An honest test, not a verdict
Most people who look up this question have already been wondering for a while. The wondering is itself information. Nobody who drinks unremarkably spends an evening searching for a test.
The ten questions
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Do you need more than you once did to get the same effect?
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Once you start, is it harder than it used to be to stop at one or two?
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Do you find yourself thinking about the next drink during the day, or planning around it?
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Do you ever drink alone, or at times you would rather others did not see?
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Have you tried to cut down or stop, and not managed it for as long as you intended?
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Do you ever drink to steady yourself, for nerves, for sleep, to take the edge off the morning?
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Has drinking cost you something you minded losing: work, a relationship, a promise, a memory of an evening?
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Do you play down how much you drink when someone asks?
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Has anyone who cares about you said they are worried?
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Do you carry on drinking as you do even though some part of you knows what it is doing?
This is an information tool, not a diagnostic one: no online test can diagnose anything. If you recognise yourself here and it is causing you difficulty, the right next step is a conversation with a qualified professional.
What the answers mean
Little of this sounds like you
Few of these landed. But a low count is not clearance, and this test cannot give you one: it is ten questions, not an assessment. If you are worried about your drinking, that worry is reason enough to speak to a professional, and there is nothing to be gained by waiting for it to get worse first. People rarely search for a page like this by accident. If a single question stung, trust it over the total, and take it to your GP or to a first confidential conversation rather than to another online test.Some of this sounds like you
Several of these are common in people who would not call themselves alcoholic, and recognising them does not make you one. What matters is the direction of travel, and whether it costs you anything, sleep, money, work, the person you are at home. Drinking of this kind often holds steady for years and then does not. Do not wait for the count to rise before speaking to someone: doubt is a good enough reason, and early is easier than late. If you want to understand the pattern rather than police it, start with the functioning alcoholic, which describes exactly this middle ground.Most of this sounds like you
That most of these landed is worth taking seriously today rather than filing away. What it describes is not weakness or a lack of willpower. It is the shape dependency takes, and it is one of the more treatable things people bring into a consulting room. Two things are worth saying plainly. If you drink daily and heavily, do not stop abruptly on your own, see the warning below, because that part genuinely matters. And people who score like this often do very well in treatment, which is not a platitude: it is what the outcome research shows and what twenty-five years in the room bears out. If the suffering is real, a first appointment is confidential and usually available within two days.What your answers mean
The count is a prompt, not a verdict, and it is not a professional opinion.
Ten questions cannot assess anyone. If you have a doubt about your drinking, the right response is to take it to someone qualified now rather than to keep testing yourself, a low score does not settle the question, and waiting until the answer is obvious costs years that are hard to get back.
One question that pierced you can matter more than five ticked absently. The word “alcoholic” is not a clinical term and carries a century of moral freight; what clinicians look at is whether drinking has become something you no longer freely choose, and what it is costing you. You can be dependent and hold down a senior job. You can drink every day and not be. The label matters far less than the pattern.
What the clinic teaches, again and again: people do not drink because they enjoy it by the end. They drink because it does something. It flattens an anxiety, closes a day, quiets something that will not otherwise be quiet. Understanding what it does for you is the beginning of not needing it to.
An important warning about stopping
If you drink heavily every day, do not stop abruptly without medical advice.
Alcohol is unusual among drugs in that withdrawal from physical dependency can be dangerous and occasionally fatal: seizures, and in severe cases delirium tremens. This is not a reason to keep drinking. It is a reason to get medical input into how you stop.
Speak to your GP, or contact a service that can assess you medically, before you stop rather than after. A supervised reduction is safe; a sudden unsupervised stop, in someone genuinely dependent, is not. Psychotherapy comes alongside that, not instead of it.
What comes next
If this described you, the next step is not a decision about the rest of your life. It is a conversation.
- The functioning alcoholic, for the people whose outward life still works
- Alcohol addiction, how this practice treats it
- Addiction counselling in London. Harley Street, Fitzrovia, and online
- Living with someone who drinks, if you are reading this about another person
Sessions are available at Harley Street W1, Fitzrovia, and online by secure video. A first appointment is confidential and usually available within two days.
Common questions
Is this test a diagnosis of alcoholism?
No, and no online test is. It is a tool for reflection, drawn from twenty-five years of clinical practice with people whose drinking had become a problem. A real assessment happens with a clinician, in a conversation, and takes account of far more than ten questions.
Can I just stop drinking on my own?
Many people reduce their drinking without help. But if you drink heavily every day, stopping suddenly and without supervision can be genuinely dangerous: alcohol withdrawal can cause seizures and delirium tremens, and unlike most drugs it can be fatal. If you drink daily, speak to your GP or a medical service before you stop, not after. Cutting down gradually with advice is safer than stopping overnight alone.
What is a functioning alcoholic?
Someone whose drinking meets the criteria for dependency while their outward life holds together: the job, the mortgage, the family. It is not a lesser problem; it is a better-concealed one, and the concealment is usually what delays help by years. See the article on the functioning alcoholic.
Does drinking every day mean I am an alcoholic?
Not on its own. Frequency matters less than control, preoccupation and consequence, whether you can stop when you intend to, how much of your attention drinking occupies, and what it has cost you. Some daily drinkers are dependent and some are not; some binge drinkers are dependent and some are not.
What happens if I get in touch?
A first appointment, confidential and usually within two days, in which you say what has been happening and we work out whether this practice is the right place. If what you need is medical detoxification or inpatient care, we will say so directly rather than take you on.