Drinking alcohol once in a while, especially with friends or during special occasions is normal. It’s just how some people have fun. There’s nothing wrong with this practice, just as long as you know when to stop.Psychologist & Counselling Service If you don’t know when to stop, you might be facing a more severe problem. There are serious health risks when alcohol dependence is untreated over time. You might not notice it, or you might try to heed the symptoms, but you shouldn’t take the issue of alcohol dependence lightly.

What are the Symptoms of Alcohol Dependency?
The symptoms of alcohol dependence can be difficult to notice because some might just understand it as social drinking. To know if your drinking has become an uncontrollable compulsion, you can try to look for these symptoms:

Neglecting responsibilities – this includes your responsibilities at home, school or work. Common scenarios that you may have in your life at the moment are being drunk the night before without giving any importance to a business meeting the next day or skipping out on prior commitments because you have a hangover.
Using alcohol where it’s dangerous – you’re fond of drinking before going to work, even if your work includes operating big machinery or even driving.
Experiencing legal problems – you’ve been arrested several times for driving under the influence of alcohol, and you have no concern if you make the same mistake again. You don’t care if your violations due to alcohol will increase.
You’re drinking causes problems to your relationships – your spouse and other family members are already reminding you to control your alcohol intake, but despite their reminders, you continue to drink behind their back. You start to come up with lies to allow you to still drink without them knowing.
Loss of control when you’re drinking – you promised to drink two glasses of wine but ended up emptying two bottles of beer.