Ditto.
C’mon. Even a measly quarter of a 1.75 is enough to kill a hangover and get though most of a day relatively incident-free. 9 out of 10 “alcoholics” would agree. They might not be too happy about the rationing, though.
The “techniques” are just reminders of what most responsible drinkers do anyway. Don’t drink so fast. Have a glass of water. If your idea of “fun” is to just get wasted, then, sure, drinking that way probably won’t be fun.
Recovery from alcoholism has very little to do with your drinking habits or the way you try and teach yourself to drink. Just speaking for myself. I had to change a lot of my behaviors and the way I looked at things in life in order to live with myself sober. I had to accept I wasn’t the smartest guy on the block, I didn’t have the biggest dick, I couldn’t kick eveybody’s ass. I had to quit making excuses for my short commings and get into action doing the best I could. The 12 steps are a good model for anyone to live by I believe.
If someone is not feeling good about themselves and takes a drink he will immediately start to feel better and chase that feeling with more drinks. If he or she does feel good about themselves but maybe a little shy on a date or soemthing like that they will not tend to chase the feeling beyond the little warm glow we get.
AA provides a social enviroment that will satisfy a lot of the things many alcoholics are lacking this will keep any number of them sober even though they haven’t taken full advantage of the instructions given them for a better way of life. The further they get into the process of recovery the better chances they have for recovery. Most are too sick to take full advantage of this so their best hope is just not to drink period.
Re-calculate your blood alcohol level… skip next drink to make up for double… .*
This would have to be constant for an alcoholic. But after even one, it’s a physiological fact that it would be harder to think and judge this way. This is not how your “responsible drinkers” do it. It’s seamless. They barely have to think about it.
I just meant, If you’re there busying yourself with such techniques, I’d think it would dawn on you at some point, “It’s not like this for everyone–maybe I’m different.”
After reading this thread, I am now convinced that different people have different physical reactions to alcohol. My cite is myself: throughout my life I have had plenty of chances to drink alcohol and I just don’t like it. I had half a beer at my high-school reunion and that’s the only alcohol I’ve drunk in at least five years. I read of people unwilling or unable to stop drinking alcohol once they start, and I don’t really get it.
On the other hand, I drink caffeinated beverages like they’re going out of style. Is it possible to that one addiction can ‘block’ another?
From what I’ve read of Miller, he doesn’t buy the idea that people are either full blown alcoholics or completely responsible drinkers. He argues that there exists a full range of use and abuse. Some people never learned to drink in any way other than college frat party mode. They abuse alcohol, but aren’t necessarily alcoholics that should never drink again. I believe the type of moderation he advocates is for people closer to that type of drinker than the person who drinks daily from sun up to sun down.
It seems reasonable to me to assert that a large part of many peoples’ drinking patterns are learned behaviors - from college, parents, friends, etc. Some people learned that the “right” way to drink is to excess. Miller’s approach is to provide a framework in which to unlearn that way of consuming alcohol. The idea is that over time drinking responsibly becomes seamless and natural. They eventually will integrate the “techniques” and won’t have to consciously watch the clock as they pace themselves. Though, as he clearly states, if an individual is unable to manage moderate consumption, he absolutely recommends total abstinence.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. Probably would have helped if I had spelled it right, too. I meant, the No True Scotsman Fallacy.
My friend is basically telling me,
“No alcoholic can learn to drink moderately”
*“I know of an alcoholic who now drinks moderately”
*
“That proves that he was never an alcoholic.”
I doubt your caffeine intake is blocking the effects of alcohol. But it is likely caffeine makes you feel different that caffeine makes me feel. I avoid it because it gives me the shakes and I feel like shit. But alcohol makes me feel like a million bucks, at least for the short term. People do react differently to different chemicals.
Perhaps that’s why caloric restriction only has a 5% success rate. The normal technique can’t be used. What would happen if overweight went on parenteral nutrition for the rest of their life? Would the success rate be higher?
I don’t buy the learned behavior aspect as the prime cause of most alcoholism. The reason is simple, the first time I drank I got hammered. I was 9. I was at my sisters wedding and had her wine glass. I kept getting her ‘refills’, would walk around the corner and slam the wine. Lather, rinse, repeat. The first time I drank, I drank until I passed out and I was 9. I’ve talked to a lot of alkies and almost all of them report the same type experience in which the first contact with alcohol was full bore ‘Holy Shit, this stuff is AWESOME! I have to have it all!’. I had the same experience the second time I drank, and the third…
I didn’t come from a family of alkies. My parents and their friends didn’t drink much. They drank responsibly. My older siblings didn’t expose me to booze. They didn’t really drink much at all. I, however, found that when I drank I kept going until it was all gone.
What freaks me out about alcoholism is the odd way a whole bunch of people respond to the abstinence aspect. If every time a person ate a peanut they got sick, puked and pee’d themselves, got into a car and drove it into a pole because they were totally out of it, almost every one would say ‘Dude, stop eating peanuts, peanut M&Ms, peanut brittle! Basically everything with Peanuts! Don’t eat it because bad things happen when you do’.
However, replace the peanuts in the above story with beer and suddenly it is really important that the person ‘learn’ how to drink properly. Instead of saying ‘Hey, when you do X this bad shit happens so don’t X anymore’ it becomes ‘We need to figure out a way for you to do X without all this bad shit happening.’ It is really strange. I understand, from the alkies point of view, on trying to create strategies so that you can keep drinking without all the jail/drama/sickness/etc. Been there and done that myself.
I don’t understand it when I see non-alkies questioning abstinence as a goal for alcoholics. Why, for the love of og, would you want someone who has had serious trouble with alcohol to pick up alcohol again? Why should moderated drinking be a goal if past drinking caused serious problems? The is basically no difference between a person allergic to peanuts eating a peanut and an alcoholic picking up another drink. Except the alcoholic will take longer to die and cause a whole lot more damage on the way down.
Slee
Being a heavy drinker I don’t know why anyone with a drink problem would bother becoming a moderate drinker. What’s the point? Drinking a couple of beers is a waste of money. 
Amen, brother. Or sister, cousin, whatever.
This.
I honestly do not get it. I’ve had plenty of time to talk to addicts of various types on the inside. I’ve heard various true horror stories. Maybe one drink won’t tear their whole life apart. But, why risk it?
I didn’t claim that most alcoholics “learned” their alcoholism. Rather, most peoples’ drinking habits they learned in a social setting. For most people, drinking is a social activity. Take the many Americans whose first real exposure to alcohol is in college. I’m sure there are exceptions, but most college drinking isn’t having 2 beers and calling it a night. It’s binge drinking - with the intent of getting drunk. Do most people that binge drink end up being alcoholics? I would argue no.
Take a person that was a big partier in college and now works in sales. He takes clients out multiple times each week and drinking is involved. Assume 4-6 drinks a couple nights each week and 6+ on the weekends. As he gets to be 30 years old, he starts to feel much worse the morning after, gains some weight, feels like he spends to much money on booze, etc - the bad stuff that comes with drinking. Is this unhealthy amount of drinking? I, and most medical opinions I’ve read, would say yes. If he thinks that he’s drinking too much and needs to cut back, does that make him an alcoholic? I don’t know. But does merely asking the question mean he needs to stop the boozing completely? This is the kind of person I think can look at trying to moderate their intake.
No one is arguing against total abstinence for some people. Some people are simply unable to maintain a healthy relationship with alcohol. If total abstinence is what works for them, then that’s great! They should in no way, shape, or form try to drink in moderation when abstinence works best for them.
This is why I feel that food addiction is the most insidious of all addictions in that one is FORCED to either accept moderation or die. It’s like telling an alcoholic that he must drink three times a day (or how ever many times healthy people usually eat.) Other addictions you can (theoretically and hopefully) completely give up. Food? You can’t. I don’t know how people ever completely get over it. Am I making sense?
I love everything that comes out of your mouth, Slee. Thanks! As to the last point, I too question why it seems such a natural goal to the normie to find some way, any way, that we can still drink. Maybe it’s part and parcel of the exalted place alcohol has in our society (US/present-day), but I wish someone here would question their assumption and speak to this.
I don’t know if this is directed at me, but I’m confused if it is. I agree 100% that some people should never consume any alcohol.
:: post snipped ::
The above is true if you assume that alcoholism is a behavior problem only. The research is pretty clear that it is NOT just a behavior problem. Twin studies and genetic research point to a strong genetic component.
Link.
Another link.
So the genetic aspect changes alcoholism from a behavior that can be modified into a physical issue that we don’t know how to cure.
The tricky part is that you can drink yourself into an alcoholic. In other words, it is possible for people who have not inherited the genetic components of alcoholism to get there anyway by drinking too much for too long.
The other tricky part is that alcoholism is about the urge, which is hard to actually measure. Person A drinks every night and gets into all kinds of trouble because he thinks his life sucks. Person B does the same, except it is because the urge to drink is overwhelming. Person A may have a chance at moderation because the drinking is a symptom, not the cause of the problem. For person B, well, the drinking is the cause of the problem. In either case, the first step is to not drink and the only way to be sure that the problem does not reoccur is to never drink again.
Slee
RESPONSE TO TROM, 2 ABOVE:
If it doesn’t make sense given your personal position, then it’s not directed at you. The OP made the assumption and several others have since that learning to drink moderately is a goal for those who find it difficult. I’m asking why? And not in the surface sense of, “Well, to have fun of course!” I’m interested in what it means for someone who does not id themselves as an alcoholic to feel so compelled to help another find a way to drink regardless of risk. I’m wondering why they assume that is better than abstinence. Have they tried abstinence? You know, even if you’re not an alcoholic, you might try doing your usual drinking things without drinking. What would that be like?