Alcohol Disorder

“alcoholism.” Maybe you know the new term doctors use, “alcohol use disorder.”

You may have an alcohol use disorder if you:

• Drink more, or longer, than you plan to
• Have tried to cut back or stop more than once and couldn’t
• Spend a lot of time drinking, being sick, or hungover
• Want alcohol so badly you can’t think of anything else
• Have problems with work, school, or family because of your habit (or because you’re sick after having alcohol)
• Keep drinking even though it has caused problems for you or your relationships
• Quit or cut back on other activities that were important to you in order to drink
• Have found yourself in situations while drinking or afterward that made you more likely to get hurt
• Keep having alcohol even though it made you depressed or anxious, hurt your health, or led to a memory blackout
• Have to drink more than you used to for the effect you want
• Found that you had withdrawal symptoms when the buzz wore off, like trouble sleeping, shakiness, restlessness, nausea, sweating, a racing heart, a seizure, or seeing, hearing, or feeling things that aren’t there.

If you’ve had two or three of those symptoms in the past year, that’s a mild alcohol use disorder. It’s a moderate disorder if you’ve had four to five. If you’ve had six or more, that’s severe.

Keep in mind that a serving of alcohol is:

• 12 ounces of regular beer
• 8-9 ounces of malt liquor
• 5 ounces of wine
• 3-4 ounces of fortified wine (such as sherry or port)
• 2-3 ounces of cordial, liqueur, or aperitif
• 1.5 ounces of brandy, cognac, or 80-proof distilled spirits