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This just isn't true. You can be an alcoholic in high school.
Being an alcoholic doesn't always look the same way in different people. Not every alcoholic is a daily maintenance drinker with a physical dependence. People who, despite attempting to set limits, are unable to stop drinking once they start can be alcoholics. People who have an obsession and a compulsion around drinking can be alcoholics. People who rely on alcohol to regulate mood and bargain with themselves in the interest of drinking can be alcoholics.
Everyone thinks that if you're an alcoholic you live in a gutter and wear fingerless hobo gloves, and it isn't true.
Don't get me wrong, not everyone who "abuses" alcohol is an alcoholic, and many people go through that "typical" binge drinking phase and emerge no worse for the wear, with no desire to relive or continue it. Alcoholism is honestly a self-diagnosis really, and the bottom line is really "Do I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol or an outsized preoccupation with obtaining and drinking it, and lastly, do I suffer from consequences when I drink it?". The best general rule of thumb in my opinion is pretty straight forward: Most people don't sit around and invest a bunch of time and thought into considering whether they are or are not alcoholic. Chances are that if something has caused you to start to evaluate your drinking, whether it be obsessively counting drinks, drawing "lines in the sand" about what you will or won't drink on a given outing, and/or overly comparing your drinking habits to others, well...you've probably got some alcoholic tendencies, but like almost with everything else, nothing is black and white and absolute, alcoholism and it's severity exists on a spectrum or a continuum.
It is true that most people don't seek out help for drinking issues until later on in life, but almost to the one, as those people look back, it's clear as day that they were behaving in alcoholic ways dating back to their teens and sometimes earlier. Many people will tell you that alcoholism is a misnomer in that drinking is just a symptom of a larger issue often referred to as Alcoholism. I personally don't buy into the traditional post-'56 "disease concept" as the "science" is laughable, but I do think that there is definitely a genetic predisposition for all sorts of addiction issues including booze, that when combined with the right environ factors lead to abusing substances, sex, food, etc.
OP, do you have people in your immediate family with alcoholism issues? How about people with relatively severe mood/anxiety disorders? It's pretty common for young people that haven't been diagnosed with certain mental afflictions, or chemical imbalances to either consciously or unconsciously self-medicate with alcohol and other drugs, which can than bloom into full-blown alcohol/drug dependency.
I also hate when people say shit like "Just moderate....show some self-control." For many people it isn't nearly that easy, and if you think that's a cop out and you can't relate, well good, congrats you're not an alcoholic/addict!
And OP, I hope for your sake you aren't, and even if your drinking is leaning in that direction, that doesn't necessarily mean you're "doomed" to live an alcoholic lifestyle. I know it somewhat contradicts what I've said previously, but maybe you should take a break from drinking. Just because you've begun to abuse alcohol doesn't mean you have to continue to do so, but be honest with yourself. If you find yourself in 6 mos. drinking recklessly, it's interfering with your life, etc., maybe you and booze don't mix.
Lastly, I've battled some significant addiction issues, and I have been relatively healthy for something like 3 years, though I don't subscribe to 12 step methodology, nor am I living clean and sober. I was able to obtain some balance in my life, and truthfully, many people who identify as alcoholics will naturally stop drinking without the aid of treatment. It's funny....the natural recidivism rate for alcoholism is 10% whereas the common success rate of AA is 5%....
