always end up feeling worse, much worse, when you are done. Right? There is that cycle of anticipation, then excitement as you get some alcohol, then brief intoxication, then just crazy drunkenness and all the terrible side-effects that come with that. And how awful you feel afterwards: physically, mentally, emotionally.

The alcohol-dependent stereotype is one of excuses, minimizing and denial. And for good reason. Persons who abuse alcohol feel bad when they do it, and don’t like the guilt. So they make promises they really want to try to keep, but then they can’t. That’s the difference between the problem drinker and the person who can keep it in its place. One can stop, and stay stopped. One cannot stay stopped.

If you drink more than a couple of drinks a day, you have a problem or are well on your way to it. I won’t quibble with you about amounts and occasions and how long you can go without drinking. When you are starting to DEPEND ON ALCOHOL TO FEEL BETTER then you have become ALCOHOL DEPENDENT, and that is dangerous for you. You have crossed over into the misuse, the abuse, of alcohol.

Catch yourself before the problem is too big. Before you wreck your marriage and family and health and car and job and reputation. Bust through the feelings of shame and go talk to your family doctor. She will help you take stock and point the way to several options. Please do it now, while your problems are still small. The longer you delay, the harder it will be for you to eventually stop.

Since you are doing something as self-injurious as abusing alcohol we can see that your problem is serious. You may be able to get over it by focusing on self-control, but maybe not. Maybe you have already tried to quit, really tried, but you have always gone back. What can you do if you have been unable to quit on your own?

You may find support and encouragement in a group like AA. You could try a few meetings. Or individual psychotherapy may also be useful to you. If you were ever going to try it, this would be the time. You may also benefit from a medical approach. As I mention in my articles on Medications and Obsessions and Compulsions, antidepressants may help to damp down your impulsivity. They may help you feel better, so you just don’t feel the urge to reach for a drink. How about giving them a try?