Donating blood as a borderline alcoholic

Hello everyone,

I went to donate blood yesterday and when asked if I was affected by alcoholism, I said no… The thing is that I’ve been drinking quite a lot of alcohol over the last two years (due to mental health reasons). BUT for two months now I have been drinking significantly less and during the last 5 days I had zero alcohol. That’s why I ticked “no” to the question, because I always assumed that because of alcohol, you’re only not allowed to donate if you’ve had a drink 48 hours before the donation.

After I thought about it again last night (and found an information online that you have to be abstinent for 12 months if you are an alcoholic – at least in Germany, where I am based), I’ve been feeling really guilty that I was harming someone by donating. 🙁

I wrote an e-mail to the blood donation organization this morning with my concerns and suggested that my donation will be excluded retrospectively. However, I didn’t receive an answer yet. Now I’m kinda panicking that they’ll read my email too late and the blood can’t be destroyed because it’s either no longer clearly attributable to my name or – in the worst case – has already been given to someone else. 🙁

What would you do if you were me?

Thank you! 😊