My name is Jairo Jimenez and I am an alcoholic.

5 years ago I found myself in a really good financial situation, with lots of time to spare and nothing to do with my spare time. There was an awesome bar right across the street from my apartment, here in Fort Collins, Colorado.

I would frequently hang at this bar about 5 or 6 times per week. By going to this ‘watering hole’ I would meet new people, make new friends, and get involved in awesome conversations about anything, and everything, and of course get drunk. After the years went by, I got to learn a lot about alcohol, and eventually, I became a bartender. Which is a really reliable profession, as a bartender I managed to make a decent leaving, put myself through school, and have a little money to spare. It seems to me that no matter how bad the news says the economy is, the Bars never seem to run out of costumers. The come in hoping to get one to several alcoholic drinks in them.

Four months ago, I went to see a doctor because i was concerned about a pain in the right side of my abdomen. I was prescribed to quit drinking as soon as I could before my liver gave up on me, and I would have to start facing the real consequences of drinking. After three weeks of shakes and, over a month of insomnia, I decided to never drink again.

I have been sober for four months now; and I don’t think I will ever drink again.

But seeing people’s reactions; after I quit drinking, has raised a few questions in my mind.

When does one become an alcoholic?

Do we wait until our own organs start rejecting our own body to consider ourselves alcoholics?

Does the fact that you like to drink makes you and alcoholic?

These questions have been on my mind for the past couple of months, due to the fact that people around me think than it is really impressive that I haven’t had a sip of alcohol for the last four months. These are people who never drink more than two beverages per night out.

 These are people with families and successful carriers. Should we consider these people alcoholics because of the fact that they look forward to having those couple of drinks every once in a while?

And this questions really got in my mind when the same doctor who treated me after I physically hurt myself as a consequence of drinking told me “I could not go that long without a drink” he does not drink more than a few drinks per week but he says that he could not do without those drinks.

Would this be considered alcoholism? This is man with a family and is a successful doctor who never gets drunk.  Would he be considered an alcoholic because he looks forward to that day off where he would sit down in a bar and have a couple of drinks?

When I was drinking in excess, 5 to 6 times per week; people would judge me and call me and alcoholic. And my answer always was: "I am not an alcoholic, I am a 4.0 student." Or, "I am not an alcoholic, I am a responsible working man who works 6 days a week, and is never absent and never late to work." I finally admitted to having a problem when the delirium tremens started happening and I started the battle that I fight everyday today, the battle of making it one more day without a drink.

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The question and the purpose of this blog is to find the answers to at what point those one deserve to be called an alcoholic. Do we become alcoholics right after we have our first drink? Or do we need to wait for our bodies to give up and our lives to crash in consequence of alcohol for us to consider ourselves alcoholics? Or, do we become alcoholics somewhere in the middle of those questions?