Alcohol - progressive
 

I keep hearing people say alcohol is progressive, but apparently there is research now to suggest that alcoholics can drink in moderation after a period of abstinence?

Excuse my ignorance, I am just trying to educate myself by doing some reading and I am a bit confused...

My husband told me when he spoke to the social worker right before he entered rehab they discussed future goals. My husband said he would like to be able to have a drink occasionally down the track for a special occasion and the social worker told him that was potentially possible. I thought he might have been lying but upon my reading today, I found some research that suggests that might be possible.

Can anyone help shed some light on this for me?


Thanks

All I can say is that, being alcoholic, I cannot have a glass of wine or a beer, ever. There is a difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic. The brain of an alcoholic only needs one taste of alcohol and then it's off to the races.

I wouldn't put much stock in him being able to have an occasional drink. The fact that he has to go to rehab to stop drinking pretty much proves that he cannot handle alcohol.

Maybear, take a look over at the Newcomers to Recovery and the Alcoholism forums here and search "moderation." I have read thread after thread in those forums written by alcoholics who have attempted moderation and failed. It is every alcoholic's dream to "drink like a normal person" one day, but I fear the experiential evidence doesn't support it. Please don't rest your hopes on this for your future happiness.

There is a distinction between people who abuse alcohol for a period of their lives and a genuine alcoholic.

If genuine alcoholic, total abstinence is the only solution.

That is a medical fact and has been for a long time.

If you want more information on what actually constitutes alcoholism, you can Pm me If you like :)

Thanks for the replies. Definitely not resting my hopes on this, just trying to understand how it works.
Thank you :)

Thanks Hawks, my husband is an alcoholic unfortunately, he doesn't just abuse alcohol periodically or binge drink. He drinks from morning to evening, large amounts and hides his alcohol. So I guess abstinence is the only thing that would work for him.

I agree with sparkle kittY. Try posting this question on an a forum and see what they say. They know more than us.

It is possible that your husband is having trouble coming to terms with the "you can never drink" again side of recovery ... like many people he may not want to hear that something that has been such a big part of his life must now be over, and he is thinking that it won't be forever. Sadly, "special occasions" might start out as weddings and birthdays and end up being "it's Tuesday!" or "I've finished work!" *sigh*

Hi Maybear - I know my husband would like to believe that he could drink in moderation eventually too, I see him trying to compare himself to coworkers and friends, when in truth we don't know anyone's stories. But Im not sure that's in my husband's cards right now, especially with his secretive drinking.....

Where did you hear about this research? Do you have a link you can share?

My AH claimed to have almost that exact conversation with his rehab counselor. In his case looking back on it I doubt that conversation ever happened.

My AH has tried the moderation thing many times and the results are disastrous. He has told me that he wishes he could just drink normally and I think he convinces himself he can. Last time it took one week and he was back to daily heavy drinking that resulted in a hospitalization.

Under the Influence was a helpful book for me. There are some excerpts under the stickies in the alcoholism forum.

I had a look on the recovery forum and I gather not many people are able to do this.
Thanks for the book recommendation, I will check it out.
I would post the link but it won't let me - it says I need to have at least 15 posts on the forum to be able to post links and as I am new, I'm not there yet. Will post it later.

There are professionals out there who believe moderation is possible for some "problem drinkers"--Stanton Peele is one of the leading advocates. I spent four and a half years as a member of "Moderation Management" TRYING (obviously unsuccessfully) to learn to moderate my drinking. In that time, and since (I still interact with MM in the form of a subgroup that has concluded they cannot moderate), I encountered maybe two or three people out of the hundreds and hundreds who participated in this forum who apparently eventually were able to moderate on a consistent, long term basis. I doubt they were alcoholics to begin with, though they were worried about their drinking.

In my experience the VAST majority of people who have gotten to the point where they need help with an alcohol problem cannot successfully moderate--even the occasional "social occasion" (weddings, etc.) feeds the obsession and brings it back to life. You can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber. There is something physiologically different about alcoholics and the way they respond to alcohol.

EVERY alcoholic wants to be a normal drinker. It would make life much simpler. But it just doesn't happen that way.

The bottom line for me is:

An alcoholic can't moderate in the long term. They will always escalate. This is one of the primary characteristics of alcoholism.

I really do think it's that simple.

I think its a question of possibility and probability.

To say its possible I think accurate. Yes I believe it is possible that some alcoholic amongst them all has been able to later moderate for a period of time. To say its probable forever I believe inaccurate.

The probability of being able to moderate is so low that I am unsure why any professional would ever recommend it. The ability to moderate would have to be monitored over a lifetime. To my knowledge there is no literature of substance that would back the claim other than a personal blog or a non-scientific experiment. The risk of not being able to moderate is high, so high that I would say the likelihood is <.0000000000000000001.

I too agree that anyone who claims to later to be able to moderate in most likely not to have been an alcoholic in the first place.

I believe moderation is most likely to occur for a period of time rather than always. When my husband relapsed he believed his sobriety of 10 years proved that he was not an alcoholic in the first place. It is true that he moderated for many months (of which I did not know he was drinking though had suspicions). When it all came out he drank "like a normal person" in front of me for about 6 weeks. Until one night he got sh!t faced, drove drunk, insulted our friends, threatened me and acted like a crazy person. While I do believe he had some memories of the night (though he claimed not to) what I am sure of is he had no recollection of driving MY CAR to the liquor store to buy another bottle (when there was a half large bottle at home) to be sure he didn't run out on Sunday. Of course boasting the entire time that in 20 years of DD he never got a DUI, in fact, he drives better drunk than sober.

Success moderating - about 9 months
Failure - in 6 hours.

Nuff said.

Btw my husband also said he had heavily researched moderation and had found many articles supporting that it works!!! He said he had found an article that said anyone who can maintain sobriety for 5 years plus was never an alcoholic to begin with. He was unable to find those articles to show me LOL when I asked for them. Instead blame shifted that I was challenging his honesty, picked a fight, then had a drink because I stressed him out. LOL.

You can find SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE on the Internet to support any hare-brained idea that exists. I remember having to explain to the teenaged son of the last guy I lived with the fact that there are websites purporting to "prove" that the moon landing was a hoax didn't mean you could believe that.

I could "control" my drinking for discrete periods of time. If I had a big project at work, I could keep the drinking on a "short leash" for a few weeks. If I was out at a work-related function I could have my responsible one or two drinks over the course of the evening. The second I didn't HAVE to control it, I drank my brains out.

One of the reasons I'm afraid of ever even contemplating picking up a drink is that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get insanely drunk right off the bat. I would probably have one, and apart from feeling bad and a little scared, I wouldn't notice much effect. But then it would start playing on my mind, and I'd decide it would be OK to have one "occasionally." And then "occasionally" would be once a week. And then "just one" per day. And very, very soon I would be drinking the way I did before. I'm convinced. One drink is all it would take to set that in motion.

If I could moderate my drinking I wouldn't be an alcoholic. Once an alcoholic total abstinence is the only possibility

Maybe I am different but anytime I see a thread like this a thought pops into my mind. When I quit drinking I drank to get drunk. I didn't want one or two to take the edge off. What is so appealing about the thought of just having one or two drinks that is worth risking sobriety for? What is so special about being a social drinker that it would even be an issue? Nothing. "Normal" drinkers could have a drink and then care less if they ever had one again in their life. Only Alkies could aspire to being a social drinker because alcohol holds such a high priority in their life that they can't imagine going the rest of their life without a drink.

I think that once we develop a compulsion to drink we re-wire our brains. To use an apt analogy, theres no putting the cork back in the bottle.

:egg21:



FeelingGreat....I have heard it put another way...."you can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber".....LOL!!!

dandylion

There's the concept of "Maturing Out" that I sometimes see referred to. I believe the term refers more to "problem drinkers" than what we here would call an "alcoholic". I've seen it in relation to some of the studies done on different types of treatments options. There's some debate on how to handle the data regarding those people that would "mature out" of there drinking problems.

My STBXAH thinks he can moderate. And I suppose he can. If moderation means drinking one nice little drink in public and then going home, locking yourself in a back room, and getting balls to the wall black out drunk. It's an illusion.