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It depends, having a few drinks after work to wind down is not necessarily an alcohol problem. The questions are can you go without it? How do you act after said drinks. If your not missing work or being hungover I dont think its a big deal.
As said by others, as long as you are not engaging in destructive behavior, missing work, you should be fine. i have a beer or two after dinner each night, and 99% of the time I drink alone. Those factors certainly wouldn't qualify me as an alcoholic.
Trying to control your drinking is a symptom of dependence. These levels are almost trivial amounts of alcohol, however. Non - alcoholic patterns maybe- A drink every once in awhile (1 or 2 times a month)- a regular sip of wine at the table - a beer or two when the guys get together. If you find yourself not being able to pass up the opportunity to drink and develop a craving for the bigger buzz that should be a red flag. Any daily or regular drinking routine however is a start on the road to deeper dependence. I didn't like to drink at first, but eventually developed terrible alcoholic behavior as it was more acceptable than drug abuse. Now, I love to drink. The liquor doesn't like me so much though in the long run and it's quickly toxic. To directly answer drinking five days a week enough to get a small buzz sounds like a bad recipe. It sound a bit like an extended vacation.
Last edited by GrantVirgilHolland; 01-30-2013 at 02:33 PM..
If you think you're drinking too much then cut back. I recently cut way back and I go many days in a row now without having a drink. I never got drunk or missed work because of drinking, but for me personally I felt 2 or 3 drinks a day was too much. I felt I was looking a little too forward to going home after work and pouring a drink. If I felt sad or irritated I wanted to have a drink to make me feel better. I just felt I needed to be really proactive in making sure that a 2 or 3 drink a day habit didn't turn into me needing alcohol to function and feel good. So I stopped. Now during the week I go to the gym instead of drink. And alcohol isn't very good for your liver or your waist line honestly. I lost a few pounds when I quit drinking everyday.
For the past six months I've been having 2-3 beers per day at least 5 days per week. Tonight, I am currently on my 4th beer and feeling very guilty. Usually on weekends I drink more but am worried I am becoming an alcoholic. I usually take a couple of days off per week, but I'm not sure it does any good. I want to get my drinking back to only a few on the weekends and none during the week. Do I sound like an alcoholic?
If you think you have an alcohol problem then you have an alcohol problem.
If you are seeing the tendency to want more and more, or start earlier and earlier, or it interferes in anyway with your life/health, then you probably have a problem.
I have been drinking about 2 glasses of wine per day for at least 20 years now (I am 63), once in awhile I might also have an after-dinner brandy. But I never feel like getting "drunk" or going over this amount. Frankly I don't like any other alcohol, either, it's the taste and mild buzz from wine that I enjoy. I usually don't want anymore once I have finished dinner, either (except for the brandy).
For me, it is a pleasurable part of life and I don't consider it a problem. I tend to think that if one thinks they may have a problem, they probably do.
For the past six months I've been having 2-3 beers per day at least 5 days per week. Tonight, I am currently on my 4th beer and feeling very guilty. Usually on weekends I drink more but am worried I am becoming an alcoholic. I usually take a couple of days off per week, but I'm not sure it does any good. I want to get my drinking back to only a few on the weekends and none during the week. Do I sound like an alcoholic?
Your consumption level is not high. When I was drinking, I'd have two double vodkies and two beer chasers just to get on the subway every day after work without wanting to bite people's heads off, and then go home and drink 12 Bud tallboys, and that was just daily stress maintenance, not "going out and drinking".
However, your guilty feelings and especially concern with scheduling your drinks are not good signs. The reason you feel guilty is that you understand on some level that you NEED those beers to feel right.
I highly recommend the book Drunkard by Neil Steinberg. Read it, and if you see yourself in it, seek help.
For the past six months I've been having 2-3 beers per day at least 5 days per week. Tonight, I am currently on my 4th beer and feeling very guilty. Usually on weekends I drink more but am worried I am becoming an alcoholic. I usually take a couple of days off per week, but I'm not sure it does any good. I want to get my drinking back to only a few on the weekends and none during the week. Do I sound like an alcoholic?
I will agree with others, if you are feeling guilty about it, it is probably a sign that you might want/need to change your habit. However, people feel guilty over drinking for different reasons: social, economic, etc. Generally, we feel guilty when we feel we are doing something wrong. Addiction starts with habit. I used to drink fairly heavily on a nightly basis and it still amazes me that I have not turned into a raging alcoholic, homeless because of the drinking, and so on. I enjoy the effects of alcohol but I hate being wasted and I despise being hungover even more. At some point I realized I was just going with the flow (friends, boredom), and I eventually cut way down. I asked myself do I really need to finish those three beers before bed, considering I am about to go to bed now and started to tell myself "no, I don't. There is no need for that". It didn't happen overnight, but I went from 0 to 60 in two seconds, then to now, a nice pace of 5 mph.
If you cut back to 2-3 beers a night for three months solid, you should have developed a "new" habit. If after three months you are still desiring 4+ beers than you might be addicted.
Listen to your own body and mind, only you know what you really need.
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Originally Posted by Pfhtex
Everyone is different. Cultures around the world and in America have different views on the subject. It's very individualized.
America has its roots in Puritanical Law, and even though we love to tell ourselves we are a "free" country, we have still yet to shake our Puritanical roots. How that relates to alcohol, like others, is that it has a duality of being okay and evil. It also depends on where you live. When I lived in Minnesota, I found that drinking heavily on a regular basis was socially acceptable (read above, when I was drinking to excess). Wisconsin is that way, too. It's also like that on the East Coast. But look at who settled these areas: people from countries where drinking is socially acceptable and ideas about drinking are more relaxed. I'm originally from California, a State where friends and family would call an intervention if you drank more than one beer on occasion.
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Originally Posted by fibonacci
The fact that you're even asking this question automatically raises red flags. I'd have to disagree with other posters here, 2-3 beers every single day is starting to border on alcoholism. That's 14-21 beers per week. Have you ever thought about how many extra empty calories that is? It will take a significant toll on your health over a long period of time.
I've seen too many friends of mine start drinking beers in college every night of the week or start drinking beers every night once they started working. They all started off with 1-2 beers, now 4-8 beers can be common to them every night. Needless to say, they're definitely packing on the pounds and who knows what condition their liver is now. Fast forward 20 years later just by looking at some of the fathers of these guys who drink everynight and they're killing 12 packs and are massively overweight with beer bellies. They also have terrible circulation problems, you can see it in their faces, they look purple/reddish, and their beer guts are hard and filled with fluid from all the damage they've done to themselves.
Alcohol is definitely toxic to the body, but so is Tylenol. That doesn't make either right, by the way. However, health problems relating to alcohol use are more corollary than a direct effect. Someone who drinks heavily is not likely to be someone who is physically active, or eat a healthy diet. When I worked at a bar (as a cook), patrons consistently ordered fried foods when they got hungry, even though we had a full menu complete with healthier options. The owner of this bar suffered from ascites, which is a sign of liver disease/cirrhosis, but could also be the result of other health problems related or unrelated to drinking, and probably what you meant by "beer guts are filled with fluid". And if their faces are purple/red, that is a sign of high blood pressure.
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Originally Posted by Oildog
It depends, having a few drinks after work to wind down is not necessarily an alcohol problem. The questions are can you go without it? How do you act after said drinks. If your not missing work or being hungover I dont think its a big deal.
Most alcoholics in recovery will tell you they have/had no problem going days, weeks, months, or even years without drinking. The problem isn't not being able to not drink, but not being able to stop once you start. I know that sounds contradictory, but when alcoholics drink, that first drink can lead to a three month long bender, as long as they can physically put the alcohol into their system, they will do so even if they are slumped over on the table. That is why they say that even after years of not drinking, when they do start again, they immediately go back to the point where they left off. That is also why it is considered a disease. It is like a cancer that takes over your body and mind (and why severe alcoholics can die if they quit cold-turkey).
A good friend of mine drank heavily back in the day, to the point where if he continued on that path he would more-than-likely be dead by now. He was sober for ten years, then one day decided to drink again. I advised him to reconsider, but he did it anyways. It's his life, I suppose. It didn't take him long before he was blacking out again.
Here's a great little test, OP: go clean for three days. Make sure they're work days, so that you're nice and stressed out. The days you usually drink on should be the test days.
You probably won't feel any cravings the first day, but on the second or probably the third day you may very well notice some feelings on the order of "damn, a drink would sure hit the spot now."
If you notice irritability and a sense of deprivation along with that thought, then give serious consideration to the idea that you may have an (early stages) problem.
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