To answer this question ask yourself the following questions and answer them as honesty as you can.

1. Is drinking making your home life unhappy?
2. Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?
3. Do you drink because you are shy with other people?
4. Is drinking affecting your reputation?
5. Do you drink to escape from worries or trouble?
6. Do you drink alone?
7. Have you lost time from work due to drinking?
8. Has your ambition decreased since drinking?
9. Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?
10. Is drinking jeopardising your job or business?
11. Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?
12. Are you in financial difficulties as a result of drinking?
13. Do you turn to or seek an inferior environment when drinking?
14. Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?
15. Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
16. Do you want a drink the next morning?
17. Do you drink to build up your self-confidence?
18. Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of drinking?
19. Has your doctor ever treated you for drinking?
20. Have you ever been in hospital or prison because of drinking?

If you have answered YES to any one of the questions, there is a definite warning that you may be alcoholic.

If you have answered YES to any two, the chances are that you are an alcoholic.

If you have answered YES to three or more, you are definitely an alcoholic.

Why do we say this? Only because the experience of hundreds of thousands of recovering alcoholics has taught us some basic truths about our symptoms — and about ourselves.

If you admit you are an alcoholic there’s hope for you.

Admitting you are an alcoholic may seem today like the end of the line to you, but there are thousands of people in AA who can testify that acceptance of their powerlessness over alcohol was not an end, but a beginning: the beginning of their recovery and a new, useful and rewarding life.

AA have a simple, workable programme. It is a down-to-earth programme designed BY and FOR alcoholics. If you honestly want sobriety above all else and are fully willing to follow this programme without qualification, you have written your own guarantee for sobriety.

THE ONLY REQUIREMENT FOR AA MEMBERSHIP IS A DESIRE TO STOP DRINKING.

This does not mean signing up, or paying a subscription fee. You simply come along to an AA meeting, where you will find people who have been through exactly the same sort of things as you. Get to lots of AA meetings. That way you will hear different AA’s telling their experience. Among them you will find people with whom you can identify closely — people you feel understand YOU.

MAYBE YOU ARE STILL NOT CONVINCED YOU ARE AN ALCOHOLIC.

In which case, a few meetings may help you to decide. All we ask is that you bring with you an open mind.

WHY NOT GIVE THE AA PROGRAMME A TRY? We did, and it works.