I am an addictive personality--are you?

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(This is long but then so is an addiction!) This past January 21, it will have been 36 years since any alcohol has passed my lips and/or entered my body. I have not eaten any food cooked in alcohol, touched any over the counter medicines containing alcohol, etc. I have know since I was a child that I was an addictive personality and it wasn't even in our lexicon back then. My addictions ran from cutting classes to go to movies with double features, skipping school to see shows on Broadway, food (if you read my blogs you know THAT story!), cigarettes (after many years of smoking 3 packs a day I stopped cold turkey July 8 2008 ), sex (when I posted how many different sex partners I have had in my lifetime someone remarked that I made Wilt Chamberlain look like an amateur)---name it and I have been addicted to it--moderation didn't exist in my life. At 16 I took diet pills--one a day for 7 days--I lost 6 pounds--so I decided that if I increased the dosage the following week I could lose 12 pounds--long story short--I wound up in the hospital a month later on a maniac high. I recall having my first drink when I was 14 and my dad ordered me a frozen daiquiri at the Sun Luck East restaurant in NY--of course I didn't know there wasn't any rum in it but I still remember to this day how 'adult' I felt, how special--oh I had a sip of wine at family gatherings and such but here I was--'all grown up' having a cocktail before dinner! My drinking basically began when I started going to gay bars that same year--I still remember the laughter of the bartender and a few patrons when I ordered that frozen daiquiri in that 'butch' bar off Sixth Avenue--I, also, learned around that time that my body couldn't handle beer without physical consequences. I drank my way through my teens--mostly vodka--when I was in the Marines I discovered Moscow Mules (vodka and ginger beer in a copper mug)--when I moved to Miami Beach I showed off by making every drink a different one. I like many others clinged to the ideas that I didn't miss work because of alcohol, that I didn't 'need' a drink in the morning when I woke up, that I could go without a drink for days, never appeared drunk to anyone (I was a quiet drunk) and so on. I could go through 55 years of 'incidents --I could talk about being mugged when I was drunk--about blackouts--driving when drunk and causing accidents that I wasn't aware of at the time--sticking friends with big restaurant bills because when I got drunk I would disappear--going to a foreign country on vacation for a month and not remembering a thing about the trip--getting arrested for 'lewd and lascivious' behavior--kicking in a lover's TV--sleepless nights because I was too busy getting out of bed and throwing up--the mornings with unquenchable thirst and a bottomless stomach that I couldn't fill--falling and splitting my eyebrow area--leaving a lover stranded in NY--and the list goes on. I was a 'good' drunk--quiet--bought everyone drinks--bartenders always gave me extra drinks because I was a good tipper and they didn't know I was drunk (If I thought I hadn't tipped or not tipped enough I went back the next day and took care of it.)--I didn't embarrass friends when I was drunk--no one, including myself, knew I was an alcoholic. Something happened the week of January 21, 1981--the first was that I was drunk, drove home, caused an accident that I didn't discover until the next day when I woke up and saw my car. Luckily, and it was just luck, no one had been hurt--it was another in a series of blackouts but this one involved other people. I finally realized that booze controlled me, I didn't control the booze, and I didn't like losing control--that was it--no more drinking. There's a lot more to the story but that's for another day--there is nothing worse than a reformed drunk (so 'they' say) so maybe some of the posters may understand why I get angry, lash out or say something when they post about being out of control when it comes to alcohol and 1) don't realize it or 2) Won't face the facts that they have a problem. PS The same year I gave up drinking I found the love of my life!