I forgot to highlight the main part: 49.9% were drinkers who did not satisfy the criteria for either abuse or dependence.
All forcible commitees aside…anything that makes a person happy can’t be a bad thing. Booze “IS”. Sometimes. There is a fine line. It is a “hair line”. The mind is invincible when it WANTS to be.
Alcoholoism is NOT disease. It is a choice. It is the blatant refusal of SELF WORTH.
*Note - The above statement only applies to those that have not been pickled.
P.S.S. Yeah…right. Good one.
Keep on comming back. 
OTAY.
They must not work at my company. We probably go out drinking at least once a week.
I like to drink excessively as much as the next guy, but I can control myself. We had a company happy hour a few weeks ago and normally I would be getting smashed along with the rest of the crew except that particular night I happen to drive in. So I have like half a Michalobe Ultra and that’s it. Good thing too because I hit a DUI checkpoint leaving the city. Fortunately since I hadn’t been drinking, I could blow in the cops face all I want and all he could do is stand there and groove on it.
**Schlep **is right. The mind is invincible when it wants to be. Alchoholics, from what I’m told lack that off switch in their head that tells them “ok pal…you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here”…
Alcoholism is not determined by how much you drink. A definition of alcoholism that works for me is, “when you don’t know how intoxicated you will become when you start drinking”. On my first beer, I could never say whether I would have one or two, or end up face down in my own vomit. It was a crapshoot every night. People who party with the intention of getting shitfaced are not necessarily alcoholics.
I agree. Certainly a problem drinker- “true” alcoholic" or no, is safest by abstaining from drinking. However, I have a feeling that the AA people, when confronted with the rare problem drinker that has stopped being a problem, and started drinking responsibly- that that person was never a “true alcoholic” i the 1st place, sort of like the “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
Don’t get me wrong, AA is a great program and it works for many many people.
1)What makes you think there is a bright-line distinction for alcoholism? There are dependence syndromes and then there are dependence prodromes. Dependence is a certain type of relationship between consumer and activity, and it’s highly unlkely that it will turn out to be like a virus i.e. either you have it or you don’t.
2)DSM-IV looks at more than life-impairment. Tolerance and withdrawal are criteria, as is self-control. Whether there could be a more sensitive and specific basis diagnosis is open to debate, but DSM-IV doesn’t seem to have major shortcomings.
Cite?
If you noticed, in the NIAAA epidemiological study I quoted above, half of former alcohol dependents were able to drink without abuse or dependence. Hardly a rare outcome.
Are you telling me that it’s safer to drink than not drink, if you have had a history of past alcohol abuse? I can think of no dangers at all to not drink. If you’re going to make such an extraordinary claim, you’re going to have to find a cite.
No, I’m saying that you haven’t established that urging former alcoholics to abstain results in better outcomes than being more flexible. Specifically, who has the greater odds of relapsing - the reformed drinker or the abstainer who can’t resist temptation anymore for a single drink? If lifelong abstention can be reliably manifested, then of course, the abstainer is unequivocally pursuing the safer course, but you haven’t shown that’s the case. In other words, should abstinence be the desired reformation outcome?
If I read this right it says that if youy have a history of problems with alcohol you have a 50/50 chance of screwing the rest of you life up if your dring.
No, it says that if you have been addicted to alcohol, not just “history of problems with alcohol”, then there’s a 50% chance that you will drink without abusing or becoming dependent; 22% chance of being abstinent, and 28% chance of either abusing or being dependent on alcohol. Longitudinal cohort studies on two groups - Harvard undergraduates and socially disadvantaged Boston youth recruited in 1940 and followed for 60 years - have shown that many formerly alcohol-dependent subjects drank alcohol to the point of abuse, but without relapsing to dependence. So, even that 28% needs to be broken down into ‘abusers’ and ‘dependents’ for a better picture. As it stands, if you have a diagnosis of alcohol dependence and don’t get treatment, 74.2% will either abstain or drink without abuse/dependence. Among the 25.8%, it’s unclear how many are still dependent.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
(Percentage Distribution of Adults 18 Years of Age and Over with
Prior-to-Past-Year DSM-IV Alcohol Dependence by Past-Year Status,
According to Interval Since the Onset of Dependence and
Whether Ever Received Treatment for Alcohol Problems)
Int = Interval since onset of dependence
n = Number in sample
Ab/dep = Abusing or dependent (%)
Abst = Abstinent (%)
W/o = Drinking without abuse or dependence. (%)
Int n Ab/dep Abst W/o
[Ever received treatment]
<5y 139 69.9 11.1 19.0
5-10yr 296 38.2 29.6 32.2
10-20yr 489 25.6 44.4 30.0
20+yr 284 20.4 55.4 24.2
[Never received treatment]
<5yr 439 53.3 5.3 41.4
5-10yr 757 32.8 9.4 57.8
10-20yr 1160 19.8 15.9 64.3
20+yr 840 9.9 29.9 60.2
I stand corrected.
But:
How does any individual know in advance that he or she is in the lucky group?
I’m having trouble seening the useful purpose in telling the alcohol dependent that if they don’t abstain the odds pretty good, about 2:1, that they won’t screw up.
I don’t think its really necessary to give the alcohol depended a reasong to try drinking one more time.
One way to deal with the alcohol dependent person who questions that they can’t drink is to tell them to go ahead and try it. If they succed, fine. If they don’t, they should remember how to get back to you.