The word “alcoholic” is a tricky damn thing. Even now, sometimes, I think of an alcoholic as the guy in the gutter, the greasy, sweaty, creepy guy. Alcoholics beat their wives, drive drunk, don’t show up to work. Alcoholics get evicted when they can’t make rent because they spent everything on booze.

It stands to reason, then, that if you’ve steered clear of all those problems, you’re not an alcoholic. And if you say you have a drinking problem, then that just means that you are an alcoholic, but you’re not admitting it to yourself. So where the hell do I land?

I’ve been completely sober for about two weeks now. Before now, I would average maybe one or two drinks a night, a little more on the weekends, and some days I wouldn’t even drink at all. Definitely not an alcoholic, because an alcoholic would be drinking first thing in the morning. An alcoholic wouldn’t be able to stop, no matter what. And I stopped, and I feel great, so there’s no problem.

But I used to drink quite a bit more than just a few times a week. I was averaging between half a fifth to a full fifth, usually of whiskey or vodka, every single night, for roughly two years. I would buy a fifth right after work (if I was out–I only ever had a single bottle on hand at a time), drink it mindlessly in the dark in my studio apartment, and laugh and think and write. I would look over at the bottle, only about a quarter empty and think “Great, I can have one or two more glasses before I should think about calling it quits.” Stopping was never easy, either. I had to wrestle with myself once I got to that halfway point, telling myself that I would regret it in the morning. When I was really drunk, when I came home from a bar or a party, where I wouldn’t be able to use my bottle-measuring method to track how much I was drinking, I would always drink a little bit more. Drinks with friends are different from drinks with yourself, and I’ve always loved the latter more than the former. In the mornings, back then, I would be a little sick and a little tired, laying in my bed in the quiet, with a little bit of a headache, watching the sun come in through the window by the bed, the sun’s beams cutting an orange square on the wall opposite me. Those were some of the best days of my life, as it were.

Alcohol has never ruined my life. Maybe sometimes, when I was really depressed, I wanted it to. If alcohol ruined me, then that meant I was a little less accountable. Everyone loves an addiction sob story. It definitely made my life worse, at least a little bit, because I could never think as straight, and I couldn’t handle things as well as I could when I was off it. And when I drink now, I tell myself that this cognitive decline only happens when I have a lot, but it happens no matter how much I have and I know better than that. If I could catch a glimpse of myself when I say these things, I imagine I would shoot a knowing wink at the reflection, like I’m in on the joke.