This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without

judgment, pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hi friends, it's Annie Grace and I am the author of this naked mind and I'm here answering

your questions. Today I have a question from Fred and Fred asks Annie, how do I know

if I'm an alcoholic? And Fred, I get this question a lot and I want to talk a little bit about

the question before I answer it. Culturally, I feel like we've stopped asking the same

question. It's like, would I be happier drinking a bit less or drinking nothing at all?

Instead the question that looms is am I an alcoholic? It's not cool to question our drinking,

like we would question our sugar intake or cigarette smoking and because of that we live in

fear. And when we feel we might be drinking a bit too much, the fear grows because the

question again that looms is am I an alcoholic? And so we start to feel really uncomfortable

with this question and as drinkers we often drink to dull these uncomfortable feelings.

So this very question not only causes us to drink more but can you to secitate this rock

bottom type experience? A true wake up call, standing in terms of the awful happening with

our drinking before the fear of the question becomes less than the fear of continuing to

drink like we do. The question is terrifying. Why is it terrifying? Because we've been told

that alcoholism is a lifelong, incurable disease that plays a select few people and we

should don't want to be one of those people. We've divided our culture into two people,

people who can drink normally and alcoholics. And this gives us this false sense of security.

Actually in my opinion, I believe it obscures the naturally addictive nature of alcohol.

When rats were given alcohol on the study, 100% of rats that were forced to alcohol became

addicted to alcohol. Alcohol is biologically addicted to human beings. And we don't treat it

...