There isn't necessarily a hard and fast rule for identifying the symptoms and signs of addiction and alcoholism. Often your sixth sense will be a good indicator and give you the sense that something is wrong - but you usually want more in the way of facts to be sure.

It can also depend on who's point of view you're looking at the situation from. Are you concerned about your own drug or alcohol use and so want to be able to pick up on the symptoms yourself?

On the other hand, you may be worried about your husband, wife, partner or friend. I can't promise to provide you with foolproof indicators - but I'll try and provide you with a couple of pointers, and if you then want more comprehensive info - follow the links to my site.

You may begin to notice physical signs of an addiction to alcohol or drugs in the form of liver problems, which can show up as fatigue and various other things. High Blood pressure is also often a sign - but unless you go to see a Doctor, these are obviously more difficult to be sure of.

When looking at the more typical signs of addiction - an increase in tolerance for alcohol or drugs, withdrawals, and failed promises to reduce your intake are common.

I guess from my side, the signs that I always look out for to indicate that things are seriously wrong, is when you begin to lose yourself, and everyday issues that used to fine are impacted - which can be anything from relationships, jobs, college and friendships.

Another good way to test for addiction is to use psychometric type addiction and alcoholism tests - which are mostly very accurate in identifying a genuine addiction problem. I don't unfortunately have enough space to put them here - but feel free to visit my website to try one.

So at the end of day, determining whether or not there is indeed an addiction problem, can be done using a variety of different methods. So look at all the signs and symptoms, try a 'test' and I think you will have a pretty good idea.