Alcoholic. Yes or No

[caslass]

My neighbour insists if a person has just one alcoholic drink per day then they are an alcoholic. I think this is a load of twoddle. He says his doctor told him this. I would be interested in ABers opinions. Especially the opinion of squad.

[China Doll]

That seems odd Mr V.... Binge drinking alcoholics can go for significantly longer than 48 hours without a drink in my (quite extensive unfortunately) experience.

[craft1948]

I agree with China.......I drink far too much at one go, but I'm quite okay if there's no booze in the house. Every so often I have alcohol free months to help the liver.

[tamborine]

Move......you've outgrown their ignorance.

[Androcles]

I have been talking today to a family member who is an alcoholic. He has been know to go up to 48 hours without a drink and once made it through 6 months rehab. But today, he was paralytic again, and will be again tomorrow until his liver or something else packs up. He knows he ought to stop, but cannot, no matter what anybody does to try and help. Before long, he is sneaking something ,begging, stealing or borrowing to get a drink. When he was in rehab again, they used to buy lemonade and a bottle of vodka and some instant glue. You tip out half the lemonade, top up with vodka and reseal the cap with the glue, so the staff who check think it is a new bottle of lemonade.

I once gave him some cash as he was broke to take his young son to Macdonalds on a Saturday visit. The kid never got any where near a Big Mac, as Dad spent the lot on half a dozen three litre bottles of cider and was found outside in his garden two days later, with the empties around him and had to be taken to hospital. The state of him had to be seen to be believed. This has been going on now for fifteen years. He will never stop.

That's an alcoholic.

[jno]

Mr V, I imagine the definition you've been given is the sort used in deciding whether someone who hasn't been treated is an alcoholic or not: if he feels he can't go without a drink for two days, he probably is one. Nonetheless, after treatment many give up forever (as smokers also do). The illness isn't 'cured' but the addiction is beaten.

But having a sherry every day doesn't actually prove you are one; it's just an indicator, and in your case not a very strong one.

[standian]

Surely it's not so much about quantity or frequency but more about a physical and mental craving - if you have the one drink a day through choice and could go without if you wanted to, that's different from needing and craving that one drink. Although of course that seems to be one of the more insidious things about alcoholism - how long people can think that they are in control of that choice. I have seen one definition about how it is not about frequency or amount, but about when alcohol starts to have a negative effect on aspects of your life - finances, health, work, relationships, etc. - that is when your drinking becomes a problem and the control is being reduced as you are choosing it over these other things in life.

I agree with the suggestion that the doctor might be somewhat over egging the pudding to try and get your neighbour to think about their drinking more!!

[jno]

standian, yes, here's a typical test for people to take:

http://www.timesonlin...th/article4893738.ece

[fredpuli47]

The key is that the person who is developing as an alcoholic starts by one drink because he 'needs one', and progresses gradually over time until the drink is essential.Since his tolerance of alcohol, and the speed with which he gets it out of his system, both increase, he requires more and more to reach a level as a 'cruising speed' the level he lives at just to function normally.He will pass through life,with blood-alcohol always at that steady level without others knowing,or suspecting, that he drinks.Finally he reaches the stage where drink completely rules his existence, he is living to drink. By this stage he'll lose his job,his wife or partner and his family and not appear to care, because 'they weren't worth it anyway' or 'that happens'.Then the world calls him an alcoholic, but the signs were there, and he was one, long before.An experienced person, a doctor maybe, can see the earlier signs far before that stage (hence their concern) Throughout, the person himself is in complete denial even in the face of overwhelming evidence (as it will eventually be).
Alcoholics can certainly go without alcohol ( I did for six months, George Best allegedly a year) or 'binge drink' and abstain but they are still alcoholics underneath.Some of us are lucky. George Best,Tony Hancock and many others were not. I was; so were Anthony Hopkins and others,but unfortunately we are likely to be the minority.
With luck, the person 'hits the brick wall' and can be helped successfully.Until then, if he accepts he has a problem that's a start but nothing is certain until he finally realises that he cannot go on as he is.

[ELVIS68]

We go for a drink on a Friday night after work and drink maybe 7 or 8 pints and and no-one thinks there is anything wrong with that yet the storeman at work will sneak off to his car during the morning and have a can of Super T and everyone says he is an alcoholic

Just to add, he has a can before he gets to work at 7am every morning too

[Sqad]

Alcoholism is a dependence on alcohol to get one through the normal daily activities of his/her particular lifestyle.

It has nothing to do with the amount that you drink and may be as little as a small glass of whiskey per day. so casless, your neighbours doctor is quite correct.

There may be a short term, or more likely a long term price to pay for your dependence on alcohol.

Complicated subject to which I am ill prepared to offer an expert opinion.

[fredpuli47]

Elvis is describing a classic symptom, the sneaky drink.In the pub the person's regular coterie will always be a group of fairly heavy drinkers.He'll be anxious in company because other, normal drinkers, don't drink fast enough.He'll be volunteering refills or rounds to speed the drinking up, so he gets a drink. He'll buy himself doubles when buying a round. He may not be aware of this but soon gets to the stage where he tells himself 'there's nothing wrong in it but people might notice' That's the curious thing.He's almost hiding his drinking from himself, by pretence, which is the early stage of the denial which will completely rule his life as the condition progresses.That is the kind of behaviour which all formerly practising (termed 'recovering' in the jargon) alcoholics recognise now but which they never. of course, recognised in themselves when they were doing it.