When I was a kid (early 80s probably) I remember seeing a PSA for alcoholism. In the announcement, the narrator stated that it takes the average alcoholic 25 years to grow out of their alcoholism.
I have since never heard that phrase uttered out of a PSA. So I assume it bull shit.
That Said:
My last drink was on New Years Eve. Normally, I only drink one or two times a week. But when I do drink, I tend to get pretty toasty. I didn’t quit because alcohol was ruining my life or affecting my job. I quit because the next day hang overs got to be too high a price to pay.
The strange thing is though, I haven’t been having any cravings for alcohol. I’ve tried to quit in the past, but have always gave into temptation (Back then though, the hang overs weren’t that bad).
One thing to consider is I’ve replaced my 1 or 2 times a week drinking habit with cannabis edibles. I drink about a 2oz shot of “Cannabis chocolate milk”. The head feeling I get in nowhere near as intense as the alcohol, but still, the people on the TV sure are funny!
An unintended side effect of taking this Cannabis milk is that is has lessened my anxiety issues by about 80-freak’n-percent! I wake up the next morning feeling well rested and bullet proof (yay!).
So what happened here?
Is the cannabis just replacing the alcohol?
Is the cannabis acting as medication to keep me from going back to alcohol?
Was I never really an alcoholic in the first place?
Scientific wild-assed guess: you’re self-medicating your underlying anxiety with alcohol rather than getting professional counseling and buying the prescribed pharmaceutical. And you just changed your “meds.” You could be me. I used to deal with anxiety attacks by drinking way too much, but have recently made some changes that involve a lot less alcohol. Booze now is all about taste and a modest buzz. But fairly frequently I need to turn off my brain and that means hitting the vape at bedtime and getting a decent night’s rest. FTR, I tried to be a lawful good about it and got the counseling and the prescription, neither were particularly helpful and the prescriptions had disproportionate and disruptive side effects.
I’m intensely interested as well to know whether or not alcoholism is a lifelong thing like a lobotomy or amputation vs. situational/maturity related.
IMO you are just using another crutch. Personally, I have no moral objection to you doing whatever gets you through life in a pleasant way. My problem with it is you’re going to have to increase the ‘dosage’ over time as your body adjusts to it. I’d watch out for that.
I think cannabis is less likely to cause as many health issues as alcohol does, though.
I’m not sure I’d classify your situation as “alcoholic”. Your drinking behavior is potentially problematic and unhealthy, but if this is an accurate description, well: I’ve never known an alcoholic who drinks “one or two times a week”. Perhaps that’s just survivorship bias. The ones who start out that way end up drinking all the time, and that’s when you notice.
I have also at times drunk more than I thought was good for me. I don’t think that makes me an alcoholic. I’ve had no trouble giving up alcohol for extended periods, not intending to quit forever, just making a lifestyle change to be healthier. Just like I sometimes make more of an effort to eat healthier or exercise more.
It does sound like you’re self-medicating, and that you’ve replaced your medication of choice. Like Beckdawrek says, this could end up spiraling out of control. Or it might not. Lots of people do use limited amounts of drugs and manage not to spiral into addiction or self-destruction.
If you got heavily drunk twice a week for a long period of time, that does sound like alcoholism. It seems like you were self-medicating with something really shitty and that the terrible habit of frequent and heavy alcohol consumption was starting to catch up with you. Now you’re doing better after having switched to a form of self-medication which fewer downsides, especially since you don’t smoke it. As forms of self-medication go, pot’s not so bad and may be better than SSRIs for many people.
You may want to avoid relying solely on substances for anxiety. Exercise and meditation are great mood lifters and anti-anxiety activities and I hear they can be pretty nice while on pot.
I’d say it depends on your definition of alcoholism. To me, binge drinking twice a week is problematic behavior but doesn’t mean you are an alcoholic. Some progress to drinking more and some don’t. I’ve known a few people who have grown away from problem drinking because of lifestyle changes. It certainly happens. I believe there are cites that say the majority of addicts don’t get treatment, they just stop on their own for various reasons.
I would guess the cost/benefit ratio just got too high. Also, the cannabis is swaying your desire for it in the first place these days.
So… Whatever the reasons were, conscious or not, for drinking they probably haven’t changed just because the cannabis took alcohol’s place. That being said, if you’re not being negatively impacted in your life, have at it!
There’s a difference between a problem drinker and an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive, fatal disease that never gets better and can only be arrested, not cured. The chronic alcoholic cannot simply decide to quit drinking because of adverse consequences but the problem drinker can. You sound like problem or heavy drinker at most and I’m not even sure of that! Hope that helps.
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I guess I was a problem drinker between the ages of 17 and 53, when I found that I had to have no feeling of having ingested alcohol the night before if I was going to get up in front of people, lecture to them and take questions on the content of the lecture. So I don’t drink anymore. I used to love to get shit-faced and “party” over several days, but by the time I got to 50 or so, I just didn’t have the stamina. So I’d have to say I grew out of it. But it took a long time, fortunately. Smiley.
Thankfully I never had the stamina for this. If I have a bottle or more of wine per day over 2 or 3 days, my body says enough so I have to stop for a couple days. The last time I did this was in London last November, now granted, I didn’t actually feel as bad as I usually did when I used to do this once in awhile, because I walked a lot and ate a lot, but still if I had done another day of drinking and sightseeing I would have felt pretty tired afterward.
I’ve never been close to a problem drinker, so I don’t know if my experience matters much here. But as I get older, I find my desire for any alcohol greatly diminished. Where I used to enjoy a beer now and again, especially with dinner, I’m now (in my late 40s) almost completely indifferent. I could easily go the rest of my life and never have another alcoholic drink.
