A problem drinker can afford to buy the next round.
Heh. So can I. 
I think that they are both very inexact terms that don’t have agreed upon definitions. I think that if you feel that you may fall into either category, it’s best to leave the booze alone.
In other words, if you are facing jail because of your 3rd DUI, you lost your job and family, you have no money, and you puke your guts out every day, does it matter if you are able to parse the terms and come up with an argument as to why you are merely a problem drinker instead of an alcoholic?
Or if you just drink too much sometimes does it make you feel better about this to think of yourself as being an alcoholic rather than having a character flaw?
In my opinion, it doesn’t matter as either way you have to make the choice that is best for you, regardless of the word that is attached to what you do with regards to booze.
Seems like it comes down to this: a problem drinker *can *stop, but doesn’t want to. An alcoholic *can’t *stop (at least not without foregoing alcohol forever, enrolling in a program, going to meetings, etc.).
My definitions would be the same as Claire Beauchamp’s.
The problem may become then: What does it mean to be addicted? But I will leave that for others.
Maybe Saintly Loser has it.
I think that, in much the same way that Christians believe that Jesus has some control over their lives, alcoholics are people who believe that it is alcohol, not themselves, that controls their drinking.
For me, I knew I was an alcoholic once I started hiding it and became embarrassed about it. Especially considering I hid it from my fiance.
The drinking to excess when alone also did it.
One time when I was in the hospital the nurse came by and asked what I wanted for lunch. I asked for my favorite brand of beer. He told me that they had had a patient who was an alcoholic who got a bottle of beer each night to prevent the DTs. (He was obviously in for something non-related.) That to me was one of the difference.
At my hospital, they would give you drugs for that, rather than alcohol (chlorolhydrate? Something like that).
I wondered at the time if the nurse was having me on. The night nurses were almost exclusively male (I don’t know why) and I was one of the least sick in the ICU. After they did their rounds they would often come over and chat and bust my stones a bit. This was the same guy who - when I commented that the pain meds gave me hallucinations - reminded me that many people had died in that bed and maybe they weren’t hallucinations, but instead were hauntings.
Heh.
But DTs are no joke- up to 15% of folks that get them can die from them. The head nurse on my unit, the lovely and bad-ass Regina, insisted that no one was gonna die on her unit!
I’m the same way, though I just drink when I feel like it instead of just on holidays or my birthday – neither of which I usually drink on – and I consider myself a binge drinker.
The difference between a problem drinker and an alcoholic? The AA meetings, of course.
If the drinks are free or others in my social group are drinking at bars, parties etc. I have a tendency to drink too much, but I don’t drink outside of social events, nor do I keep alcohol in the house. In specific scenarios I am a borderline “problem drinker” but they are limited. If the party is boring I have no problem leaving after 1-2 drinks. If it’s great party that’s when problems arise.