Early signs of alcoholism?

I am a teenager and I am underage. Every morning before I go to school I steal liqour from my parents cabinet and pour it into a water bottle. I drink it during the school day and I walk around drunk. None of my friends know. They think I'm innocent and that I've never even looked at alcohol. I know this is bad and I really don't want to be judged. That's why I'm on this forum. People here seem to be more empathetic and offer valid advice, not judgement.

The reason why I drink is because I am severly depressed.
I feel like I can't function properly when I'm sober. When I go to school sober I usually end up having a panic attack. I also feel like I'm boring when I'm sober. When I'm drunk I'm more adventurous and happy. I'm more talkative and have little social anxiety. When I'm sober I can't speak to strangers and I just sit around being quiet, dwelling on my thoughts. Alcohol is my medicine. Sometimes when I don't have acess to it before I school I just fake an illness and stay home. You might be wondering how my grades are affected by this. They aren't. I can still focus on tasks, although my vision might be blurry and it maybe hard to write.

Now I don't think that I'm an alcoholic since this has only been going on for a few months. I just want to know if any people who have been addicted to alcohol started out like me. Are my habits troublesome? I don't want to end up addicted. I want to seek help but I'm afraid I might reveal my drinking habits to a therapist and they might tell my parents who'll proably start hiding liqour from me. I like how alcohol makes me feel, but I know that I shouldn't be drinkning at this age.

Hello,

big hugs.

I'm really sorry to say that but this is exactly how my own alcoholism started. I found out that when I drank, depression went away for a short period. What I failed to understand was that alcohol is a depressant, so drinking on Monday made me feel worse on Tuesday, so I drank again which made me feel worse on Wednesday... etc. It's very common for people with depression or other mental problems to abuse substances, it's called self-medicating.

You do not mention whether you are receiving psychiatric care. I don't know how it works where you are. Here in the Netherlands the right way to go is to visit your GP and ask for a referral to a psychiatrist. Medication (anti-depressants most probably) can really help with depression and panic attacks, I've been there and it worked, but it took me a year of drinking heavily to get to the point where I would either die or see a doctor. Please don't let yourself get to this point.

Depending on the country you are from (or state in the US) the law might either require the therapist/psychiatrist to speak with your parents, or forbid them from doing so. You can google the place you are at and "psychiatrist confidentiality underage" and see what comes up.

I hope it gets easier for you soon.

Look here's the deal man I drank when I was your age real heavy. I don't even think anybody under 25 could be considered an alcoholic too young. What you are doing is developing habits that will be very difficult to break later on in life. I drank heavy for 15 years because I had mental health issues. You need to find out why you're anxious and fix that. Depression and anxiety are tied together. Your anxiety will get worse as you drink as well . Drinking causes anxiety .You can go see psychiatrist and they could give you some medication to get through just fine. I didn't know I was an alcoholic till I was like 24. I drink everyday like you. Started at 14. Another thing is it's very difficult to mask the smell on alcohol. Can't cover it up like other drugs. Sooner or later you will get caught. Everybody always smells alcohol. Just goes along with drinking. They could kick you out of school. You could have legal problems. All kinds of issues which I had. If you're drinking to feel better or to cover up other issues you're going to have a problem. Most people drink to socialize or don't drink for mental for psychological reasons. They don't even think about that kind of stuff. I drink cuz I had bipolar and serious mental health issues and it just went downhill from there. You need to tell somebody what you're doing. Maybe tell your parents or a counselor or somebody. Nothing to be embarrassed about. They won't get upset and maybe you can get help before the drinking effects your life negatively. I seriously think 20 years of drinking made my mental health problems worse. Drinking is one of the worst drugs you can use. There are plenty of Alternatives if you have depression. They could give you benzodiazepines. They could give you antidepressants. There's all kinds of medicine out there. And it's all prescribed to you legally. It won't work quite as good as alcohol but it still works pretty good. Once you treat the depression trust me the anxiety will fade and you will soon forget about it. I think a lot of people your age have anxiety anyways because of that point in their life. I know once I got out of high school and got older things got a lot better. I had stress at that age to. I would tell your parents that you've been drinking because you have depression. That's what I should have done. And that you need to see a doctor and they can give you anxiety or depression medicine. That way when you do drink socially or with your friends you do not develop a problem. Trust me you do not want to go down the road of hard drinking.