Are You An Alcoholic?

Are You an Alcoholic? Find the Truth Here — Talk Sober at YouTube.com

Disclaimer: Marcus is NOT a doctor or a trained addiction counselor. The information in these videos is provided as a resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. Nor is it to be used as a substitute when professional diagnosis and treatment is needed. Please seek professional help when needed. Alcoholism is serious… DON’T mess around! Visit www.TalkSober.com/help or get professional help.  

 

When I first started to figure out if I was an alcoholic, I was really hung up on different names. I went to many different websites to find out, am I an alcoholic? Can I moderate? Is there a way to quit drinking without rehab or AA or something like that? I read lots of different books, and I had a really hard time coming to grips with the stigma of, am I an alcoholic? Let’s answer that question for you, once and for all.  

If you go to website after website, they’re going to say, “Here’s the 10 things that mean you’re an alcoholic,” “Here’s the 5 things that you have that make you an alcoholic,” or whatever it may be. I want to sum it up once and for all because, to me, there’s really only two things that determine an alcoholic. 

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Number One: Can You stop?  

That is the biggest thing here. How many times have you tried to stop? How many commitments have you made to yourself to stop? How many times have you broken that? That’s number one. If you’re having trouble stopping, if you can’t stop on your own, to me, that means that you probably have a problem.  

For me, years ago, when I first started trying to stop, I was able to stop for a week, maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks at the most. But I always ended up going back. I always ended up drinking. It wasn’t like I planned it. It was something that caused me to drink, something internal. I’d just be going along having my three weeks of sobriety and bam. All of a sudden, I’d end up ordering something at lunch or whatever it was, and then three days later I was asking myself what happened.   

 

Number Two: Do You Continue to Drink Despite Negative Consequences?  

Are there things that are affecting your health, your mindset, your work, your family, your time? Some people have legal issues. No sane person in their mind would continue to hit themselves over the head with a hammer if it caused pain. Right?   

Now, the same thing’s going on here. You’re continuing to do something despite negative consequences. If you look up the definition of insanity, it’s continuing to do the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. If I continue to drop something on my foot and I say, “Well, if I keep dropping it, pretty soon it’s not going to hurt. It’s going to feel good.” That means I’m pretty much an insane person.  

 

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If you said yes to these, then there is a problem. Whether you want to call that problem alcoholism or not, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is this: how do we get good consequences in our life? How do we change this around? How do we stop the thing that’s doing us harm and how do we do things that are going to make us better?   

Three years ago, when I first decided to get help, I didn’t know what to do. My life was in shambles. On the outside it looked good—I had a house, family, everything like that, but inside I was going crazy. I was wondering, “Am I an alcoholic? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I beat this? What is going on?” I couldn’t stop no matter what I did, and I kept doing it despite negative consequences. Here I was, a family man, and I kept drinking even though I knew it hurt my family. I kept doing this even though I knew it was affecting my business. 

Brain-Chemistry3You have to look at this one of two ways. Number one: We’re just nuts. We just like doing things. We like screwing up our own life by our own hand by continually drinking. Are we crazy? don’t think so. Number two: Is there chemical dependency? This means your mind and your body have now made you need this chemical, this alcohol, to function. You might not see it, but your body is now becoming immune to it and depending on it. It thinks that it needs alcohol to live, which is why we can’t stop no matter what we do.

 

Now, let’s talk about how to get help with this problem. I want you to go over to TalkSober.com. Once you’re on the page, there’s going to be a little button on the top that says, “Test.” I want you to fill out that test. I personally read these because I personally care about you getting help. I have other businesses that make me lots of money. This is something I do mainly because I care about people and I don’t want you to go down the same road I went down. It wasn’t fun, and I had major consequences in my life, so I don’t want you to get that far.  

Take the test. We’ll find out if there’s a problem, and we’re going to get you the help you need. I want you to ask these questions honestly. It doesn’t matter how much you drink. If you drink one bottle over and over and it’s causing you negative consequences, there’s a problem. If you drink 100 over and over again and you have negative consequences, there’s a problem. The amount doesn’t matter. The time doesn’t matter. If you hide it, it doesn’t matter.   

I look forward to helping you get the help you need and becoming sober and living the life that you want to live.  

For more information, visit www.TalkSober.com.