Usually, a person dependent on alcohol turns to specialists for help, or, more often, he is forced to take this step by relatives (wife, mother) when he already has signs alcoholism at least stage 2-3. The fourth stage is accompanied by the disintegration of the personality and profound somatic changes, leading, as a rule, to death. How can a person himself or his close circle understand that something is happening to him that does not correspond to healthy behavior? What stage of the disease is he at, and does he even have a disease? It is quite simple for a specialist to answer them. It is sometimes very difficult for a dependent person to accept these answers as a fait accompli that he has acquired a disease in his life, and sometimes this does not happen at all. After all, one of the signs of alcoholism is anosognosia - a person’s denial of his disease. Such people say about themselves: “I just like to drink”, “I drink like everyone else on holidays”, “Yes, I’m a drunkard, but not an alcoholic”, “I know my norm”, etc. In many ways, this position is supported by stereotypes of society’s perception of an alcoholic as a person who has reached a certain bottom: lying under a fence, collecting bottles, without a family, work or permanent place of residence. In other words, for many, an alcoholic is a person who has reached the last stage of the disease. In fact, the answer to the question of whether I am an alcoholic or not is quite simple: if you think about it, then most likely, at a minimum, there is a psychological dependence on alcohol, i.e. The first stage of alcoholism has already been formed and will gradually develop if you continue to lead the same lifestyle. As they say, you don’t become an alcoholic on Thursday morning. Narcologists believe that the second stage is characterized by the appearance of physical dependence, namely, the presence of a loss of control over consumption, when a constant increase in the dose of drinking is required, and the appearance of withdrawal syndrome, or, in common parlance, a hangover. This is why so-called binge drinking occurs, when a person drinks for several days in a row. This stage can last up to 15-20 years, and may soon move into the third stage, accompanied by the loss of work, family, health and other previously existing values ​​in life. together with Yulia Vasyukova