Today, I asked myself exactly that question. In a podcast I recently listened to and the host posed the same question:

Where is your alcohol consumption problematic, risky or an addiction?

Was I addicted?

I don’t know. I felt addicted, at least. The host commented on the issue that quantity is not the question. It’s frequency, habitualisation, problematic starting and stopping mechanisms, damage to yourself and our surrounding, and so forth.

At least I had a habitual drinking problem, and I couldn’t easily stop only after one or two beers. I drank on a daily basis. I posed no greater danger to others, only to myself (depressive episodes, panic, anxiety,…)

But if I would let it come down to these aspects, I would say I was on the borderline of what a doctor would call an alcoholic in the stricter sense of the original term.

What mattered to me was, that I felt I could not regulate my drinking enough, I drank too much and it made me depressive. That was problematic and risky enough for me to quit.

So, when is an addiction an addiction? The question is arguable and not clearly defined. Find out yourself, and I found it better to find a quitting point before I really had bodily dependance on the substance.

Or like another coach said: There is no better point in time to quit than now.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.