- Ever wake with a hangover bad enough to drive you to partake in a “hair of the dog” ritual? An eye-opener? Need a shot to kick-start your day?
- Do you feel a strong need for a drink? When you do start drinking, you find it difficult to control the amount you drink?
- It takes an increased amount of alcohol to reach the same state of euphoria than previously experienced.
- You drink alone or hide your drinking, including hiding alcohol from family and friends in unlikely places at home, work or school.
- When you always have drinks at a certain time, you find yourself annoyed when those plans are interrupted or questioned.
- You are experiencing blackouts – periods of time when you don’t remember what you did.
- You order doubles and/or chug your first drinks to get to that level of intoxication to feel good or “normal.”
- You lose interest in activities such as socializing or sports.
- You have legal troubles and possibly, relationship, employment or financial problems because of your drinking.
- At times, you feel guilty about drinking.
- There are times you consider cutting back “out of necessity.”
- You get annoyed by others’ comments about your drinking.
- When you don’t drink, you experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, shaking and sweating.
- You are a woman who has four or more drinks a day or a man who has five or more drinks a day. A drink is defined as a 12-ounce beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.
The differences between men and women regarding alcohol are significant. Women develop long-term consequences of alcohol abuse, such as heart and liver damage, a higher incidence of breast cancer and a negative effect on reproductive functioning, faster than men. Experts think that is due to women metabolizing alcohol at a slower rate than men. Women also have a higher alcohol-related mortality rate than men.
The psychiatric diagnoses of men and women also differ in the following ways: women deal with alcohol-dependent issues, major depression, anxiety, panic disorders, borderline personality disorder, PTSD or bulimia. Women also are more likely to have a history of domestic or sexual violence than the general population. Men tend to deal with narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, impulse disorder, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.