Honey + Outside = alcohol???
That’s it… I’m gonna start raising bees.
Someone can drink every day, even large quantities, and not be an alcoholic. Someone can drink very moderately and infrequently, or not at all, and BE an alcoholic. To say, oh, but I go days or weeks w/o drinking, while leaving out the fact that when you DO drink, you do so to gross excess until you pass out, indicates alcoholism.
It is not about behavior, though behaviors offer clues that may indicate the condition.
It is about a physical condition, a propensity to an addiction which is very likely rooted in genetics.
An alcoholic can’t control their drinking long term. They may limit themselves to a drink a night (or 2 or 6 or whatever) but eventually, they increase their consumption, often with a binge. They have to STOP, and it IS possible for them to do this long term. The problem is if they START again…it is like there is something in them that gets turned on by exposure to alcohol and doesn’t shut off like it does in “normal” people.
Re’ the panic attacks, dependency on alcohol can CAUSE these events, esp. when going through withdrawals (and for a heavily dependent drinker, withdrawal begins almost immediately).
More specifically, honey + water (or fruit juice, or even milk) + airborne yeast + time = fermentation = alcohol
Or sometimes a moldy mess - its a fine line really…
I recall reading that Winston Churchill (British PM) started his day witha glass of brandy. For lunch he would have several glasses of claret, finishing with port. For dinner, several cocktails or whiskeys, folloed by wine and port. at bedtime, he would have a tumbler of brand and soda.
Churchill guided his nation through WWII, and died at 92
And was probably an alcoholic. A high functioning alcoholic, but very likely an alcoholic. With apparently one hell of a liver.
My grandmother recently died at 81 - she was a multi pack a day smoker since she was fifteen. One hell of a constitution on that woman, but I’m not going to take up smoking and hope I last as long.
I eat every day, but I’m not fat.
Good Lord, but I liked that! Well put!
That reminds me of the following exchange
Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I’d put arsenic in your morning coffee.
Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.
But if you ate the way an alcoholic DRINKS you would be. You eat and then you stop when you are satisfied or full. (I assume). An alcoholic drinks WAY past the point where most would feel satisfied/intoxicated and stop. (even if they don’t do so every day or even every time they drink)
Just to clarify, I don’t think everyone who overindulges, even on a regular basis, is an “alcoholic”. Lots of “problem drinkers” out there and more who just like to drink. I think there is a difference and I wouldn’t automatically label someone an “alcoholic” based on those behaviors. This is a controversial issue in the “recovery” community, with some denying the existence of any “disease” called “alcoholism” altogether and others denying that anyone who has ever been a problem drinker can ever drink again in moderation, being an “alcoholic”. I think the truth is somewhere in between and one label or approach does not fit all. JMHO.
And yeah, my Grandmother smoked heavily for over 60 years and lived to be 100 in pretty good health. I wouldn’t bet on it, though.
Man, this thread is making me thirsty.
Right, but his (her) point was an answer to the OP: it’s perfectly possible to drink everyday and not be an alcoholic (and it’s also possible to drink everyday and be an alcoholic), the same way one can eat everyday and not be fat (or eat everyday and be fat). The behavior of drinking or eating is not indicative of the pathology of excess.
Yeah, but what would his waistline have been without that kind of intake? That’s one of the major reasons I’m adding drinking to my list of “things that need to be once-a-month or so”, like pizza. I know this extra 45 lbs is pretty much ethanol. Of course, that’s over 4 years, but it still needs to get fixed.