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Myself, I can drink some, but I prefer not to, though occasionally I do. However, in high school, someone offered a pack of cigarettes and I took one and thus began my 36 year career of devoted smoking, tip to filter, of every single cigarette I could get my hands on. I quit almost 11 years ago, but still wish for a cigarette almost every day of my life.
My father-in-law was a heavy drinker and heavy smoker for most of his life. He finally went through a recovery program in his 60s and quit drinking. Maybe six or seven years after that, he also quit smoking.
Not long before he died at age 77 (he'd made it through a quadruple heart bypass and throat/esophageal cancer, but it was the pancreatic cancer that killed him), he told us that drinking alcohol almost never crossed his mind any more, but he still thought about cigarettes every day.
I know what you’re saying….but if someone has a bad history with drinking and they stop for a while does this mean they should never drink again ? What if they do ?
I get the point of people who have been sober for years and why it’s important but sometimes it feels extreme to never ever be able to touch alcohol again unless of course the person wants to. But I’ve heard of people who stopped drinking because someone else wanted them to.
It's not a bad history, it's whether they have an addiction to alcohol. And if they do, they should never drink again.
My best friend quit her job the day she was called in to her supervisor and told to go to the Employee Assistance Program because she took two and three hour lunches and came back to the office wasted. She had 11 years in a good-paying office position with benefits and a pension and she quit that day because she didn't want to stop drinking.
Hit rock bottom a few years later, was living in an abandoned house with a bunch of men in exchange for doing their laundry and God knows what else. She had to save a bit of vodka in the bottle for the morning, because if she got up and didn't have a drink at hand, she would have a seizure. She was picked up by ambulances many times because she was found passed out on the street. Finally one day in the hospital when she asked where her father was, her mother told her he just couldn't stand to see her this way anymore, and something clicked. She went into detox and rehab and a halfway house.
She got a job as a waitress, then a job in a casino office, and then found a job as a legal secretary. While she was drinking, the world had gone from typewriters to computers, but she taught herself to use one on the job. Got a nice apartment and bought a new car. She was sober for seven years, we reconnected, and she was a great friend to me. Got me though my divorce, we took trips together to the Bahamas, and we just had so much fun. She lived in a beach town so I was there a lot in the summer in those years. She had this infectious laugh. I can still hear it in my head.
Then she met a man she really liked and she didn't want to tell him she was an alcoholic. He liked to have one cocktail before dinner, and she decided she could have one cocktail before dinner, too.
She lost her boyfriend, her job, her apartment, her car, started having seizures again and became wet-brained, not making any sense when she talked, and though she tried a few times to quit drinking again, she could never go more than two weeks. She was dead at 51 from cirrhosis of the liver.
1. There probably is a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. You can see that by how it can run in families. But environmental factors also play a role. The gene (s) for alcoholism are epigenetic, i.e. they can be triggered by environment, but don’t have to be.
2. Loss of control makes you an alike. Basically, you just can’t stop.
3. If you keep drinking despite repeated bad things happening, you’re an alcoholic.
I think it’s beside the point how you classify it—disease, disorder, syndrome, mental illness, addiction, allergy. The point is that once you can’t stop and bad things happen you need treatment on multiple levels, physical, psychological, and a friend in AA told me, spiritual. Interestingly he had this to say about “functional” alcoholism: “Yeah, we were all functional. Until we weren’t.”
Mighty queen, I am so glad that your daughter was able to quit drinking. I am so sorry about your best friend. I believe alcoholism is a disease and addiction. Some people aren’t able to break free. I also believe some people are definitely genetic predisposed to become alcoholics.
I know what you’re saying….but if someone has a bad history with drinking and they stop for a while does this mean they should never drink again ? What if they do ?
I get the point of people who have been sober for years and why it’s important but sometimes it feels extreme to never ever be able to touch alcohol again unless of course the person wants to. But I’ve heard of people who stopped drinking because someone else wanted them to.
Depends on the individual. I'm someone who is better off not drinking. I've been sober almost 30 years and have been to countless of functions where the drinks flowed. And nobody cared if that I wasn't drinking. They might ask what I'm drinking (usually a soda, tonic water or juice) but that's pretty much it.
And those who knew me when I was drinking... don't need to ask why I stopped.
Depends on the individual. I'm someone who is better off not drinking. I've been sober almost 30 years and have been to countless of functions where the drinks flowed. And nobody cared if that I wasn't drinking. They might ask what I'm drinking (usually a soda, tonic water or juice) but that's pretty much it.
And those who knew me when I was drinking... don't need to ask why I stopped.
I have a long-time friend who was always pretty functional, but she was a binge drinker. She's got a good job in government, but she has called in sick more than once because she decided to have a drink at night and just kept going until it was 3 a.m. and the bottle was gone. Then she could go for a few days and not have to have a drink. Just when she did drink, she didn't stop.
She was overweight and had the weight-loss surgery. They told her she wouldn't be able to drink alcohol for two years, but she ignored them and screwed up her stomach bigtime. She didn't go to rehab or AA or anything, she just quit drinking for her health. I think it's been about three years and she never went back to it.
She said, "It's so easy nowadays not to drink! Years ago lunches and after-work get-togethers all revolved around alcohol, but now people want calorie-free stuff and are health conscious and nobody bats an eye if you don't drink alcohol. "
It's true. My daughter and her friends all make these elaborate "mocktails". Flavored waters and seltzers like Bubly are big sellers. My Muslim boss gets himself a club soda with a twist at business events so that he has a glass in his hand like everyone else while they schmooze, but his has no alcohol--and who knows whose does?
It has become socially acceptable to not drink, weird as that sounds.
I know what you’re saying….but if someone has a bad history with drinking and they stop for a while does this mean they should never drink again ? What if they do ?
I get the point of people who have been sober for years and why it’s important but sometimes it feels extreme to never ever be able to touch alcohol again unless of course the person wants to. But I’ve heard of people who stopped drinking because someone else wanted them to.
Yes, they should never drink again because the original conditions that led them to alcoholism are all still there. ONE drink can send them back down that path.
Depends on the individual. I'm someone who is better off not drinking. I've been sober almost 30 years and have been to countless of functions where the drinks flowed. And nobody cared if that I wasn't drinking. They might ask what I'm drinking (usually a soda, tonic water or juice) but that's pretty much it.
And those who knew me when I was drinking... don't need to ask why I stopped.
One of the funnier lines I ever heard was someone telling a recovering alcoholic, "I liked you better when you were drinking", and the alcoholic responding, "I liked you better when I was drinking, too."
I have a long-time friend who was always pretty functional, but she was a binge drinker. She's got a good job in government, but she has called in sick more than once because she decided to have a drink at night and just kept going until it was 3 a.m. and the bottle was gone. Then she could go for a few days and not have to have a drink. Just when she did drink, she didn't stop.
She was overweight and had the weight-loss surgery. They told her she wouldn't be able to drink alcohol for two years, but she ignored them and screwed up her stomach bigtime. She didn't go to rehab or AA or anything, she just quit drinking for her health. I think it's been about three years and she never went back to it.
She said, "It's so easy nowadays not to drink! Years ago lunches and after-work get-togethers all revolved around alcohol, but now people want calorie-free stuff and are health conscious and nobody bats an eye if you don't drink alcohol. "
It's true. My daughter and her friends all make these elaborate "mocktails". Flavored waters and seltzers like Bubly are big sellers. My Muslim boss gets himself a club soda with a twist at business events so that he has a glass in his hand like everyone else while they schmooze, but his has no alcohol--and who knows whose does?
It has become socially acceptable to not drink, weird as that sounds.
It only seems weird because when we grew up EVERYONE drank, and most people I knew smoked. If you go back, the US has a bad history with alcohol, which led to the Temperance Movement and Prohibition. Speakeasies were cool and teetotaling wasn't. It takes a long time to change the view of a an entire society and it took most of a century to accomplish it.
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