I am an alcoholic...am I?

Hi, my name is Mrs D and I am a ... *coughs*.. um .. hi.  I'm Mrs D and... um ... huh.. *clears throat*.. sorry, lets try that again.  Hi.  I'm Mrs D.  And I. Am. A ... ... ... dysfunctional drinker.

I've never called myself an alcoholic.  Am I one?  I like to call myself a dysfunctional drinker.  A boozer.  A enthusiastic wine-drinker.  But alcoholic, no.  Semantics?  Probably.  But still.  I don't want to call myself an alcoholic.  For one thing I think it provides too blunt a label, or at least one that I'm not comfortable with.  But also .. well .. I dunno .. I'm embarrassed to say that I am one.  It conjours up images of derelict losers and I'm not one of "them".  You know the type.  Those winos in the gutter. Those smelly ladies with filthy clothes and unkempt hair I see in my supermarket with trollys filled with big casks of wine.

I mean, I never drank cask wine! Admittedly my bottles were only worth about $10 but, you know, there was glass involved.  No cardboard round here.  And I wasn't a stumbling drunk out on the streets creating a scene.  Ok so there was that one time I sort of stumbled in front of my inlaws while holding my 6 year old and sort of dropped him a bit .. but I don't think they all knew how much wine I'd poured into myself that evening.  Oh and there's those favourite earrings that I lost during almighty binges (still think they might have gone down the drain, there was vomiting involved).  So that's all pretty sloppy behaviour.  Me as a derelict loser, yeah.

Trying to read Allen Carr's 'The Easy Way to Stop Drinking', finding it rather intense but will persevere in the interests of keeping my brain alert to the perils of alcohol (my sly wine-drinking fox is still lurking in the back recesses of my brain I'm sure of it). Anyway he says the definition of an alcoholic is someone who has lost control over their intake.

Well I had definately lost control over my intake.  I think I lost it back in the late 80's actually.  But sorry Allen I'm not ready to own that label yet.

Love, Mrs D xxx