Are you wondering if your drinking has become a problem? Are you worried you’ve crossed the line from casual drinking to heavy alcohol use? It’s good to take some time and assess your alcohol use. By recognizing your drinking patterns, you can take the necessary strategies to help minimize its impact. Here, you can find out more about the different types of alcoholism assessments that can help.
What Is Dual Diagnosis? What Tests Are Used To Diagnose Alcoholism?
A mental health expert or primary care physician can suggest screening for alcohol use. A mental health expert specializes in treating and diagnosing psychological complications. Some can also alleviate alcohol use disorder.
Various alcoholism assessment tools exist that can help evaluate your drinking habits. Each is packed with a series of questions. Experts will use these tests to get a better perspective of how drinking is affecting your life. The go-to alcohol screening tools include:
AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) –
This test for alcohol abuse features 10 multi-choice questions. These questions evaluate the extent of the addiction or drinking habit. You will be asked how much and how often you are drinking. Including whether you experience any alcohol-related reactions or complications. You will then receive a score based on the provided answers. If the score is 8 or higher, it could be a clear indicator of alcohol use disorder. (1)
CAGE (Cut Down Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-Opener) –
CAGE is a simplified version with “yes” or “no” answers. This is a self-guided alcohol assessment tool capable of determining if your drinking is a problem. If this self-screening shows a high chance of unhealthy alcohol use, talk to a specialist.
CAGE (Cut Down Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-Opener) –
This is a shorter version of AUDIT, featuring 3 multiple-choice questions. Every answer during this screening and assessment is valued from 0 to 4 points. The higher the points, the bigger the odds of having alcohol use disorder.
Other alcoholism assessment tools include T-ACE and SBI. T-ACE is a test quite like the CAGE assessment tool. This one, however, is tailored toward pregnant women and has “yes” or “no” questions. For brief interventions, the SBI tools can help.
This is another “yes” or “no” question test that can show if you are vulnerable to a severe drinking problem. Two or more “yes” answers with these assessment tools, could be a probable indicator of alcohol use disorder. (2)
