yeahgr8

Well i respect that DWI, i did the same 4 nights ago, but no way you will ever here out of my mouth any justification for drinking any amount if you are an alcoholic. Yeah that makes me a hypocrite at the moment i guess! I've met a lot of people, mostly men i have to say, that just love company and love to compare themself to the poor guy at the end of the bar who is in very poor health still downing his booze, saying "AT LEAST I'M NOT AS BAD AS HIM"...sip sip! Unfortunately these sort of men/women will always love your company as long as you are struggling! And these are not just alcoholics who do this! Pathetic!

SelfSeeking

I'm a skinny woman. So numbers aside, I drank till I passed out/blacked out twice weekly by the end, drank enough to be drunk and then hung over a couple other nights. The days when I didn't drink were when I was still ill at the end of the day. I drank enough to fail out of my grad school program, permanently mess up several important relationships, and feel extreme frustration whenever I was in a situation where I couldn't drink. I stood at the point where I either needed to start drinking in the morning to function, or quit altogether. And then I came here, and then to AA I'm glad I went the direction I did. I didn't go through physical withdrawal, but getting sober was hard enough without it.

You can decide when to get off that elevator. It doesn't have to get as bad as the guy next to you. Save yourself the trouble and learn from his experience!

nelco

Part 2 of the big book alcoholics anonymous covers a whole section of stories about people who stopped in time......It states ....Most of these fortunate ones have had little or no acquaintance with delirium, with hospitals, asylums, and jails. Some were drinking heavily, and there had been occasional serious episodes. But with many, drinking had been little more than a sometimes uncontrollable nuisance. Seldom had any of these lost either health, business, family, or friends.

you might find it an interesting read.

I drank less at the end of my drinking than I had done, say.. a year previous because my tolerance was gone completely and I was just getting messy all the time. Just topping up..Its really not about the amount of drink at all.


Quotes from big book alcoholic anonymous

OceanBound

This thread is making me confused... I can pass the bar test, sort of. When I used to drink in public, I didn't drink too much although I sneaked drinks sometimes and ended somewhere between tipsy and moderately drunk. Then using Flutter's definition, I am a heavyweight when it comes to drinking alone, always more than 10 drinks and including blackouts, hallucinations, nightmares, beginning of paranoia. I haven't lost my job or any relationships because of drinking yet, I can cover it up well. So who am I? Problem drinker? Alcoholic? Split personality? All of the above???

flutter

OB, I didn't make that up, and FINALLY found my source:

What's your pattern - Rethinking Drinking - NIAAA

This was posted on here a while ago.. likely shocking results for any active drinkers.

Coming back and editing this to say, this is a 'test' purely to compare your drinking to the general population. I want to reiterate whether or not alcohol is a problem in YOUR life, has absolutely nothing to do with other people.

BP44

Always too much and never enough. The amount really doesn't matter. I like to think I drank just enough to get sober. I categorize it in the same way I do with the number of times I went to jail. I'd like to think I went just the right number of times. One more or less may have killed me or someone else. Neither the amount I drank nor the number of times I went to jail have anything to do with me qualifying as an alcoholic. It's more about what happens when I take a drink, and more importantly, what happens when I'm separated from a drink. There are folks all over the world who drink the amounts I drank and are not alcoholic. There are folks who've been to jail due to drinking on more than one occasion who are not alcoholic.

OceanBound

Flutter, thanks!

Got it: "According to the NIH survey, about half of people in your drinking pattern group already have alcoholism or alcohol abuse, and the rest have an increased risk of developing these and other problems, especially liver disease."

I have to say I knew what I would find. Before even finding this forum, I knew I had to quit or else. And it's not even about how much I drank, although I did drink a lot, it's about watching my life slip away from me and not wanting this to happen and now wanting to hurt anymore.

Thanks, everybody, for your support!
OB

Sweets79

I can relate there....I covered it up really well...a lot of times no one realized how much I had drank (not saying that's a good thing)...and I have snuck drinks sometimes in public....If I was invited, say, to a BBQ, and they didn't really have any liquor or just beer...I would throw a pint of Vodka in my purse...now that I type it, it sounds SO bad...I've done that quite a few times.

LauraS

Here's another link, which I found useful:

Alcoholism Screening Quiz

Notice that there is not one question there which addresses the amount of drinking. I answered 12 out of 20 with "yes" which, according to the information presented at the end of the test, puts me pretty high up the scale in terms of alcoholism. According to the folks at Johns Hopkins, where this test was developed, you only need to answer "yes" to 3 of these questions. I imagine there are many here whose scores would be much higher than mine.

I do disagree that talking about this is discouraging or confusing. I think it's important to bring these questions up so that people can see where their own confusion is and dispel some of these myths about alcoholism. To read these explanations about how it isn't about how much you drink that we've seen in this thread might really help motivate someone to get out of their denial early. Just my opinion, YMMV.

Thanks everyone for responding.

FightingIrish

One of my excuses for years was that I was at the upper end of the bell curve physiologically (and in most other ways). That is, I simply could process alcohol better than most people, so "moderate" drinking for me was a lot more quantity of the sauce than for most. Where I got this little morsel of magical thinking, I don't know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I don't think normal drinkers get to a 0.3 BAC on a typical evening, which is where I was when I was arrested.

FI

tellus

The only metric that mattered for me was, "is drinking making my life significantly worse?" If I tried to go purely by the numbers (which were pretty high), I could convince myself that a chunky girl like me could handle it. If I compared myself to other kids my age, well, I live in the binge drinking capital of the country. Lots of kids here drink too much. If I went by the typical life-losses metric, well hey, I don't have a husband or kids to alienate, I'd never lost a job or gotten arrested, I must be doing okay. Boy, was I not doing okay.

The problem with quibbling over "alcoholic versus problem drinker versus alcohol dependent versus et cetera" is that alcoholics, as a rule, are really good at justification. If we can shoehorn ourselves into a not-so-bad category, we will.

In short, I wouldn't worry about which 'category' you do or don't fall into. If alcohol is making your life worse, it might be a good idea to stop. Simple, if not easy.

least

Two years ago I started drinking a glass of wine before my kids got home from school, to relax so I wouldn't let myself be sucked into any arguments. Within six months I was drinking all day, every day, and knew in my gut that I had "a problem". It took me until the end of that year (07) to finally admit to myself and a family member that I was getting worse and needed to stop drinking. At that time I was drinking anywhere from one to three bottles of wine a day.

It took me from December 07 til July last year to actually stay sober. I made it six months or so and relapsed for one day. I now have close to three months and am determined to make it this time.

I don't care about labels either. Whether I'm alcoholic or 'problem drinker', the end result was the same: I'd lost my self respect and was going downhill fast. It was only a matter of time before something worse happened to me, and I didn't want to risk it. My depression and anxiety was unbearable and my meds weren't helping due to always drinking. Living was horrible and I was often suicidal.

I still have the same problems and still am depressed and anxious, but my meds are helping now that I'm not drinking and I'm much better able to handle whatever comes my way.

Sobriety really rocks!

Nuclerosis

At my worst, on my days off - yes I was somehow holding down a full time job lol - I used to start around 8-9AM with 4 cans of lager. Wouldn't drink them particularly quickly and usually 11AM to midday it would be down to the off license for 2 bottles of wine. Of course by early afternoon I was extremely drunk.

rubbersoul

I can understand why people are curious about how much other alcoholics are drinking. I was drinking way too much, especially for my weight and gender. My alcoholism rapidly progressed within a 3 year period and it was pretty obvious even to me that there was a big problem. I'm still embarrassed about how much I would drink and my behaviour when I was drunk. I made a lot of mistakes and by this last year I prefered drinking alone and was hiding it by doing it between 12 am and 4 am. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done but I know in my heart that I can't drink anymore if I want to find any kind of peace in this life.

MagicMan08

When I was bad it was upwards of a case a day or a liter of hard stuff....and a terrible diet to boot....I was eating but not very healthy.

I put on something like 80+lbs in like 6 months....it was ridiculous....I am just now starting to lose some of that weight....and am still working on getting my life to become manageable and this is 6+ months later

DayWalker

The average amount......(if I was 12'6" & 650lbs)

All kidding aside...I was up to a fifth and a half at my worst. Near the end of my drinking though I noticed the amount it took actually started becoming less and less, which was one thing that showed me just how bad I got.

Steve

Overman

Beer was boring and slow.

I was drinking 2 pints of vodka daily just to funciton before I quit. On the weekends I'd nurse a fifth.

Tom67

I'd drink anywhere from 4 heinekens to 15+ usually with strong pot. I was very sensitive to alcohol.... one beer made me feel like I got hit by a truck, just awful, but 5 more after started improving things.

Sweets79

Definitely never did beer unless the liquor store was closed and I was desperate, and even at that I could only have one or two...because it was def boring and slow, and not enough to get me to the point I wanted to be at...Exact same amounts of Vodka for me too......sometimes I would alternate with Whiskey though.

RufusACanal

I guess I am unable to get my head around this question; what does it matter?