Alwyshope12

I'm in that group too sugarbear and IOAA2.

But glad to be on the path to a better life.

gaffo

I honestly like the title of "Alcoholic". It cuts the crap like a hot knife through butter. Trying to find some other way to define my relationship with alcohol is basically a waste of time.

littlefish

Firstly, it wasn't a government study. It was made by a private, for profit corporationm (medscape) that provides web portals for medical professionals. The study wasn't actually an original study, either. It was a report compiled by a group of statisticians who looked at two previous studies and crunched some new figures out of them. Stats of stats.

Why they did this, well, anyone's guess, but the final recommendation is a bizarrely hopeful conclusion that almost sounds like..."hey, there really aren't that many alcoholics out there, after all!"
or, maybe more to the point:
"All you docs who use medscape portals and don't know what to do with your drunk patients, don't worry! they aren't really drunks! Yay!"

The "9 out of 10 who drink excessively are not alcoholics" claim made by the journalist is is confusing, because the study establishes 3 different groups of alcoholics, and it seems the 9 out of 10 claim was based mostly on binge drinkers.

This study has some things that I find confusing:
the study makes the conclusion that :"If most binge drinkers do not meet the diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence --- clinical preventive services may effectively reduce binge drinking in most cases without requiring addiction treatment".
Which makes me wonder what criteria they use for defining alcohol dependency?
so, I looked at their questions and one part of the study was based on questions about past year drinking.
I can't imagine the accuracy of a questionnaire based on past 12 months of drinking. I am an alcoholic. If someone asked me about my drinking 11 months ago, I would find that somewhat hilarious.
Then, when you look at their chart, it gets more confusing because they make some conclusions based on the comparison of previous 30 day drinking compared to the year before.

For me the study is coming from the classic "medical" view of alcohol treatment. That alcoholism is basically a medical condition and that pills, preventative treatment, such, as they suggest, "brief counseling", and some government initiatives will cure it.
Well, okay, fine and I hope that they give it a good try. Except that the study didn't really get into any practical suggestions or concrete strategies. I can't really see how anyone can give "it" a try when they is no "it". I was left wondering what the point of it was.

Brian316

Well, for me I spent some extra drunk time over the whole "problem drinker" thing. Thoughts like oh, I'm not a real alcoholic I'm just a problem drinker so if I just chill out for a while I can get a handle on it. It's just an addiction I'm a man I can control myself. Besides I wasn't THAT bad....etc. The fact is, alcohol took over my life to the point it was simultaneously the thing I wanted the most and the thing that hurt me the most in all areas. And I could no longer deny the fact that if I put any in me, I could not guarantee what would happen. By most definitions that kind of does it for me.

readerbaby71

I don't need to label myself with any one term to know I have a huge problem with alcohol and that drinking affects my brain and my life negatively.

1seekinghelp

For me being an alcoholic comes down to why you are drinking, usually to stop the pain, avoid the pain, avoid life etc. and the fact that even if you want to stop you can't stop drinking without help. I think heavy drinking as mentioned in the article is a slippery slope and can lead some folks into the not being able to stop drinking part which for me makes you an alcoholic. Alcoholics are physiologically different in our brain chemistry (I read a whole bunch of research articles on this and did a project on addiction and the brain for an anatomy class) and there is a point of no return biochemically within our brains when we continue to drink heavily.

Alcoholics are smart, we know how to get what we want and we will look for any excuse to drink and articles like this will probably give some people the excuse to keep drinking even though they should stop. For me, I can't drink any more. I crossed a line and it took over my life and over the past 24 months I have taken my life back and it is better without alcohol in it. I heard a wise person with many years of sobriety say in an AA meeting "If you think you might be an alcoholic, you probably are." That is how it went for me. I thought I might be an alcoholic and turns out I was. Just my two cents worth.

Carbonized

Dead on the money. It's amazing how many functional alcoholics out there don't realize they are hooked

uncle holmes

What is unknown about this study is that some of these so called "90% of excessive drinkers who aren't alcoholics" maybe aren't alcoholics yet. They very well could be in due time.

In other words in order for this study to be complete they would have to continue to keep updates of all these 90% of excessive drinkers to see where they're at say over the next 5-10 years.

Rutheb79

I really appreciate this discussion. Thank you. I'm glad I came across it just now; perfect timing. Somehow it offers me a degree of clarity in the midst of my confusion on the topic. And with the situation I now find myself in my marriage.

xxEllaxx00

I think that an article like this may unfortunately result in binge drinkers ( binge drinking is *still* problem drinking) and people who are addicted (whether they acknowledge that they are or not) to go full speed ahead , allowing their situation to become worse. I think this article is really only touching on the component of consumption, which renders it pretty misleading . The part they overlook, is really the distinction they're trying to point out in the first place - the difference between heavy drinkers and alcoholics ...heavy drinking is really only a behavior , but there's a sort of pathology involved with alcoholism and other addictions that just doesn't exist for someone who drinks heavily but isn't physically or mentally addicted. I think this concept is very simply put in NA's basic text, which says:

and

All in all, I think studies like this can be beneficial, but they can also be dangerous! It's not about these indulgent and ridiculous labels, it's about just recognizing that our lives have become "unmanageable" through our actions (addicted, or not) and wanting to make a change...labels should go out the window.

Johno1967

I could not achieve the massive quantities like I once could at the end but it was the urgent and irrational compulsion to drink when I did not want to that convinced me of my alcoholism.
Everyone should decide for themselves if they are an alcoholic. I will never decide for another that he or she is but will ask them to decide for themselves. If I could step into a bar, order a drink and then another and then promptly put the second drink down half way through and walk out without hesitation I would say that I'm not an alcoholic. Will I try it? Not a chance.

walkbeformakrun

The "alcoholic" vs "problem drinker" labeling issue has long interested me. When I first came on here I observed a few posters calling out others as not "real" alcoholics and merely problem drinkers. It does seem to me though to be more of an intellectual distinction rather than a real distinction.

For example, I'm in the category of those that can drink prodigious amounts but still function. I used to drink all night every night but resist drinking before going to work or at work. Then I was helpless at 5 PM to resit. But then even at 5 PM I knew and held to my limit so I did't get a hang over the next day. But I did get pretty drunk nonetheless. And it was every single night and all day Saturday and Sunday, sometimes. I then quit without detox, without addiction symptoms, without AA.

So.... does it matter? I know that if I had not quit I'd be getting worse and worse. I started drinking very moderately. It very slowly progressed to the point I described above. It took me more than 35 years to get to that point. It was glacial in speed but also in momentum. I can see that inevitably I would be drinking all day every day in a matter of time.

I still might if I go back to thinking I can moderate. I did try to moderate before I quit altogether and it did not work for more than a week or so. I tried it multiple times.

I know this is not an uncommon pattern. So doc's using that portal should not and likely are not soothed by the portal telling them that I'm a problem drinker rather than an alcoholic. Its still a very dangerous and unhealthy thing.

Pagekeeper

It is a real distinction according to AA. The real alcoholic is clearly defined in the Dr's Opinion and Big Book. A real alcoholic experiences the phenomena of craving. That is the one thing all real alcoholics have in common, regardless of how much they drank or how hard they hit bottom. The real alcoholic develops a craving after taking a drink that wipes out all rational decision making and reasoning, no matter the consequences. A hard drinker may have a bad experience on a bender and be able to cut back successfully, but a real alcoholic very rarely can "cut back" or moderate for long because the phenomenon of craving eventually gets the best of them. Their alcoholic insanity convinces them they can just have a few, and the phenomena of craving is a physiological response to alcohol that destroys their ability to control intake once the alcohol has been consumed.

walkbeformakrun

I am a complete failure at both cutting back and drinking in moderation. However, having just one drink does not make me feel like I am out of control. I can still limit myself to the same I had the night before with slight variations over time. Such that over a very long period of time I went from very little, once every few days, to prodigious amounts every day. If I have one drink then I know I'm going to have more, I can't resist having at least a few more after having one. But I never lost all rational decision making and reasoning.

Pagekeeper

The bolded part above is the definition of the phenomena of craving.

Having one drink never made me feel out of control, either, it just made me want another drink!

What I meant by losing all rational decision making and reasoning is that the alcoholic will continue drinking, despite having made promises to stop, despite their failures to moderate, despite knowing the consequences. I failed to articulate that accurately.

Also, my experience was that the phenomena of craving progressed with my alcoholism. At first, it didn't happen every time I drank, only sometimes. But eventually, it happened every time. I think this has to do with the progression of the illness.