ABOUT FIVE YEARS BEFORE I made it to AA, I answered 14 of those
questions yes. Because I didn’t relate drinking to the damage that was already underway, I decided the test must be bullshit. Denial, they tell me, is characteristic of alcoholics.
I had a great life. I didn’t enjoy it much. I had reasons to drink.
(Only alcoholics need reasons to drink, they tell me.) I drank because everyone else did. I drank because I was sensitive.
I was depressed, hung over, and incapacitated a lot. (Not surprising, considering that alcohol is a depressant, and toxic.) After another couple of years of prodigious daily drinking, I began to think that I might have a drinking problem after all.