Alcoholism: the American standards

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was sitting here the other day, having a nice cold beer, (Fat Tire if you’re interested) when one of my roommates made a comment on how I drink too much.

“I see you having a beer everyday!” said she.

After I asked her why that mattered, she said that I might be an alcoholic and I should seek help.

I have never yelled or become violent when I’ve gotten drunk. I rarely get drunk when I’m drinking, simply b/c most of the time I’m drinking I’m having a beer or two with my meal or one while I’m watching wrestling or after work with my workmates.

I’ve never missed paying a bill or my rent because I spent all of my money on alcohol.

So what do you guys think? There seems to be some strange standards of what turns you into a person with a problem.

I’ve heard if you drink more than 3 times a week, if you drink on work nights, if you drink alone, or if you drink because you’re having a bad day. All of these in peoples eyes seem to indicate that you have a problem.

Also, foreign dopers, is it the same in your countries?

If I’m watching wrestling with two other guys who don’t drink, but I have one, is that considered drinking alone?

Looking for personal O’s, and standards that you’ve heard from other people.

2

Well by those stansards I guess I’d be considered an alcholic too. So maybe my two cents don’t really mean a shit. But I think what they call people like you and me, mr. splitfoot, is functioning alcoholics. Now why this is bad outside of your destroying your body; I don’t know.

3

No.

Both in the UK (where I come from) and here in Sweden we make jokes about Americans and how even thinking about alcohol seems to constitute a drinking problem.

To me you sound absolutely normal.

4

I think you need at least three of those, consistently, before you can even possibly be considered an alcoholic. Drink more than three times a week? Sure, I do that… and then go two months without touching a drop. Drink on work nights? Well, doesn’t apply for me right now… I don’t start work again 'til mid-June. Drink alone? Bah. Frankly, I see no problem with drinking alone, in and of itself. Drink because you’re having a bad day? Fuck, a stiff drink can help relieve unnecessary tension.

Frankly, I think that people have become TOO sensitive about drinking. Some people have real drinking problems, yeah… but as you said, your drinking doesn’t interfere with the rest of your life. THAT, I think, is the biggest sign of alcoholism.

5

Furthermore, I think there should be a distinction between “having a drink” and “getting drunk”. I “have a drink” quite often… whether it’s some spiced vermouth with one buddy, or the occasional Cosmo with another. It’s very, very rare, however, for me to get drop-dead absolutely-smashed puking-up-a-lung drunk. If someone does THAT more than three times a week, consistently, I’d say that constitutes a bit of a problem.

6

Well I guess I screwed that bit of quoting up.

Perhaps I should stop drinking …

7

One beer a day? Really don’t think that’s alcoholism. Would you feel uneasy if you didn’t have a drink for a day or two?

By the way, for a diagnostic definition of alcoholism, look here.

8

It just occured to me that I/most people would feel uneasy if they missed doing anything they normally do. such as having a bowl of cereal in the morning, or watching your favourite TV program.

So unless frosted shredies and frasier are adictive drugs I don’t think people should worry about dependency (unless it’s serious)

9

Down here, the general recommendation is that men drink less than four standard drinks per day and keep at least two days a week alcohol-free. Under that standard, you’re perfectly fine.

In fact, while not every guy has a beer every night, your level of drinking would not draw any negative comments.

Lobsang, the reason people have defined dependency traits for alcohol is that unlike frosted shreddies and Frasier, alcohol is a drug that can lead to physiological dependency.

10

I drank a lot more than that, and I am not an alcoholic. Amount and frequency do not define alcoholism. They may show Problem Drinking, Alcohol Dependency, Alcohol Abuse, Being a Drunk, etc…, but being an alcoholic is more than just drinking a lot.

11

From my experience on these boards, there is a yawning chasm between US and European attitudes to alcohol. While we in Ireland are starting to become more critical of the role alcohol plays in our society, there is still a general view that, within reason, drinking is a rite of passage for young people and a legitimate social outlet for the wider population. We are very slow to make accusations or suppositions of alcoholism. Unfortunately, however, Ireland and probably the UK, have very high levels of alcohol-related domestic violence and public order offences as well as a wide range of other drink-fuelled social problems.

Many would say that we have a lot to learn from the US on this issue but I would tend to look more towards the continent. Whether it’s down to the puritanical heritage or the currency of the language and ideas of psychoanalysis, it appears to me that the US is too quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Meeting friends for a pint and a chat (and occasionally a piss-up) is one of life’s great pleasures. Office parties or indeed any other kind of party would, in my view, be very insipid affairs without a bit of lubrication.

Much of continental Europe seem to have the balance right - little binge drinking but regular moderate alcohol consumption, often with food and family. Their town and city centres are not abandoned to the 17-35 age group at night. Children and older people are not made to feel unwelcome in social settings. The Irish mindset is already shifting slightly in this direction as travel becomes more common but, for now, we’ll have to put up with our juvenile attitude to alcohol.

12

While things are a-changin’ here, you will still see many workers drinking a beer and a shot of digestiv while eating their morning breadrolls. There is a half-liter (16ozs) of beer drunk for every man, woman and child in this country EVERYDAY (5 million liters/day, 10 million ppl). This country is FULL of functional alcoholics, and the full-blown ones are multiplying. But alcohol has always been a large part of their society, soooo…How does one judge?

I have been struggling with this very question myself. I recently started a moderation program (check out www.moderation.org ) to assess whether or not I am pushing things a bit too far.

I am also starting to think about a multiplied level based on the fact that many doctors recommend a drink a day for heart benefits, etc.:

7 drinks a week: Healthy by some standards. If people have a problem with this, then I feel they are over-reacting.
14 drinks a week: Not twice as healthy, but probably still acceptable. 1/day M-R, plus 5/day on Friday and Saturday sounds like the average partyer without huge hangovers.
21 drinks/week: Well…Now you’re approaching the average Czech male labourer, probably not the best thing for you. This is roughly a bottle of wine a day! Or 1/day M-R, and Whoo-hoo on the weekends!
28 drinks/week: Yeah, you could say your getting drunk too often. You probably wake up a few days hung-over and not doing so hot. Cutting back would be a good decision.
35 drinks a week+: Who are you kidding, ya lush! Get some help.

BUT, of course, each person is different and needs to talk to a doctor if they feel they don’t know what is acceptable. I’m going to shoot for <14/week from here on out, with a few days of nothing in between.

-Tcat

13

I drink more than 3 times a week, i drink on work nights, i drink alone, and i will sometimes have a drink if i’ve had a bad day. Which sounds pretty bad when i type it all out like that, but i wouldn’t consider myself to have a problem.

I think its only a problem if you’re dependent on alcohol. So if you need drink to get you though the day, or if the thought of going one day without alcohol is unpleasant then you have a problem. You sound fine to me.

I’ve never been to the US in my adult life, but the perception i have is that Americans are a lot less tolerant of alcohol. Threads like this tend to reinforce that view.

14

Good observation, MWAP. I’m interested in why there’s a difference between the US and Ireland/UK.

Here’s what I think - based solely on my personal experience. WARNING: may contain overgeneralisations.

One of the questions on the AA “are you an alcoholic” questionnaire is something like “does most of your socialising involve alcohol?”. My answer: well duh, I live in Ireland. In Dublin, or when I lived in England, my friends and I might meet for “one” pint (which might end up being three, or may indeed sometimes turn into 8 and a kebab), but we go to the pub to meet each other and socialise - we don’t necessarily come out totally legless. However, the Americans I’ve known (in the US) who drink booze, have tended to drink to get shitfaced. When I went out drinking with people in Connecticut, they would chug three large dry martinis straight off, then jello shots, and within 2 hours they were on their asses and would go home. One night in CT my roommate offered to mix me a G&T. I drank it and had to go straight to bed because I was so twatted. Few people I met over there would go to the pub as a social centre, Cheers-style. And therein lies the difference, IMO.

We in Ireland and the UK do indeed drink too much, especially aforementioned “youths”, but the ability to separate mild inhibition brought about by booze, from total intoxication, is what defines the chasm. As MWAP says, the Continentals are way better at this than we are.

15

Ithink the question of alcoholism lies not so much in how much or how often you drink, but rather whether your drinking gets you into trouble.

16

Er… yeah, I drink to become inhibited. :smack:

I mean “disinhibition”, of course.

17

The USA is becoming overrun by “we must save you from yourselves” cultists. For example, the CDC here released a “study” that was nothing better than a telephone survey. They claimed that “binge drinking” had risen significantly from 1993 to 2001.

However, typical of such “studies”, there was no real science involved. First, it was a random telephone survey. This is not a method for serious social science. This is a method of political pollsters trying to generate some quick numbers to put spin on. A real behavioral survey is too involved to deliver as a random-dialed phone survey.

Second, the CDC defined a “binge” as “consumption of 5 or more alcoholic beverages on 1 occasion”. It did NOT specify how much alcohol was consumed nor the strength of the alcohol. Thus, if you have five four-ounce cups of 1% alcohol fruit punch during a four-hour picnic, you are “binge drinking” according to the CDC. However, if you slam down four eight-ounce glasses of straight-up barrel-strength bourbon, you are NOT “binge drinking” according to the CDC.

This seems to be typical of all such “We must protect people from themselves.” cultism in the USA.

http://reason.com/links/links010303.shtml
http://www.cato.org/dailys/01-07-03.html

18

Alcoholism runs in my family and, as a result, most of us get pretty alarmist about drinking. In fact, I’m the only one in my immediate family who drinks at all (I usually have (actually about 2/3 of) a glass of wine when I eat out, and might buy some beer, wine, or cider to keep at home–where it lasts about 2 weeks–once every 2-3 months), and don’t think that doesn’t make the other members nervous!

Case in point: I once made dinner for three friends. The four of us polished off the bottle of wine I’d bought, so after dinner two of said friends happily popped out to get another bottle. My mom happened to call while the other two of us were waiting for them to get back, and was horrified that we’d finished ONE bottle of wine, let alone that we were about to pop open another! “Jugheads”, she called us.

Dude, if I drank, say, a beer a day, I have no doubt that my family would perform a serious intervention.

So yeah. Sometimes attitudes about drinking can get tiring.

(Two other red flags with my family, besides the ones mentioned in this thread, is if you can drink a lot without getting drunk, and if you’re drinking in the morning. So much for the Bloody Mary brunch . . . )

That said, I sometimes wonder if I’m not a little too casual (a reactionary/rebellious measure?) about drinking. For example, my SO is far more concerned than I am about drinking and driving. I’d never get behind the wheel totally sloshed, mind you (I did that once, when I was very young, and although I got home safely, the effort it took scared the shit out of me), but I think nothing of driving home after a glass of wine, whereas the SO champions Total Abstinence if there’s going to be driving involved (and as a result is often the Designated Driver when we go out to dinner, so that I can have that glass of wine).

So I’m still trying to find the middle ground, here, which ain’t easy; on the one hand, I’ve got my family crying “Alcoholic!” if someone has more than one glass of wine at dinner, and on the other I’ve got memories of my father, who not only drank and drove, he drank while driving (his Old Charter & Pepsi propped between his legs) . . .

19

If you buy into the theory that alcoholism is genetic, the argument goes as follows:

People with the alcoholic gene have the ability to drink in excess, to the point where if they’ve blacked-out more than once a year, they’re alcoholic.

People without the alcoholic gene don’t have the physiological ability to drink in excess, they fall asleep before getting sloshed, as a kind of a dfense mechanism, hence they can’t be labelled alcocholic.

20

First, relax. You’re not an alcoholic.

Second, Americans in general can be a bit puritanical about drinking. There are so many people who just love to get all self-righteous and point out the supposed problems of others. It makes me nuts sometimes.

I’ve had people (who were sitting at the bar next to me, for god’s sake!) insinuate that I had a problem because I’d order a whiskey on the rocks while they had a white wine. Please.

I’ve had people say, when told that I am going to a bar or pub to meet friends, say idiotic crap like “can’t you have fun without alcohol?” To which the answer is, no, you moronic busybody, because all my friends will be down at [insert name of local hangout) tonight, and unless I want to be a recluse, that’s where I have to go to socialize with them.

Your roommate has a problem minding her own business. You do not have a problem. If you’re drinking a beer a day, so what? That amounts to nothing. Really.