What is an alcoholic?

Alcoholic; someone who has incapacitated themselves mentally by abusing alcohol to the point where they can no longer make healthy decisions concerning their own welfare.

What does A.A. even mean by "an alcoholic", anyway? A.A. uses three or four different definitions of "alcoholic", and mixes them up, which really confuses the issue.

The definitions are:

1. 
   
2. An alcoholic is someone who habitually drinks far too much alcohol.
3. An alcoholic is someone who is hyper-sensitive to alcohol, almost allergic to alcohol, perhaps a genetic alcoholic; someone who cannot drink even one drink or his drinking will spin out of control and he will become readdicted to alcohol.
   
4. An alcoholic is somebody who cannot quit drinking — he is "powerless" over alcohol.
   
5. An alcoholic is an insane sinner who is full of disgusting character defects and moral shortcomings and resentments and barely-contained anger, and is a prime example of self-will run riot and instincts run wild and selfishness and self-seeking and the Seven Deadly Sins, although he doesn't think so... etc., etc., ...

When I call myself an alcoholic, I usually mean definition 2, and only occasionally
definition 1, but never definitions 3 or 4.

1. 
   
2. By definition 1, I stopped being an alcoholic more than 11 years ago.
   
3. By definition 2, I will always be an alcoholic.
   
4. By definition 3, I wasn't an alcoholic, because I could quit drinking, and I did.
   I was not "powerless over alcohol".
   I even quit drinking without any help from A.A., because I quit drinking two weeks before I was ever sent to an A.A. meeting.
   
5. By definition 4, I was never an alcoholic. I was always a nice drunk.
   People liked having me at their parties because I was so much fun to have around when I got high. (But, as one friend said, "Even nice drunks die of cirrhosis of the liver...")

So you pick which definition of "alcoholic" you prefer, and you will get the yes or no answer to whether I am an alcoholic.

An Alcoholics is actually a form of "Special Language" that has seeped into mainstream acceptance as a medical term to mean someone who either is or a prospect for conversion to the AA Faith. Defying all logic it is a Spiritual disease (i.e. Malady) that requires the joining of Alcoholics Anonymous and to go on hunting trip to jails, prisons, family and friends looking for prospects for the cult of Alcoholics Anonymous. Having the actual Spiritual Disease is not necessary, just contact with a 12 Step councilor or any member of the AA faith who will try everything in the book (i.e. Big Book) to make you admit and label yourself as an Alcoholic. Please see:

Washington Post Article Bashes the tactics of AA Oldtimers who bait Younger Members to develop self-fulfilling prophecies. http://orange-papers.org/forum/node/1872

The Alcoholics Anonymous Prospect Hunting Instructions - Direct from the Interchurch Center in New York. http://orange-papers.org/forum/node/1629

Theres no such thing as an Alcoholic, just problem drinkers with varying degree's of severity and differing drinking patterns

6 beer binge, but I think one can be a soupic & suffer soupism, it can cause the lexus to be unmanagable.

to me an alcoholic is a slang word for a person that has not cured their addiction to alcohol.