queenteree

I am not an alcoholic, but I am married to one. I am curious, if alcoholism means your addicted to alcohol, then how come my husband binge drinks, and by that I mean can drink for three weeks straight then doesn't drink for a week or two only to start up again and drink every day for weeks again. If it is a disease, then how come he can pick and chose when to go on his benders, and actually be around alcohol and say no to alcohol when he choses to not drink? My son doesn't believe it is a disease, says it's a matter of choice since he can do that and now I'm beginning to wonder. Thanks for your opinions.

wozzek

HA!!, I am positive you'd be getting a lot of answers here. If you described his pattern of drinking accurately it seems to me that he, while not drinking, is just taking a break. Dry drinking periods, one might call it. Gathering his strength to get back to what he does / likes the best - drinking. I was like that. And I was (am) an alcoholic. I will go to a bar today, the only place I will have someone to talk to, and will not even THINK about having a drink. This does not change the fact I am an alcoholic and that this one drink would change that smiling man into a raving drooling moron in an instant...

Tazman53

An alcoholic is just fine as long as he does not touch a drink whether or not right now he is a binge drinker or like I became a maintenance drinker that some times would get smashed.

Alcoholism is a progressive disease and it does not effect everyone the same, but a binge drinker goes on binges more and more often the further his disease progresses until finally even the binge drinker reachs the point I was at where I had to drink every day! I had no choice.

Has the length of time between your husbands binges shortened?

Are the lengths of his binges longer?

Read the 2 books "Under the Influence" & "Beyond the Influence" both of those books cover the disease and the binge drinker.

A common myth is an alcoholic drinks every day and or 24 X 7! The truth of the matter is that does not come until the later stages of the disease. A person who binge drinks does for some reason tend to do far more damage to their brains in a shorter amount of time then a daily drinker.

queenteree

Taz, yes he will stop for only a week and then drink daily (all day even at work) for about three weeks, then stop for a week and start up again. And when he drinks, he drinks as fast as he can to get drunk in the quickest amount of time possible (downing like 4 beers in 10 mins.). His mind is totally shot, doesn't even remember most of the time what he said 5 mins before, even when he is sober. The reason for this post was because if alcoholism is a disease, and one can stop for a week or so, then isn't more a matter of choice? That's the debate my son and I are having, he feels everything in life is a matter of choice, including alcoholism.

SaTiT

I've been know to leave six packs in the frigg for weeks.
Well, yeah after a binge my body just gives out , i basically crash.
It's just a pattern and I functioned well for a bit.

I stopped drinking when I was 22, but I mixed a lot of drugs or
it excellerate of my life becoming unmanageable.

My gf didn't start drinking until she was in her 30's.

It's progressive and it effects everyone different, so you
can't really throw 1 blenket over alcoholism.

Most people if not all will not admitt to alcoholism until the sheit
hits the fan, becuase it's a way of life and we think everybody
is doing it, so it's okay. It's like one of those things you always
thought only happens to other people, so you stay in denial.
That's the cunning, baffleing, and powerful part of alcoholism,
becuase it takes time for the progress to happens and it dosn't
happen overnite.

But once youu sober up..you actually relized..holy crap,
there's actaully people in this world that don't drink or use.

Everybody knows this to a certain extent...so why do people
drink regruadless of their knowlege.Alcohol is also a depressent,
the side affects is being depressed as heck.
If you don't agree with it being a disease...alcohol dose do
damage to the brain. Wheater you think it's a disease or not,
It'll be kind of stupid or insane to drink again and cuase more
brain damage, even if my brain did heal.
Not beyound the influence , perhasp.
Drinking pioson into our body dose no make any sense,
and mankind has been doing it forever.

But hey...people continue to print all kinds of literature, and we can
all go into a debet until we all trun blue. Humans still do things
that dosn't make any sense...so there you go ; )

tkdan

If I could choose not to be an alcoholic I would. It would be difficult for a non-alcoholic to understand that. It is not a choice for me it is what I am.

leviathon

This is all part of the rationalizatin of why it isn't a problem... the labels really don't matter, your son has a problem. Period.

miss communicat

the debates on "its a disease/its a choice" are circular and unresolvable for the intellect alone.

I believe in both aspects. Its a Choice and a Disease of Chemistry.

I believe in holistic approaches to all of our conditions, including this one.

Holistically:
Our choices condition our chemistry, over time and with enough repetitions.
Our chemistry, including our genetic pool at birth, conditions our feelings, which lead to our choices. If we feel sensitive and intensely, we are uncomfortable. We will avoid, run from and/or medicate to lessen our discomfort.

We have free will and choose to either pick up the drink, put it to our lips and drink it. Or not. But we also have a chemical brain cascade that pushes us over the line of choice after a certain time and level of consumption.

My question in these debate circles iss this: Why do you need to know, with black vs white certainty, whether its a disease or not? How is it affecting your life and how can you choose to live a life of higher quality for yourself?

NoelleR

You've gotten some great replies so I'll just speak on a couple of points that jumped out at me from your original post:

1) "...if alcoholism means your addicted to alcohol,.." You might want to do some more research on your definition of alcoholism.....like Tazman suggested, the books 'Under the Influence' and 'Beyond the Influence.'

2) "...If it is a disease, then how come he can pick and chose when to go on his benders..." There's a great li'll quote/joke in AA: it's the FIRST drink that gets us drunk' ----- lol..... As I read your post, look at it this way: he doesn't pick and choose when to go on his benders, he picks and chooses when to take that first drink.....after that it's no longer a choice for him.....

So far I really gotta just say 'ditto' to miss ciommunicat.....she hit on all the points.....and yes this debeat will go on ad infinitum.....

For me, I guess, it depends on how we're looking at the term 'disease' ---- from a recovery perspective? then whether it is or isn't really doesn't matter.....what matters is recovery from..... BUT if I'm looking from a medical perspective, then I leave it to the professionals....doctors, etc. And doctors, the AMA, have decided that alcoholism IS a disease and is listed as such.....again doesn't matter what I think/believe.....it IS.....lol Unfortunately, professionals seem to take one addiction at a time for listing, and as of today, addiction as a whole/inclusive is NOT (yet) listed as a disease.....

Enough babble......I'll leave you to your research, and your son too.....his understanding can be a bit dangerous....to alcoholics anyway.....if we thought it was only a choice, and if we couldn't seem to stay sober by only making the choice...it would appear we were 'weak-willed' and this can lead ............. yuck, i don't even wanna go there..... )o: Just do your due diligence..... (o:


NoelleR
DOS: 6/23/86

P.S. and, yes, I was a binge drinker, right up to the end, and if I'd continued, I would have died very soon..........some of my 'binges' were longer than others.....I always look at the 24/7 drinker as a binge drinker on a very long binge....heck, some of mine lasted months.....and then some.....lol

Russelrb

Two things come to mind for me. First, if you know that another drink is there down the road stopping for a while can be done (from my experience). Second, maybe he is not really quitting, just sneaking. This can be done (from my experience also). I do believe it is a disease, but it is very complex and effects different people differently. I only drank after work so I was sober all day, how can one be sober for 12 hours without a problem and then feel an overwhelming need to start up? You could say i was binge drinking just that the binges were shorter and so was the time in between.

Emimily

i'm 22 and i have almost a year of sobriety. i wanted to share something my mom said when i first told her i needed a meeting (my mom's in recovery as well). she said "a man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man." i guess for me that always sort of explained the illness of addiction... people who aren't alcoholics aren't predisposed to want that next drink the way that alcoholics will. i guess at some point there's an invisible line that's crossed when an alcoholic takes their first drink.

i was a binge drinker, too. big party girl, but i wouldn't drink in the mornings or when i had to work, whatever. still-i couldn't stop when i wanted to, and when i HAD to, i hated life. i guess that's what i use to qualify my own alcoholism, and my disease.

wozzek

Now I am not quite clear what is your question here? Is it a pure academic curiousity / debate you and your son are having or you feel your family have a problem?

In a word, are you all happy as it is?

Perhaps you need to get real - this guy's "mind is totally shot" and "doesn't remember what he said 5 minutes before" - so I wonder do you realize how horrible this sounds?

queenteree

wozzek - there is a family problem here. My son (and other two children) no longer live at home as they are 28, 26 and 24 but they know what I go thru on an almost daily basis. The debate with my son is cause I stayed there last night and discussed leaving my AH, and son said that since AH has stopped for weeks at a time at times, he didn't think he was an alcoholic. Son also has a problem with labling alcoholism as a disease, he feels it is a matter of choice to put that alcohol in you, you know the consequences of those actions, and if you still choose to, you suffer those consequences. And he feels that since AH can stop for a while, he is not addicted and therefore I should not say "he has a disease" and if he could control it, he wouldn't be drinking as much as he is with alcoholic liver disease and knowing he may very well die from it. Son also doesn't believe anyone is "powerless over alcohol", he says everything is a matter of willpower. I know it sounds horrible but my AH's mind is shot, even when he is sober, and to me that is so so sad.

Tazman53

queenetree alcoholism is a three phase disease:

1. It is a physical disease, unlike a normal person who may be perfectly happy with one drink, the second an alcoholic has a drink he wants another, and another and another. (This is also a difference between an alcoholic and a drug addict, a drug addict gets high and is happy until they start to come down, then they want more, an alcoholic just keeps slamming drinks until they pass out, go to sleep, run out of booze or money.

2. It is a mental disease, there is the obsession for the next time they get to drink, that is all I thought about at work, it really kicked in 1/2 hour before I got off work!

3. It is a spiritual disease, an alcoholic develops gangrene of the soul, their whole life revolves around drinking, they will lie, steal, decieve or anything else they have to do to be able to continue to drink.

confound

Alcoholism is progressive!

I did the "3-4 day benders followed by a dry week" cycle for years before it turned into a week of drinking daily with one dry day, and then finally into drinking daily. With all due respect, worrying about whether it is a "disease" really is just an academic exercise. If someone will routinely "drink daily (all day even at work) for about three weeks", doing damage to your mind, body, and spirit, what's the point in debating it?

Take care,

confound

BigSis

(((Queentree))) I responded in your other thread... but I wonder, does your son believe that the millions of alcoholics are suffering through this because they WANT to?

Really? Millions of drunks unable to get drunk and unable to get sober?

Someone on here referred to those who are not alcholic as "earth people". Earth people don't "get" it... they can understand not being able to lose ten pounds, they can understand a diabetic having trouble giving up sugar, they can understand a person with a heart condition struggling with a low cholesterol diet... but the alcoholic - not so much understanding or compassion.

I am sorry for the pain this man has inflicted on you and your children. I do know that pain, personally, and wish it could be better for you.

What I know is that people recover - every day. Including the very worst of us, and including those who love the person beneath the addiction.

I wish your son was willing to educate himself on addiction... it does run in families and if/when he has children of his own, that fact may become very apparent.

((hugs))

laurie6781

As the alcoholism progresses, the time between binges becomes shorter and the binges become longer, until it is daily drunkism. And, yes along with that comes behavorial changes. More verbal abuse, followed by threatening jestures, followed by physical violence.

The individual becomes a SLAVE to alcohol and MUST have alcohol at ALL COSTS.

Please get yourself a copy of "Under The Influence." This will help explain a lot!

Here is a link here at the site to some excerpts from that book:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...influence.html

Hope that helps!!!!!

Love and hugs,

lanie67

I don't know, my dad is diabetic, its a chemical thing, and as long as he injects the insulin he's fine. If his levels get out of whack he's not fine. For an alcoholic, any level of alcohol in our system gets us out of whack and that's why it's a disease, because we have a sort of allergy to alcohol, that includes tolerance. It might be more helpful to your son to think of it as the reaction between alcohol and the body of the alcoholic when alcohol is present, not that it is sometimes not present.

SaTiT

Son also doesn't believe anyone is "powerless over alcohol", he says everything is a matter of willpower.

mmm...been there, done that. Most alcoholics are very strong will people.
At least I was..lol Or I was a functioning alcoholic.
Partying all night and going to work hung over almost everyday was
the norm...it somethings everybody accepted..being a young stud.lol
It 's slick, hip and cool in a wierd sort of way. So it confirms my willpower
theory.

I would stop drinking from time to time to mellow out..
but everytime i drank again...the unmanageabilty got slightly worst and worst.
Even after attending AA for months and months, I would relapsed over and over
again. Becuase powerless is a very strong word from my neck of woods.

I'm one of those that has to hit bottom, bottom. My strong will, pride
lead to my own deminse. Okay..I was still hung up on the word while
the evidence in front of me was to the contary....
I got my arss kicked by alcohol...

The only place with it's door opened to me was AA,at that junction.
Oki doki...step #1 became clearer.
Step#2...I wasn't stupid...so why the hell did i kept doing the samething
over and over again and expected different results....insanity perhaps.

Step #3...well, my experiment with powerlessness.lol
It takes a lot of willpower and courage to trun my will and life into the
unknown. Working the 12 steps was the hardest thing I had to do in my
life. It's 95% actions and 5% debate.lol

fraankie

i am really going to go against the grain here
for the purpose of debate, and, i guess free speech

to begin with
you can go into a thousand rehabs
everyone and your mother can be saying you have a drinking problem
even the dog is barking "this bud's for you"
but
once you say
"my name is queenteree, i am an alcoholic'
they got you coming and going
no matter if the bus is there or not
simply because you are now admitting you have a problem

drink every day, you are a drunk
drink once in a while, you are a binge drinker
drink at parties, you are a social drunk
drink and don't come home, you are an "on a bender" drunk
don't drink and then drink, you fell off the wagon
and
goshdawn forbid you say "i haven't got a problem'
now, you are "in denial"
share at an AA meeting "i don't know if i am an alcoholic"
someone will ask "why are you at an alcoholics anonymous meeting"

i know this is a lot of lol stuff
so.....................
best
fraankie