I had a problem with alcohol a few years back. By nature, apparently, I am not mean, as I never said anything mean to my girlfriend or friends or anyone else. But I started to black out every time I would drink. Every time I would decide I needed to stop while I was still conscious, and then the lack of power of reasoning would lead me drink too much. We'd be walking home from a party, and I'd wander off and sit down on someone's driveway, for example, and lay down. Then when my friends and/or girlfriend (now fiance) would come to get me, they'd ask what I was doing, and I'd say, in a very annoyed tone, "Nothing! What the hell... I'm just trying to walk home!" Except with a lot more slurring.
I never drank every day, but I did about 4 times a week for the first two years of college. I was never physically addicted, but I was pretty out of control. The last summer I drank, after sophomore year of college, I would come home every day from work and no one would be home at my house. If there wasn't anything to do, I'd have a drink to chill out, and before I knew it, I'd be waking up the next morning to my dad shaking his head at me for having stolen their liquor and getting wasted.
The turning point came when I was at a party one day and chugged a few shots of vodka. At that point, I would black out really, really easily. Once it happened on only 5 shots (although they were taken pretty rapidly). Then, apparently (although I had retrograde amnesia so I didn't remember the entire night, even before getting drunk) I had chugged the entire rest of the bottle. I then went and passed out on the frotn porch of this guy's house. Fortunately I hadn't driven. My friend drove me home, and my other friend Steve was supposed to stay over at my parents' house with me (this was towards the end of that same summer after sophomore year of college). However, he really wanted to see this girl who lived 20 minutes away. Of course I don't remember this at all, but he spent the next half hour trying to convince me to drive him, but I couldn't even speak. Then finally he got me to speak. I said "ok, let's go", and like an idiot he agreed, even though I could still not even walk. So, needless to say, I made it about 5 minutes away, with Steve correcting the wheel for me from the passenger seat, until I drove into a small ditch. Then two sheriffs pulled up. I couldn't even say my own name and I had weed and vicodin on me, and I was throwing up on myself. it looked bleak indeed.
But through some massive coincidence/stroke of luck, my distant cousin had just married a girl who was on the same police force, and our last names match. So the cops took pity on me, and called my dad and said that if he came right away they would let me go scott-free. So he did, and they didn't even search me to find my weed, pipe, and vicodin. On the way home, I pissed my pants and threw up in my dad's BMW. I then kept getting up all through the night and doing stupid shit, like turning on the shower and watching it as it got water all over the floor.
Anyway, to me, this is what happened. I was walking into the party at midnight, sober (or maybe a little high on weed. Probably), and then I was waking up in my bed at noon with a really strange feeling of foreboding but no idea at all what had happened, until my dad came in with the phone, asked if I was alright, and said it was my girlfriend. Over the next few hours, I heard from her and from my dad what had happened, and I was just devastated. It really hit me that I had a serious problem if I was going to continually let things like that happen. I had alcohol poisoning and was sick as a dog for a week, and I was emotionally unbalanced for the rest of the summer. it was truly horrible, by far the worst I have ever felt. I felt like I'd never be normal again.
I didn't drink a drop for over 6 months, and since then I've gotten drunk twice, and only drank any alcohol at all a few times. I guess it took something seriously traumatic to stop, but once that happened it was very easy to stop; like I said, I was never physically addicted. Ever since then, alcohol has made me feel extremely shitty and poisoned when I have even a single glass of wine or beer with dinner. The result of this is that I have not had a single drop of alcohol in over a year (I'm 24 now, and this happened when I was 19). I just don't like it anymore. It makes my limbs sore, especially my legs, and makes me grumpy and tired and totally unmotivated to do anything at all. I used to enjoy drinking on amphetamines, but no more for that, either. I'm truly glad, though, that I hate alcohol now, because it's just really bad for me, personally (really bad for everyone, actually, as it is quite shockingly poisonous to humans, especially the brain and liver). There are about a million better drugs anyway that are much, much safer (physically), and can provide benefits if used correctly. These days I pretty much only use psychedelics, marijuana, and kratom.
I guess this ended up being a pretty long anecdote. But hopefully something in my story will help someone out. If you think you're hovering on the brink of alcoholism, then you probably are. If you have personaly problems when you drink alcohol, then I highly recommend that you stop immediately, because I've never tried another drug that has anywhere near as much potential for loss of control and stupid, stupid decisions as alcohol does. Nor do I know of many that will kill you faster.