Two to three pints.
There’s pretty much the special AA definition of everything, and then there’s reality. The special meaning of “sobriety” kicked back and forth in this thread is but one example.
I’d say somewhere between the two, as given in the poll, but I’d consider you sober based on the first post.
Now if someone drinks a beer every night, I don’t know that I’d consider that the same as you drinking one beer in six months, even if neither one of you would be drunk.
I think I’d say you have to, as an absolute must, not drink to the point of drunkeness, but there also has to be a component where you also can’t be drinking regularly, but a sip or glass here or there on a special occasion that’s not a deal breaker.
But I’m not a drinker at all, so maybe my opinion is pointless.
I would consider you to have been sober since January, not July. I consider you sober right now if you have not had a drink since January (or since a day or two ago). Your phrase “still sober” suggests to me that you mean in terms of a sobriety date; if this is your intent then I’d have to answer “no you did not remain ‘still sober’ when you drank in January” but we are being very careful about intent when we answer the question so specifically.
I also think that having a little alcohol such that you did not feel its effect is a pretty hard-to-categorize test case. And, I think that drinking a little is playing with fire, given that alcohol is a problem for you. If it almost cost you some very important relationships, it’s a problem for you. It isn’t impossible for some people to move from problem drinking to harmless drinking, but this beast is very insidious, and you can’t really tell if it’s impossible for you, even if you work up to it gradually.
27.5 years here.
Sobriety in the AA sense seems a bit like virginity that can be lost and regained over and over. And in that sense, it’s about as significant as virginity.
I drink when I want to, I stay sober when I need to. As far as I’m concerned, sober simply means not being drunk (or in most cases, in a fit state to drive etc). I can be drunk one night and sober the rest of the week, it doesn’t mean I will define myself as “sober” or not, because that makes no sense to me.
It also means that if you look lustfully at someone, you’ve slipped. Okay, maybe it has to go to holding hands before you call your sponsor and rush off to a series of meetings.
I’m hardly a fan of AA, to put it mildly, but this concept of sobriety is significant to me and many others. If you think the word is being used wrongly, fair enough I guess, but I think the ship has sailed on that, but the concept is certainly a valid one.
A better analogy would be to chastity than to virginity, anyway, including the fact that it’s not relevant to many people, and important to many others.
Sobriety in the AA context means free from any intoxication and a commitment to maintain that, as I see it.
Sobriety means to me unimpaired, by drink, drug or health - extreme lack of sleep for instance would impair me beyond what a few beers or shots would do. High Fever is another example.
So, if you’re in AA and you get the flu, you’ve failed in any commitment to maintain sobriety?
He gave two definitions, AA’s and his own.
AA is built on a structure of terms with specific and peculiar meanings. Just like any belief system, you can give words special meaning within that system, but attempting to apply that meaning to the larger world results in confusion. AA and its proponents seem to push this further than other systems I can think of, and get downright pissed if you don’t accept their definition of things like “sobriety.”
I think with alcoholics in general that they are imprinted in someway by early experieces with alcohol. Very possibly for the first time in their lives they felt like they were ok and good enough when tey took that drink.
AA seems to have found away to replace that feeling with a feeling just as powerful, if they work the steps and to some degree parrot the lingo they win acceptance and an identity amoungs their peers. “Fake it until you make it”, and a million other cliches dominate the conversations. For some AA is the best they can do and it saves their lives. For others they work through the program in good faith and to a great degree heal themselves and move on into the mainstream of life. I feel like AA is a good program for whatever percent find success there.
My point, which was perhaps phrased poorly, is not that sobriety isn’t or shouldn’t be important to those who aspire to it, or that it’s not an admirable trait, but rather that viewing sobriety as something that disappears—or at least “resets”—after one sip of alcohol is (in my view) akin to the “magical thinking” view of virginity in which someone is fundamentally changed forever the moment the tip goes in. I understand the utility of the viewpoint, but it seems to assign undue importance to the ritual and the longevity rather than the real-world impact, which might be catastrophic or might amount to nothing at all.
I am neither sober nor an alcoholic, though, so my opinion is probably not worth much to those who are.
A period of time of not being under the influence of alcohol, however long or short it may be. Mostly influenced by how I’ve seen it used in fiction*, since as a non-drinker the term doesn’t come up in my real life.
*The protagonist makes it back to civilization and thinks something like “After a few months of enforced sobriety, I was really ready for a drink”. Like that.
I think the middle road is often overlooked, if not outright ignored or maligned, in the face of the polarity driven largely by AA’s tenets. It’s that bipolar extremism that underlies my dislike for AA-think and outright detestation of AA-speak.
There are hundreds of millions of us who drink as we please, and have no significant problem with it at any time in our lives. Trying to corral this population into AA categories makes Scientology’s levels look rational.
Sober is not a synonym of sobriety. Sober is what you are now; sobriety is what you are over a period of time.
Where does sobriquet fit in?
A common question in aa might be, " how long have you been sober?" meaning the same thing as " how much sobriety do you have?" . They are reffereing to how long since your last drink or even taste of alcohol.
By my standards I have been sober for 25 years but not by AA standards.
The sobarbeque. For traditionalists, that is; us nouveau types just get gassed.
My experience is with Overeaters Anonymous (OA), rather than AA. Since it’s obviously impossible to maintain 100% abstinence in OA, people have to define their own sobriety. Although I have issues with OA, I like the concept of defining an individual sobriety that works for you. What do you think, Meloy? Do you feel that that 5% beer was a slip for you? It sounds like in the short term, at least, it didn’t lead to further drinking or associated issues. I am continually redefining what I consider to be my sobriety as far as eating is concerned. As long as I am healthy, happy, not eating emotionally and not having problems related to unhealthy eating, I consider myself to be sober. Ultimately, what’s important is not a specific number of days that you have been sober, it’s that you are sober today, and plan to be sober tomorrow.