[Drinking] Alcoholic/like a beer or two too much?

[pearl]

In genuine awe of many of those on this thread. Tried abstaining once, in my teens, for a month. Drank only lemonade and lime for a month. Left me scarred for life and have never repeated the experiment, apart from the odd hospitalisation for totally unrelated reasons. Literally never go a day without a beer, tho take some weird form of brownie point comfort from doing better than my younger brother. Lovely lovely bloke. Tho a bottle of cheap Morrisons vodka a day bloke. Our mum found him dead on his couch on the morning of New Years Day. Fell to me to call round all the family, including his kids and ex-wife. They all thought I was calling to wish them a Happy Hogmanay. Instead I had to reduce them all to tears. Absolutely horrific.

All I'd say is don't beat yourself up over the odd beer, or even the odd half dozen beers. But don't even have a bottle of spirits in the house.

Respect to all on this thread for posting

That is so sad, I'm sorry to read about your brother, your poor mum.

Ten years ago, Christmas 2009, a really cold Winter a friend was found frozen to death on their bed, an empty bottle of Brandy next to them. It would appear they passed out before they put any heating on .... yeah Spirits are dangerous.

 

[Springal]

Plenty of good AF beers out there now. Big Drop brewery have a solid range, BrewDog have just released a stout, Hazy pale and AF punk

They’ve also opened a bar in London that is AF only, serving a range of AF beers, ciders, kombucha etc

 

[Grombleton]

I'm knocking the drink on the head for this month, with the exception of the match on Saturday when i'm taking a couple of mates and they like a drink. It will be hard to resist so i'm allowing myself that day and that's it for at least January.

I'm looking at it from a number of reasons - my mental health (which is inextricably tied to drinking in my case) and my physical health as well - I sleep better when I don't drink, my concentration is better when I don't drink and I want to be much healthier and i want to be able to get around my 2nd Tough Mudder later this year in better shape than I was the last time.
It won't be easy as alcohol has always been around in our house - never to an abusive point, but people just enjoy the taste and it's never been in short supply. But I intend to resist as much as possible; i will be coming back to this thread though.

 

[Wilko]

I really don’t get Dry January, sounds too much of a punishment. If you want a drink then have one just don’t drink every single day.

If you view not drinking as a 'punishment' then there lies the issue. I do dry Jan every year as I enjoy it, I normally end up going way beyond Jan too as I enjoy it so much in fact.

 

[CorgiRegisteredFriend]

If you view not drinking as a 'punishment' then there lies the issue. I do dry Jan every year as I enjoy it, I normally end up going way beyond Jan too as I enjoy it so much in fact.

Well it would be a punishment for me.
I enjoy drinking say 3 days a week and not drinking 4. That kind of discipline all year long makes more sense to me than a short period of total abstinence.

 

[Wilko]

Well it would be a punishment for me.
I enjoy drinking say 3 days a week and not drinking 4. That kind of discipline all year long makes more sense to me than a short period of total abstinence.

Sorry to be a dick but drinking 3 days a week is not disciplined, it is more disciplined than drinking every day of course but three days a week would be classed as alcohol dependency,

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Sorry to be a dick but drinking 3 days a week is not disciplined, it is more disciplined than drinking every day of course but three days a week would be classed as alcohol dependency,

No it wouldn’t

 

[Dolph Ins]

Sorry to be a dick but drinking 3 days a week is not disciplined, it is more disciplined than drinking every day of course but three days a week would be classed as alcohol dependency,

Please don't invite me to any of your parties.

 

[Wilko]

No it wouldn’t

Depends on the varied definitions of alcoholism. 3 days a week or drinking over 150 days of the year I would class as a reliance on alcohol if not a dependence. This is why the Adrian Chiles documentary is so good, we often assume that being an alcoholic means vodka in the work drawer or vomiting every morning but actually many of us would fall into the category of alcoholic even if it were at the minor level of the scale.

If someone said, oh I am not a smoker, I only smoke 3 days of the week then I think we would scratch our heads.

 

[Wilko]

Please don't invite me to any of your parties.

Hence why I said sorry for being a dick because the British attitude to alcohol is to bury our heads in the sand, pretend we do not have an issue and also assume we can;t have fun at a party without it!

 

[Dolph Ins]

Hence why I said sorry for being a dick because the British attitude to alcohol is to bury our heads in the sand, pretend we do not have an issue and also assume we can;t have fun at a party without it!

Gosh I'm sorry. I don't normally go on the non-football threads but I thought I'd have a peak at this one. Anyway I'm off to the pub now.

 

[Wilko]

Occasional smokers are unusual because smoking is not generally an enjoyable experience to those who aren't addicted, but they do happen, eg. social smokers.

If you can easily go 4 nights a week without alcohol then you are not addicted, and so probably not considered an alcoholic according to most definitions, surely.

Depends how much you drink surely? If you got hammered 3 nights a week then I would question that.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Depends on the varied definitions of alcoholism. 3 days a week or drinking over 150 days of the year I would class as a reliance on alcohol if not a dependence. This is why the Adrian Chiles documentary is so good, we often assume that being an alcoholic means vodka in the work drawer or vomiting every morning but actually many of us would fall into the category of alcoholic even if it were at the minor level of the scale.

If someone said, oh I am not a smoker, I only smoke 3 days of the week then I think we would scratch our heads.

Utter rot.

 

[Bozza]

Any only if Adrian Chiles did any sort of follow-up?

I'd be interested to hear how he got on once the cameras went away.

 

[GT49er]

Sorry to be a dick but drinking 3 days a week is not disciplined, it is more disciplined than drinking every day of course but three days a week would be classed as alcohol dependency,

Certainly not dependency - maybe a degree of reliance, or just habit. As far as 'disciplined' is concerned, it depends how those three days come about. If, when considering how often you drink, you look back and see it works out at about three times a week, that's not disciplined, it's just natural. If, however, you are allowing yourself a drink three times a week, and consciously restraining yourself from drinking the other four, then that is a matter of self-discipline.

No it wouldn’t

Quite. It quote possibly involves imbibing more than the government thinks you should, so to some people that's the beginning of the road to ruin!

 

[Half Time Pies]

Occasional smokers are unusual because smoking is not generally an enjoyable experience to those who aren't addicted, but they do happen, eg. social smokers.

If you can easily go 4 nights a week without alcohol then you are not addicted, and so probably not considered an alcoholic according to most definitions, surely.

No, this isn't the case. I haven't had a drink for 6 years, I gave up not because I was drinking particularly frequently but because when I did drink I drank excessively and could not control the amount the I drunk and this was causing damage to my health and my relationships.

I would use alcohol to self medicate when I was feeling down and relied on it to socialise, I would go out intending to have 1 or 2 pints and then wake up the following morning not remembering what had happened, how I got home and what time I got in! Even though I only drank probably between 1 and 3 times a week I was still consuming excessively high amounts and there was dependency there which was very damaging.

I tried so many times to cut down, different strategies to try to manage the amount of alcohol I consumed and after periods of abstinence (dry January etc) I just ended up going straight back to what I was doing before.

I eventually had to accept I had no control over Alcohol and the only solution was to give it up permanently.

 

[Wilko]

Utter rot.

Ok, the AC documentary is rubbish then, personally I thought it was very enlightening and shows that many of us bury our head in the sand when it comes to alcohol consumption.

The point of the documentary was that alcohol seems to be the only exception to the drug rule, would you class someone that used heroin 3 times a week an addict? cocaine 3 times week? MDMA 3 times a week? Speed 3 times a week? In Britain we seem to change that rule when it comes to alcohol because it is a legal drug and so many people use it.

You are welcome to call it rot if you like of course but I think he makes a very good point.

 

[Half Time Pies]

Ok, the AC documentary is rubbish then, personally I thought it was very enlightening and shows that many of us bury our head in the sand when it comes to alcohol consumption.

The point of the documentary was that alcohol seems to be the only exception to the drug rule, would you class someone that used heroin 3 times a week an addict? cocaine 3 times week? MDMA 3 times a week? Speed 3 times a week? In Britain we seem to change that rule when it comes to alcohol because it is a legal drug and so many people use it.

You are welcome to call it rot if you like of course but I think he makes a very good point.

Exactly this...

The hardest part for me of giving up was that most of my friends and family didn't want me to. Even my Wife who would always complain about my behaviour when I was drunk didn't want me to give up, she couldn't see how we could be together as a couple without a bottle of wine on a Friday night and how we would continue to socialise with people if I didn't drink.

One of my 'old' friends even explicitly said that we couldn't be friends if I didn't drink!

Just Imagine what a different response I would have got if I had gone to my friends and family telling them that I wanted to give up either cocaine, heroine, speed or MDMA and needed their support!

 

[Hampster Gull]

Sorry to be a dick but drinking 3 days a week is not disciplined, it is more disciplined than drinking every day of course but three days a week would be classed as alcohol dependency,

But what if you didn’t drink 4 days a week?

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Ok, the AC documentary is rubbish then, personally I thought it was very enlightening and shows that many of us bury our head in the sand when it comes to alcohol consumption.

The point of the documentary was that alcohol seems to be the only exception to the drug rule, would you class someone that used heroin 3 times a week an addict? cocaine 3 times week? MDMA 3 times a week? Speed 3 times a week? In Britain we seem to change that rule when it comes to alcohol because it is a legal drug and so many people use it.

You are welcome to call it rot if you like of course but I think he makes a very good point.

You make sweeping statements which are worthless. Hence my abrasive reply