Well, that’s a good question, we hope not, because that is possibly the worst thought you might have about your relationship with alcohol.
But are you afraid to ask the question?
DOES ALCOHOL CONTROL YOUR LIFE?
What started off as your “friend” (it never was) is now becoming a problem or in my case a real nuisance. My life was actually being controlled by it.
STEP 1 – CONSTERNATION
An important part of what we do at AFB is to help people get to grips with their relationship with alcohol. It gets you started on the 7 Easy steps to Freedom from Alcohol.
The first step is to accept that there is a problem to be dealt with. That’s what we call Consternation.
It’s where you become aware that you may have a problem with alcohol.
Unless you have reached this point, this website is not for you.
WHAT IF I DON’T SEE IT, (My Relationship with alcohol ) AS A PROBLEM?
We can’t help people who don’t see that they have a poor relationship with alcohol and that it is becoming a problem.
It’s as simple as that.
CAN YOU FACE THESE QUESTIONAIRES?
You will find 2 questionaires in the Free Resources Library that if you answer the questions honestly the exercise will give you the answer you may be looking for.
BUT I DON’T FIT THE STEREOTYPE IMAGE!
Surprisingly being an alcoholic (ghastly word, I would rather describe it as being UN-HAPPILY dependent.) is not always an in the gutter, with a brown paper bag covering your bottle, down and out kind of image.
Most of the people we talk to are those who have a drink every day, before supper,
during supper,
and maybe after supper. As well!
Also, a bit more at the weekends!
They drink expensive wine or maybe a G & T. or 3
They are “sophisticated drinkers”.
It means that you probably drink more than your friends, almost every day and it quite often starts at “wine o clock” and may only be 2 or 3 or 4 large glasses of wine, which sounds perfectly normal.
Weekends, well, a bottle or 2 is ok, isn’t it?
I Did Drink More! I couldn’t avoid the truth!
The questionnaires are designed to bring you up with a bit of a jolt.
I thought I drank the same amount as most of my friends.
Facing up to these questions made me realize I actually drank more, and more often than my friends did.
Most of us are in this category and those of us are the most at risk because its so easy to say “well everyone else does the same, so what’s the harm in it”
One of the issues we have is thinking that life without booze is unlivable and that without it life isn’t fun anymore.
That’s what I thought. How wrong I was!
I know, they all say that, but it is actually true!
They are in the Free Resource Library.
No one is here to judge you, it’s between you and the questions and totally private.
We have the 20 questions raised by AA.
They are relevant but a bit old fashioned.
But still worth the time to answer.
M.A.S.T.
Then we included a more up to date list of questions set out by an American Institute called
THE “MAST “Screening Questions.
MAST stands for
MICHIGAN ALCOHOLISM SCREENING TEST .
Sounds a bit foreboding.
I filled this out and the other one for a bit of fun.
But the results weren’t that much fun.
It made me think seriously about what had been on my mind for some time.
That now is the time to do something about it. I couldn’t really hide from this anymore.
My scores were high enough to make me realize that if I didn’t do something about it soon, I would be heading for a bad outcome.
I looked around for some help and there wasn’t anything to give me the right level of support I thought that I needed.
I did try AA, and they have done an amazing job all these years and have helped countless thousands of people with this problem.
I went to a number of meetings, but it wasn’t for me.
And so, my journey started, and boy what a ride it has turned out to be!!
