One of the problems with being a binge drinking alcoholic, apart from small matter of the carnage it causes in your life, is that people don’t necessarily realise you have a problem. Sure your friends in the pub might notice you get wasted, but they might not piece together the pattern. Plus they can’t see the way your brain reacts to that first drink and instantly screams for more, or the emotional wreck you are the next day.
If the people you drink with don’t realise then what are the chances that the people you don’t will? I talk to my mum about everything (I know I’m cool huh?), so when I was facing up to really having a problem I chatted to her about it. The problem was I had to start by convincing her I really was an alcoholic. So she saw me get wasted at my cousin’s birthday, but hell she was doing shots with me, and she saw me get mad with it at my sister’s party, but she didn’t realise that’s how I drank every night out. People have a preconceived idea about what an alcoholic is, and I don’t fit it.
Same story with my girlfriend, although she had a better idea as I live with her. When I told my sister, a recently qualified doctor, she “discreetly” asked me alcoholic assessment questions… I passed. The issue is that you need these people to help spur you on and offer support. You need them to not offer you a drink or try and get you to have one with them. You need them to realise the severity of the situation. I’m still not sure they do.
A more dangerous problem of course is that I need to remind myself I have a serious drinking problem. When you need to convince other people that you do, it makes you question it yourself. The worse thing you can say to an alcoholic? “Ah, you weren’t all that bad.”
The Useless Alcoholic 
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