To the outsider, who has no problem whatsoever with alcohol, this question might seem a bit silly. But it truly can be a baffling question, especially if you are the one who is caught up in the slippery slope of experiencing both fun times as well as some problems with your drinking.

It can be truly difficult to tell in some cases.

Consider, for example, the relatively young person who is still having a lot of fun with their drinking. They haven't experienced too many heavy consequences yet: no drunk driving violations, no broken marriages, no lost jobs, and so on. But on the other hand, they might be realizing a dependency on alcohol, or noticing that they drink heavily on a regular basis, even when they haven't planned on doing so.

So the situation can be tricky; it is not necessarily as straightforward as one might think.

The nature of denial is that is very powerful, and the last person to realize that you are an alcoholic will be yourself. The reason for this is because we fool ourselves into thinking that we actually could control our drinking--if we only wanted to. But we tell ourselves that we enjoy drinking, so we don't want to control it, so therefore we are not truly alcoholic.

In some cases, there are alcoholics who will go weeks or months at a time without drinking, but when they do drink, they tend to binge, and get into all sorts of trouble. So this can be difficult to self-diagnose, because the person can and does maintain abstinence for long periods of time, even though they always return to the bottle.

So really, how can you tell?

Here are a couple of suggestions:

1) Try some controlled drinking. Set a limit on yourself that you can only have 1 drink per day, max. Maintain this for at least one year. Pay particularly close attention to how you feel about the limit, and also about the one year trial period. "Normal" people who are not alcoholics would not generally have a problem with this experiment. At all.

2) Self diagnosis. This is the only way. No one else can tell you that you are an alcoholic. You have to accept it for yourself. Admitting it is not enough. You must accept your alcoholism on a really deep level. It is only then that you can have any chance at recovery.

3) Consider this statement: "I didn't get into trouble every time I drank, but every time I got into trouble, I had been drinking." Is that true for you? If so then that is a huge indicator that you might be alcoholic.

4) Consider this statement: "When I control my drinking, I don't have any fun. When I have fun with my drinking, I tend to lose control." Another strong indicator if this rings true for you.

So go through those suggestions and give them some thought. Try to control your drinking for a set period of time (the longer the better) and pay attention to how it makes you feel when you limit your alcohol intake.