saoutchik

I have always considered that I became a "full blown" alcoholic some time in 2007. It was then that I separated from my wife (we are divorced now) and it was then that I moved from wanting a drink every night to having a drink every night (by "a drink" I mean lots of drinks)

With the benefit of perspective, hindsight and some distance - I quit on the penultimate day of 2014 - I wonder if I wasn't addicted to booze much earlier than 2007.

Of course I always knew that I drank too much, I was not in complete denial about my behaviour but in Britain and I suspect western societies more generally there are so many ways we "justify" drinking that it disguises what is really going on which is that we want to consume a mind altering intoxicant and only require the feeblest of justifications to do so for example:-

Had a bad day at work
Had a good day at work
The kids are misbehaving
It's someone's birthday or anniversary
Someone at work got promoted
It's quiz night
I always drink watching the football...

...and so it goes.

Is the truth that we are already addicted at this point but at a level where not having a drink is uncomfortable and "boring" and where we can still disguise the addiction with (lame) social justifications and euphemisms?

With alcohol it is too easy to ignore the warning signs until you have driven onto (and off of) the broken bridge. That's why I believe buying the stuff really ought to be a bigger deal or a least a slightly bigger deal. Things like not having it on open display which is the case with tobacco now might be a start. Greater restrictions on advertising would be another.

I would be really interested to hear what my fellow SR views are.

Dee74

I think I willingly ignored a lot of red flags.

people don't need to drink a six pack a night

people don't have to drink from Friday lunchtime til late Sunday night.

People without a problem don't have to hide their drinking or lie about the reason for why they seem a little off

People don't have to have oblivion as the end goal.

D

BackandScared

I think being a woman and my backgrond helped me identify the problem when it was becoming a problem. It is not normal for a woman to enter a bar alone and ask for a drink (at least not in my family/my social circle). It is not normal to resolve issues with alcohol, to sit with a whisky in your hand after a good or a bad day, etc.

The first time I drank alone at home (just because there were left over from a party the night before; I was an adult in my thirties... of course it is normal) I knew it was not normal. When I bought alcohol to drink myself I knew I was in real trouble. And when I normalised drinking by myself in public I was fully in it. Still, it is the very nature of addiction that once you start wondering is because you are already an addict.

harriet11

Definitely agree with this.

August252015

Good topic. I could prob write a lot, even for me, but I'll just throw in that I don't believe I was physically addicted til quite awhile into my drinking. I DO believe I used it as a coping mechanism well before I crossed what I do believe is that "line" AA (and others) talk about. You can't go back - I knew deep down I'd crossed it in my late 20s....but I didn't stop til 39 and the physical dependence kicked in somewhere around 36 hardcore.

I think a lot goes into what makes us alcoholics. I do believe it is a disease - I also believe that that line connects to when we can choose to stop, or not. My brother is a heavy drinker...but probably/so far doesn't seem to be an alcoholic. That's up to him of course, as far as deciding what he is.

I don't believe in blaming society, liquor ads, etc. I DO believe that it's easy, and normalized and so on for us to drink. I don't know many people who don't drink at all, and those are ones I know who just never really much liked the taste.

I also believe that the messaging around alcohol and challenging our dialogue is a critical thing beginning to happen. I participate in a lot of social media and online-based discussions around it.

Ultimately, I believe every person out here should ask the question: what does alcohol do in my life? Straightforward, and good or bad answers. If more folks could then be "ok" with it being "ok" not to drink, for whatever reason, we all win.

ScottFromWI

Looking back I'm pretty sure I was addicted from my first drink. I remember it vividly actually - sharing a water bottle of various booze shots stolen from someones parent's liquor cabinet mixed with OJ. I remember the warm buzz and how good it felt - I was probably 13/14 years old maybe? I chased that for decades - literally.

BackandScared

I don't know. Why would we make an even bigger deal. It feels like we keep teenagers 'waiting' for the day they can finally be proper adults and have proper fun. A massive part of the struggle is this belief that alcohol is super-special.

I took my 13 & 15 years old to a sport's event this WE. A bunch of very drunk men were sat next to us. My first thought was 'I wish alcohol was prohibited in this kind of events as it is in other countries'.

It was really awful to be next to them for 3 hours. One of them kept leaning onto my son and he had to find another place. It also looked like he was about to vomit any moment. They shouted all the time, could not keep personal space, and were unbereable. They were laughing a lot so I guess they thought it was funny and a great evening.

My kids told me they were the best add against alcohol consumption. They were both disgusted by them and a bit scared.

I live in the UK but I come from a country (Spain) where it would be unthinkable:

1. To provide alcohol in a sport event attending by thousands. It is considered dangerous

2. To deny entry to minors to a pub/bar (as if they were dogs). I cannot get around the idea that children are not allowed in public spaces for the sole reason that alcohol is served. It is mind boggling.

It says a lot about society and alcohol.

Stayingsassy

Interesting. I was just thinking about this exact thing this morning, reviewing how I drank at 14, at 16, at 19....and beyond. I realized that there were very few times I drank normally or didn’t have the obsession. There were a couple times in my 30’s when I was happy, eating enough, doing some running etc and not drinking too much. Maybe one other period in my early 20’s when I was working hard in school for my future career. All other times in my life = pretty much getting blotto or obsessing about getting blotto.

Just a natural alcoholic. From day one. Still am one. Still think like one. Still deal with personality flaws related to me being one! Still working on self forgiveness, and sobriety, each and every day.

BackandScared

I don't feel my addiction as a disease. But I do agree with everything

August252015

^Folks feel differently.

One thing I will throw in is that I have to remember that us alcoholics are the vast minority of the population, anywhere. So rules and laws etc intersect w what I was saying about everyone who does drink, or is around alcohol (which is pretty much everyone in the countries we are talking about and from, here) needs to ask questions of themselves.

PeaceManic

There's definitely different drinking cultures in different countries that may contribute a small amount to it though. As far as I can see Brits and aussies are very heavy drinkers, americans are generally social drinkers in comparison, while I agree the mediterean countries do curb some of the madness by not being massively prohibitive where youngsters are concerned. All generalities, and feel free to disagree.

Grymt

saoutchik

Thanks for taking the time to post guys. It's an interesting topic and I guess there are no easy answers. I would not be in favour of restrictions on the hours of availability or raising the age you can purchase alcohol to 21 which I have read would be illegal in the UK ( I appreciate that reading a thing and it being true do not necessarily follow) I would be in favour of restricting advertising because of its role in normalising what is a harmful habit. It is something that has worked in the case of tobacco too.

I will post this link with Wikipedia on respective nation's alcohol consumption. There is actually a bit less variation between western or 1st world countries than I thought.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ion_per_capita

2ndhandrose

This sums up my own experience with drinking. By the time I was 18 years old I was trying to control my drinking/quit drinking, unsuccessfully, of course.

I knew I drank differently than a lot of my peers and some of them called me out on it, to no avail.

I admitted that I was an alcoholic when I was 26 years old and quit for 6 years before relapsing for a couple of decades plus.

Now sober for 5 years, about to turn 61 years old.

Edited to add that I was regularly drinking underage in bars by the time I was 16 years old.

kk1k5x

Looking back, I'm pretty sure I was an alcoholic from the first 'serious' drink. I remember that evening so vividly, especially that warm glow of numbness that drink brought. I was 16 and at a classmate's bday party. Apparently I had never been that relaxed about rules or indifferent of others' opinions, and ...apparently my brain figured it was the best thing ever.

Similarly, by the time I was 18, I already was trying to cut back, got counselling etc. That was directly connected to the fact that before 18, there were still 'some' restrictions on availability ...after hitting 18, all bets were off and as long as there was some money or someone with money, drinks were had.

By 21 things were already so out of control, it severely affected my university endeavours (had to repeat a year basically, because I was too drunk to appear in certain lectures and thus failed a mandatory class for excessive absences) - I got counselling and got sober for 9 months. Only to pick it up from where I left off right after 'school was sorted'.

The past 8 years were a struggle between 'thinking I want to drink' and being casually horrified of its impact on me. Often simultaneously.

As the progression from 'oh, this is a new ...liberating ...sensation' at 16 to drinking every chance I got and spending a night in jail sobering up at 18 to watching whatever I thought my life could be vanish before my eyes by the time I was 21-22 was so quick -- the building blocks had to there and in place from the get-go. Everything else was age, timing and opportunity.

The fact that drinking was and still is so normalised was a major factor in my so-called career. I'm not blaming anything or anyone in particular, but it would be weird not to at least acknowledge that the opportunities were way too many for there to be any hint of 'we're dealing with the issue as a society'.

That's my 2 cents.

DayTrader

I don't know that I was ever "addicted" to alcohol - maybe towards the end but even then I'm not so sure.

Alcoholic before I knew it - no question.

Many of the symptoms before heavy drinking and, really, even moderate drinking - no question.

Zebra1275

I drank a lot in college, like everybody else in the dorm so I didn't notice any problem. And since I was putting myself through college I was a more serious student then many others, so I studied hard, got good grades, and didn't think I had a problem.

Then in graduate school the wild party scene went away. But I still drank most nights alone after a long day of classes and studying, as a way to relax and as a reward for working hard.

I remember many nights staying at the library until it closed at midnight. Then I would pass a liquor store on my walk home and stop in and buy a 1/2 pint of peppermint schnapps or something which I would consume in about 15 minutes as I finished my walk home. I would be pretty relaxed by the time I made it home.

Unfortunately, after I graduated from college, this behavior followed me into the work force I and found myself drinking most every night to relax.

That's when I realized that I was an alcoholic. I was probably 26. However, I didn't do anything about it, and instead continued drinking on a nightly basis for about more 20 years, until I just couldn't hide it any longer.

Jack465

Yes, I drank alcoholically for a few years before I even considered the possibility that I might have a problem.

All the people that I hung out with at the time acted like drinking was the only way to have fun. I believe this contributed to me thinking I was OK. I'm not saying it's their fault though. I don't know if any of them developed a serious problem like I did.

There was a fair amount of denial on my part as well.

It wasn't until I was drinking enough to make me feel like crap every day that I started looking at the possibility of an alcohol problem.

silentrun

I had my first blackout on July 3, 2003 at the age of 35. That was when I felt something had changed. I should have quit then but I didn't get it and continued to drink for almost 10 more years.

I started abusing alcohol in 2000. My tolerance grew so I was probably drinking alcoholically for 3 years prior to realizing the switch.

In my younger days, I hung around people who drank a lot so that's what we did. It usually ended with me throwing up. I had a 3 drink limit before I would get sick. I got to be about 25 and was married and getting drunk didn't appeal to me anymore. I was actually glad when I got pregnant so I had an excuse not to be bothered to go to the bar after work? Who wants to drink at 3 in the afternoon anyway? What a waste of a night.

saoutchik

Interesting that a good number of you on here considered yourselves alcoholic or having a drink problem from an early age. My guess would be that in a lot of instances that would be the result of psychological addiction rather than chemical addiction (just because a chemical condition usually takes time). Education would seem to be the most obvious counter but it has to be done well. My schooldays ended in the 1970s but what limited education we did have about smoking, drinking and illegal drugs I remember as being unbelievably crass and therefore easy to dismiss.

It has just occurred to me that alcohol advertising is a form of social conditioning that makes alcohol consumption seem as natural as drinking tea or coffee. There does need to be a counter narrative to it without resorting to Prohibition style crackdowns.