How do you know if you're close to a drink?

To drink, the mental obsession would need to return, i.e. the thought that a drink is a good idea even though my experience tells me it isn't. To give in to the mental obsession is to rate short-term gain more highly than the long-term pain it will invariably cause.

However, that's not enough: I would need to be disconnected from God. The lower authority, my mind, would need to make a decision without the higher authority, God, stepping in. The higher authority operates at a spiritual level not an intellectual level. We recoil as if from a hot flame; we do not think it through. Revulsion or walking away from a drinking situation is the sign that this higher authority is in charge.

How do you tell whether you're disconnected from God?

You can come at this from two angles:

How is my thinking or behaviour disconnecting me from God?

Death threats

What symptoms to do I have of being disconnected from God?

Discussion of the bedevilments

So, to test how close you are to a drink:

1. What action do I take, or am tempted to take, that gives me short-term gain but long-term pain.

2. What am I doing that separates me from God?

Am I resentful?
Is my behaviour harming others?
Am I keeping secrets?
Am I facing my creditors?
Have I done my utmost to straighten out the past?
Am I complacent about my alcoholism?
Have I abandoned myself to work and self-sacrifice to others?

3. Symptoms

Am I having trouble with personal relationships?
Am I being controlled by my emotional nature?
Am I a prey to misery and depression?
Am I able to make a living?
Do I feel useless?
Am I full of fear?
Am I unhappy?
Am I able to be of real help to anyone?

The answers to these questions should give you a pretty good idea of how close you are to a drink.