Originally Posted by
langkah 
I've known alcoholics who consider themselves abstinent but still toast with a slurp of wine occasionally, enjoy desserts with a finishing splash of hi-test over the top, and when they are cooking will sample the wine they are about to dump in the pot in order to...to make sure it's really wine, I suppose.
You cannot be abstinent if you are drinking even a sip. This isn't an opinion, this just follows with the
definition of what abstaining means; which is to refrain from. I've never once met an "alcoholic" (and I have met maybe thousands) who has ever claimed to be abstinent or sober but then also proclaim to have sips here and there...your sampling of the cooking wine example made me giggle, BTW! WTF? Who does that? "to make sure it is really, wine, I suppose". Sorry, that is sadly hysterical!!
Originally Posted by
langkah All those are willing and concious intakes of booze, but there still exists for these people a line which they will not cross. For them anything over a half glass would be wrong and a clear violation of their non-drinking identity.
I find it very hard to believe a real person believes they have a non-drinking identity if they allow themselves occasions to take sips for whatever reason. That's like me occasionally taking a hit off a joint and then saying I don't smoke pot. A non-drinking identiity, to me, is very different than the identity of someone who takes even the occasional sip when the occasion could call for it....because these people at least look "normal" to others. As a non-drinker, I literally don't drink no matter what and am thus defined as such. If I occasionally had a half glass at special occasions, there would be no point or need for me to proclaim myself as a non-drinker. I guess what I don't understand with your whole post here is why these "people" you claim you have met are trying so hard to say they are abstinent when by definition, they are not?
Originally Posted by
langkah Others I've known have passed the half-a-drink mark but stopped short and did not continue on to getting drunk at that time, and so interpret their experience as not drinking, or as not REALLY drinking as they would describe drinking.
What is going on in someone's head when they have half a drink, as you claim, but then chalk the experience up as a non-drinking one? If someone is trying that hard to claim they didn't
really drink when they clearly did (even if it is a small amount) something is
wrong. Nobody who is truly comfortable with their "half a glass" behavior is going to find the need to ever classify that as non-drinking. The person drank, end of story. If they try and sell it as anything less, then they are not as comfortable with their behavior as they'd like others to think.
Originally Posted by
langkah It's almost two schools of thought...one school holds the line at zero deliberate alcohol ingestion, another is ok with drinking small amounts if there's a reasonable reason to go ahead and do that, but not to overdo it and to not do that too often.
I see from the two differing viewpoints that people can associate with AVRT while still choosing to interpret the material loosely instead of literally, each finding what works for the individual, taking what they want and leaving the rest.
I'm all for taking what you want and leaving the rest when it comes to
sobriety....but um, no....not when someone is trying to say they are sober when they clearly drink.
Originally Posted by
langkah Good to know there is a wide degree a flexibility in interpreting and applying the basic concept of abstinence among AVRT'rs.
I don't know that it is
that wide, and it certainly isn't wide enough for people to say they are non-drinkers when they drink!!