Could you be dependent on or addicted to alcohol?
If you find it difficult to enjoy yourself or relax without having a drink, it’s possible you’ve become dependent on alcohol.
Being dependent on alcohol means you feel you’re not able to function without it, that drinking becomes an important, or sometimes the most important, factor in your life.

Are you alcohol dependent?
It might be surprising to hear that you don’t always have to be drinking to extreme levels to become dependent on alcohol.
Anyone who is drinking regularly will have a degree of alcohol dependency.

According to Dr Nick Sheron, a liver disease specialist from Southampton University, alcohol dependency operates on a spectrum. “At one end of the scale you have people who are mildly dependent,” he says. “That’s people who, for example, can’t conceive of a Friday night without having enough drinks to get a bit tipsy. At the other end, you have people where alcohol is more important than their jobs, their families, than pretty much anything, including being alive.”

People who drink heavily tend to keep increasing the amount they drink because they develop a tolerance to alcohol. Tolerance is a physiological response we have to any drug: the more you consume, the more you need to consume to have the same effect. Part of this dependence is because the wiring in the brain changes with frequent consumption of alcohol.
Then, as Dr Sheron says: “This change makes you less able to drink in a controlled way.”

Just for today
I will find joy in witnessing the recovery of another.

The AA Estcourt branch hosts meetings every Tuesday at Forderville Primary School from 7pm to 8pm. Contact Desigan on 082 849 3014. The AA Winterton branch hosts meetings every Thursday at the Springfield Church opposite the police station from 7pm to 8pm. Contact Dolly on 071 688 5330 or Virgilo on 079 688 0432.