Drinking Questionnaire

In college my peers and I were exposed to the routine kind of drinking questionnaire that one expects from university health care departments: Do you ever drink alone? Have you ever blacked out? Do you drink to escape from your problems? etc.

That sort of questionnaire has its place, to be sure, but it also strikes me as being a bit academic and clinical. So, having in the course of my career adopted techniques from the ethnography school of research, I spoke with real alcoholics and inquired into what they think would make good questions to test for alcoholism based on their real-world experience. Below I’ve listed some of the statements I heard.

You might be an alcoholic if:
* You have ever been arrested while you were in jail.
* You have ever been run over by a car while you were driving it.
* You drive with an eye-patch to cure double vision.
* You have placed a bet on a bar fight.
* You have driven off with the cop car instead of your own car after avoiding being arrested for DUI.

Forewarned is forearmed.