Thank you
I’m sorry, fifty-six, but it sounds like you are an alcoholic, and you’re trying to rationalize drinking again. I don’t drink at all (I have a sip of my husband’s beer once a month), and I don’t think about it at all - it is a non-issue in my life. Not being a drinker means almost nothing to me - it is a tiny part of my identity. I’m not saying this to brag or make you feel worse, just to compare the thought processes of someone who doesn’t drink who doesn’t consider herself an alcoholic, and someone who doesn’t drink who does. I think you’re playing with fire.
It is definitely different in Spain, even for the “Letters” crowd (which party a lot more than the Science or Tech crowds). Then again, there is a good reason Brits have a reputation as horrible drunks…
Out of 79 people in my graduation class, only one drank alcohol more frequently than once a month, and he was an alcoholic (diagnosed with liver cirrhosis at 25 and still pouring the JD and coke - if he wasn’t an alcoholic he had a death wish, take your pick).
I think a majority of college students drink over here in the US. I know that at least two-thirds of my campus will probably drink enough to get noticeably tipsy at least once a month, and some are drunk most weekend nights. And even a few who drink most nights of the week, at least a little. Drinking four nights a week in college over here would be more than average, but not so much more as to be extremely noticeable, at least at some schools.
Personally, I’m a college senior and I usually try to drink no more than one night a week, and I fail at that goal about one week a month. I suspect I’m about average in that respect, at least at my school.
Might be some selection bias there. If someone is successful in drinking moderately, they won’t be showing up at AA meetings.
This was my reaction too. Obsessing about it doesn’t seem like a good sign that you’ll be able to handle it.
I will definitely second the recommendation for cognitive behavioral therapy. I don’t really buy into the psych thing in general, but CBT helped me deal with a problem I had earlier this year.
I have no experience with alcoholism or drug abuse, and don’t really want to say what my problem was, but your references to obsessing about something really strike a chord with me. I know exactly that feeling of locking into a thought pattern and being unable to get away from it, and then thinking about it is what makes the problem worse. I went to a cognitive behavioral therapist who taught me some ways of thinking that broke me out of those patterns.
If you can get to someone like that, it seems right up your alley.
My friends and I (again, in the US) mostly drank on the weekends (Thursdays counted as the weekend if you had no Friday classes), sometimes to excess, from 18-20, and then cut back a lot on drinking once we hit 21.
That seems like a lot to me, even living in a town with a party school. College students here do drink a lot (well, a good chunk of them, not all), but I’m thinking 3 times a week would be the absolute max–an unusual amount–unless it’s spring break or something.
I went to a completely different university, one with a wide diversity of behavior. Whatever you wanted to do–drugs, drinking, straight-edge, anything–you could find people to do it with and never have a problem. I hung out with a lot of people (of all sorts) who never drank at all, and I’d say that heavy drinkers were not in the majority there. Most of the people I knew didn’t drink very often.
I want to make this clear: I mean, when I got there, I thought he’d had a stroke. Paralyzed. Looking dead and 20 years older. Unable to think or talk right. He reminded me of my grandma after she got the Bell’s Palsy and the Alzheimer’s.
Which is, of course, something that could happen to him. I didn’t realize it was just alcohol till a little later.
Another hour, and maybe he would have killed himself with it.
I don’t buy into the claim that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, and you can never again touch alcohol in any form without spiraling back out of control. A friend of mine, back before I met him, was a serious problem drinker-- The “drink in the morning to wake up, drink during the day to keep going, drink in the evening to go to sleep” sort. Then one day he realized that he was ruining his life, and fixed himself up. I’ve now known him for over 20 years, and in that time, I’ve never, not once, seen him drunk, or impaired, or hung over, or in any other worrisome state… But he does still have something on the order of one drink a week. Apparently, he really is able to handle it.
Now, maybe my friend is extraordinary, and it’s not the norm for someone to be able to resume normal life (including a sane amount of alcohol consumption) after a drinking problem. But it’s certainly at least possible.
I have yet to see an alcoholic return to drinking successfully (5 + years sober myself). Is it possible? Probably. Is it likely? From my experience, and those I know who are in the same boat I am, not at all.
In the past 5 years I’ve known probably 30 guys and gals who went out drinking again. 2 are dead. At least 3 are in jail. A couple disappeared and no one knows where they are. The rest are back in the program though every single one had some serious negative outcome (lost jobs, wives, husbands, lost the house, etc). Most of these folks had 1 or 2 years sober though some had a lot more time. One of the dead ones had over 20 years sober. He drank, lost his job, did a crime and got thrown in jail where he died. His liver went out. Wanna guess why? The sad thing is that he was a successful man with a family. He died about 6 months ago.
It seems like a rather silly bet. A drink against losing your job, or your spouse, or your life. It even seems sillier when, historically, you lost every damned time.
Slee
Didn’t the old DSMII have several classifications for problem drinkers? Some could quit and go into moderation and some could not?
56 - good luck with whatever choices you make.
Me, I’m 5 years sober, and not a day goes by that I wouldn’t LOVE to drink. But I don’t because I know that - for myself - if I had one beer today, at some time in the future I would be absolutely shitfaced. That may change in another few years. I hope so.
I’m not a big AA guy - tho obviously a lot of folk swear by it. How much control/awareness do you think you have to know if your drinking started accelerating?
The “hiding” your current drinking strikes me as a little odd. Seems you are still making it too much of your life, same as when you were a drunk, and when you were sober. So you haven’t really found a comfortable relationship w/ ETOH yet. Who knows, maybe there isn’t one for you.
Life is long. I don’t see the necessary harm in checking out whether what was true for you decades ago still holds. And you proved your ability to go without, so if things seem to start getting out of hand again, will you be able to slam on the brakes?
Alcohol is such a pretty drug.
Fifty-six, it sounds to me like you’re an alcoholic and you are rationalizing what is actually the beginning of another episode of backsliding.
- Sober since October 1986
I know, looking at it like that it seems a lot, but there were a hell of a lot of people that drank more than that, some 7 days a week, and a fair few that were high most of the time, or pilled up every weekend. I don’t know anybody that’s an ‘alcoholic’ or addict. I don’t even know that many people that have dropped out now (3rd year), and most have them have been for personal reasons or they weren’t enjoying the course or something.
Does anybody else think sometimes it’s too easy for society to just generalise binge drinking as alcoholism, for whatever reasons?
I think habits like Fifty-six just described are addictions, for sure, and I think you might be best having someone keep an eye on you Fifty-six, just to make sure you don’t end up slipping in excessiveness again.
And whom should be assigned to monitor and control him?
Whomever s/he wants to do it. ‘Keep an eye on’ doesn’t have to mean control, maybe just a heads up that the drinking is excessive, and fifty-six could then either accept it’s a problem or live in denial.
Do you need to go through all that rigamarole? Seems to me that someone who needs to find someone to monitor his or her drinking should have a clue already that the drinking is a problem.
People who obsess (think, are concerned, wonder) about drinking, whether they’re drinking or not, have a drinking problem. People who don’t have a problem with alcohol never think about it at all.
Twickster, that simply isn’t true. Some of us will think about worry over many non-problem areas of our life. This is especially true of worriers who have had an alcoholic in their life. Introspection doesn’t mean you are a alcoholic.
Before I met him, my husband abused alcohol for years. He did not drink for over 15 years. He had one dry time before quitting the last time and that ended when he took one drink at a party and it turned into a binge.
He is very limited in the pain medication and anti-inflammation drugs he can take and is in constant pain, but sometime the pain is worse than others. About two years ago, his doctor suggested that a half shot of spirits might help. He also has stomach trouble. He found about a half shot did help and the stomach upset he would get with more was enough incentive to keep him from drinking more, or taking that half shot more often than about twice a week. I do monitor his drinking. The main issue is making sure that he knows how to measure the appropriate amount.
Now, my husband is a freak in more ways than one medically (his cholesterol hovers around 15 and seems to be allergic to cortisone which is flatly impossible for starters). I have no idea how that plays into all of this. As far as I can tell he is/was an alcoholic but is at a point now can handle that limited amount with supervision.