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It's very interesting to hear of cases of people who would have likely been considered alcoholics that have successfully moderated their drinking. Evidence of such people is VERY difficult to find, even online.
I'm thinking there are maybe different types of alcoholics - some who could learn to drink appropriately and safely and others who simply cannot. Perhaps the difference is the former have a correctable psychological/thinking problem and the latter truly have a physical problem.
Sometimes I wonder if AA trains some individuals to be alcoholics, even though they are actually not so. To join such a group, it's pretty much expected that an individual label themself an alcoholic, to say "hi my name is ____ and I'm an alcoholic" at the beginning of the meetings.
When somebody chooses to abuse alcohol - they do not care what it is they drink. I've witnessed a person behave the way I just described and also drink normally, so I don't completely understand. Now, after he went to AA those 2 years, he seems to be able to drink normally.
Examples of those who went from chronic drunks to moderate drinkers, see Granny Storm Crow's list for formal studies, and rxmarijuana.com/ the latter hosted by Dr. Lester Grinspoon, retired from Harvard Med. Sch., has patient stories which are easier to read. Would AA say these are fake, or rare?
I'm pretty sure that AA calls most daily drinkers & weekend bingers alcoholics, whether primarily psychological or primarily physical. They say they stop 5% of people from ever drinking again, & some of their critics say more like 1%. If they call some people alcoholics who aren't, it would seem they might be able to claim a higher success percent?
Whether there are different types of alcoholics or some aren't alcoholics is a good thing to debate.
I wonder if AA would look fake if they had a 80 year old man say I'm an alcoholic even though I haven't had a drink since high school. Meanwhile, his friends had 1-2 drinks a day & are fine or died of natural causes. I have to wonder if AA's definition of an alcoholic is one who they assume thinks about drinking too much? But their meetings make people *think* about drinking, so does that make them all alcoholics?
I should have qualified that I meant someone who regularly and secretly binges often enough that it is habitual. Not someone who does it once a year on spring break, but someone who is stone sober for 2 or 3 weeks and then low level (or high level) drunk for 3 or 4 days, then stops, but keeps repeating that cycle.
I know someone whose liver is giving out over this sort of pattern -- it takes a lot longer but the end result is the same as a constant drinker.
I should have qualified that I meant someone who regularly and secretly binges often enough that it is habitual. Not someone who does it once a year on spring break, but someone who is stone sober for 2 or 3 weeks and then low level (or high level) drunk for 3 or 4 days, then stops, but keeps repeating that cycle.
That CDC website says 1 in 6 US adults binge drink approximately 4 times a month. That's overall adult population of the US, not just among binge drinkers. Yet most binge drinkers aren't alcoholic.
I guess they're not into immediate gratification, which some would claim is what the addicted are about.
Do they get through the week just spending lots of time thinking about drinking?
No, they spend the whole week thinking about how misererable their life is, how many problems they have, how quick time passes by and how distant their dreams seem to be. So when weekend comes, they are eager to jump in an alcoholic stupor and forget everything. This gives them a temporary truce, until next weekend. After years of such behavior, their brains are as badly damaged as the guy who drinks every day.
One binge could destroy a liver, just like one overdose of Tylenol can.
Why do you say this? I don't if it's true or not, but it sounds scary! Can you provide a link to something talking about such a case?
By the way, thanks for contributing the CDC link.
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What is the difference between alcoholism and alcohol abuse?
Alcohol abuse4 is a pattern of drinking that results in harm to one’s health, interpersonal relationships, or ability to work. Manifestations of alcohol abuse include the following:
Failure to fulfill major responsibilities at work, school, or home.
Drinking in dangerous situations, such as drinking while driving or operating machinery.
Legal problems related to alcohol, such as being arrested for drinking while driving or for physically hurting someone while drunk.
Continued drinking despite ongoing relationship problems that are caused or worsened by drinking.
Long-term alcohol abuse can turn into alcohol dependence.
Dependency on alcohol, also known as alcohol addiction and alcoholism4, is a chronic disease. The signs and symptoms of alcohol dependence include—
A strong craving for alcohol.
Continued use despite repeated physical, psychological, or interpersonal problems.
The inability to limit drinking. (I do believe this is what is described as the "phenomenon of craving" by AA I talked about in my OP.)
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^From the above information, it looks like "inability to limit drinking" and "strong craving" are what distinguish a 'true alcoholic' from an 'alcohol abuser'.
But then I have to wonder - WHAT is a "craving" for alcohol. What would that be like?
Is craving something only physically-addicted individuals experience (like those who shake when their blood runs low or out of alcohol)?
Does an urge to 'self-medicate' count as a "craving"? If that is the case, wouldn't the person no longer crave alcohol if they went to a psychiatrist and got properly medicated?
Is a craving for alcohol merely psychological? Or is it like being hungry, thirsty, or horny?
Is what somebody might think is a craving an alcohol actually a craving for something else they're interpreting wrongly?
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I think that information also answered my question regarding whether a person can have chosen to drink so heavily that it caused serious trouble in their life and them not be a true alcoholic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MOKAN
....This particular individual seems to be an 'alcoholic' at times, and not at others. He went to AA for a couple of years, says he learned a lot from listening, but never fully quit drinking. He was having major and serious issues drinking, like lots of drunken disorderly, passing out in public and being taken to the hospital via ambulance, like almost everytime he drank! Now, after he went to AA those 2 years, he seems to be able to drink normally. Whereas his focus was on nothing but the alcohol, now when he drinks he's not obsessed with it. I've quit preaching to this person that he should follow his program and not drink and let it go. He's been fine for probably 6 months now with no 'relapses' of alcoholic drinking/getting into trouble, but since he is drinking I tend to think he will go back to being the way he was eventually. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe really figured something out....
Apparently a person can be a mere abuser even though they drink to the extent that it causes a lot of serious trouble in their life. Perhaps the individual I was speaking of will be okay. But still, I think if somebody was once capable of getting into such a destructive pattern where they abused alcohol despite the price of serious consequences, they must be capable and maybe likely to do so again.
So in your opinion the difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic is that the heavy drinker just gets drunk on weekends,and the alcoholic drinks every day?
That's wrong. When somebody spends several years or decades getting drunk every saturday night, they develop the same mindset than an alcoholic.On weekdays they are "dry alcoholics", and then unleash on weekends.
I think some people are very 'schedule oriented', meaning they will only do something during a certain time. So I see how the type you describe could be an alcoholic despite not drinking everyday. It's because they drink in all of their allotted/excess time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
I have often wondered if people who need to have high-decibel music playing all the time, talk incessantly, are always on the go, or have other compulsions -- anything to avoid stillness -- aren't just avoiding being alone with their own thoughts in another way. They just lack the gene that puts drinkers over the top, and resort to other methods.
What you're describing here sounds like a 'need for stimulation', which can be a symptom/feature of Attention Defecit Disorder and its neurochemical basis (or possibly other things). Makes me wonder if somebody could be, for example, ADD and like alcohol and that cause them to mimic an alcoholic even though their real problem is the underlying ADD. OCD and anxiety could also fit into such a hypothetical possible mistaken case of alcoholism.
A few years ago (I was 30), I felt fustrated and angry at the world, for a series of bad moves and mistakes. So I went to a supermarket, bought a beer, sat down on a bench, opened it and thought "I am gonna drink this beer, I am gonna enjoy it feeling no shame and no guilt, and then I'll go home and carry on with my life". I did, and I've been a regular, light drinker since then. (jut getting drunk once or twice a year, compared to once of twice weekly, during my 20 somethings)
So if I could, I am sure many others could.
Care to explain how before what you described you were anything other than a light drinker? How bad were you when you were abusing alcohol?
Care to explain how before what you described you were anything other than a light drinker? How bad were you when you were abusing alcohol?
When I abused alcohol I was very passive-agressive. Never attacked anybody because I was never a violent person, but I wasn´t very friendly either, I just wanted to create this alcoholic bubble where nothing could affect me, and this created a progressive gap between reality and my inner world. Life became black or white, good or bad.
Light drinking relaxes me, and I feel more in touch with reality and day by day subtilities, it's like I have no longer this burden and don´t have to worry anymore about alcohol. If I feel anxious, or there's a problem in my life, I sit down and think about it, or go jogging, or read a book, or ask somebody for advise., and yes, a beer every now and again does the trick.
It's been seveal years now, and I feel my brain working faster, in my late 20s I noticed how I started to struggle to find the right word , my speech was blury and incoherent, it's called "alcoholic aphasia". Many dry alcoholics suffer this aphasia.
There's lot's of studies indicating that light/moderate drinking is good for the brain, the problem is that many people cannot handle it, they should work on the root of their anxiety, alcohol abuse is just a reaction to some underlying problem.
When I abused alcohol I was very passive-agressive. Never attacked anybody because I was never a violent person, but I wasn´t very friendly either, I just wanted to create this alcoholic bubble where nothing could affect me, and this created a progressive gap between reality and my inner world. Life became black or white, good or bad.
Light drinking relaxes me, and I feel more in touch with reality and day by day subtilities, it's like I have no longer this burden and don´t have to worry anymore about alcohol. If I feel anxious, or there's a problem in my life, I sit down and think about it, or go jogging, or read a book, or ask somebody for advise., and yes, a beer every now and again does the trick.
It's been seveal years now, and I feel my brain working faster, in my late 20s I noticed how I started to struggle to find the right word , my speech was blury and incoherent, it's called "alcoholic aphasia". Many dry alcoholics suffer this aphasia.
There's lot's of studies indicating that light/moderate drinking is good for the brain, the problem is that many people cannot handle it, they should work on the root of their anxiety, alcohol abuse is just a reaction to some underlying problem.
The bubble: that pretty much describes how it was for me when I drank quite heavily (and every day) during a bad marriage. I was never aggressive. I would just sit in a corner with my headphones on knocking back beer after beer, numbing everything out and able to doze off to sleep. That was basically my existence for 5 years.
I still have a couple of beers here or there, but only socially or if it's the weekend and I'm watching the footie.
When I abused alcohol I was very passive-agressive. Never attacked anybody because I was never a violent person, but I wasn´t very friendly either, I just wanted to create this alcoholic bubble where nothing could affect me, and this created a progressive gap between reality and my inner world. Life became black or white, good or bad.
Light drinking relaxes me, and I feel more in touch with reality and day by day subtilities, it's like I have no longer this burden and don´t have to worry anymore about alcohol. If I feel anxious, or there's a problem in my life, I sit down and think about it, or go jogging, or read a book, or ask somebody for advise., and yes, a beer every now and again does the trick.
It's been seveal years now, and I feel my brain working faster, in my late 20s I noticed how I started to struggle to find the right word , my speech was blury and incoherent, it's called "alcoholic aphasia". Many dry alcoholics suffer this aphasia.
There's lot's of studies indicating that light/moderate drinking is good for the brain, the problem is that many people cannot handle it, they should work on the root of their anxiety, alcohol abuse is just a reaction to some underlying problem.
While I can't rule out other forms of alcoholism, I absolutely agree with your last paragraph that alcohol abuse, for many people, is driven by an underlying problem. I also agree that moderate drinking is better than none. There are a ton of studies that say so. One even suggests "heavy drinkers" (which I think they mean the heavy end of healthy drinking spectrum) live longer than non-drinkers. While moderate drinkers live longest.
I don't want to prod you too much, but how much were you drinking when you abused and how often? And what was the worst consequence of your abusive drinking?
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