Alcoholic vs. just drinking too much

[roroeow7]

 

I have a very laid back job…I work from home and am good at what I do so spend maybe 10 hours a week actually working. With my time off I like to be outdoors hiking or golfing. I’ve sort of developed a habit of drinking a lot the last 6 months though. A few times a week I might start drinking at 3pm or so on the golf course and continue that through the night. I am a big dude, 6’8” 240lbs, so I may have a higher tolerance than a lot of people, but in a day where I start drinking that early I might have 12-16 beers before the night is over. When I get drunk I usually just pass out on my couch late at night, I’m not driving around or starting fights or anything (not that this means anything other than I’m a pretty collective drunk). I’d say 2-3 times a month I even wake up around noon the next day with a slight buzz and go for a few beers at lunch and potentially golf and drink again that day. I’ve never done that 3 days in a row though, if that makes any difference.

<snip>

 

Plenty of times I drink a few beers and stop, and plenty of times I’ll golf and day drink but knowing the next day I have actual work to do, I’ll stop drinking so that I feel good the next day. I don’t know if I have a problem so much as just too much free time. I don’t drink because I’m sad or depressed, I actually love my life, but I am concerned my habits may either be a problem already or turning into one. I’m 99.9% confident if I had an actual 9-5 job I would not drink as much as I do now. I’ve been looking for one of those jobs but it’s extremely difficult to trump my occupational situation right now. I have done all of the online alcoholic tests and none of them really identify me as an alcoholic other than the quantity i drink, and sometimes pissing off the wife when I'm drunk. No marital problems yet, it's just once every other month she probably gets irritated with it to some level.

[madmen]

You nailed it to much time on your hands. How about a hobby? I have a flight sim at home and fly the study sim pmdg 777 all over the world so that can keep me busy 4 hours a day easy and Ive just stopped drinking after a heavy few months in Pattaya.

 

12-16 beers spread over 12 hours is no big deal once a week or so but problems start when it becomes a habit. Weight is also a big problem with lots of beer. Easy to balloon out quickly.

Getting a hobby or work during the day will help for sure

[sanemax]

You alcohol consumption is fine , dont worry about it and continue the way that you are

[brokenbone]

you drink because you have a depressing sexlife

and your wife isnt playful

[SteveK]

Those online alcoholic tests use a low level of consumption to qualify for alcoholism, usually because they want you to sign up to something or subscribe to a motivational newsletter. If they didn't qualify you as an alcoholic, I suspect that you will be fine, especially as you are larger so your body will naturally be able to deal with more alcohol than the average person.

 

And alcoholism isn't determined by your alcohol intake, it's more concerned about your inability to function without a drink, and spending the day figuring out how you can get your next drink. A genuine alcoholic will drink every day, and they won't wait until 3pm to do so - I have met dozens in my life because of my line of work.

 

I have seen a few die, including one guy in his early thirties who was completely beyond any kind of help and had been shunned by his family. In the UK nowadays, alcoholism is increasing amongst the elderly population, possibly out of boredom, I don't know.

[impulse]

Why get hung up on semantics? 

 

If drinking is causing problems in your life, you have a drinking problem.  It doesn't matter if you drink every day, or just go on a bender every month.

 

I could go for months between drinks.  But once I took the first one, I couldn't predict or control when I was going to stop.  That caused problems in my life.  So I darkened the door of an AA meeting.  I did what they suggested, and my life improved.  That was 30 years ago. 

 

[SteveK]

18 minutes ago, impulse said:

Why get hung up on semantics? 

 

If drinking is causing problems in your life, you have a drinking problem.  It doesn't matter if you drink every day, or just go on a bender every month.

 

I could go for months between drinks.  But once I took the first one, I couldn't predict or control when I was going to stop.  That caused problems in my life.  So I darkened the door of an AA meeting.  I did what they suggested, and my life improved.  That was 30 years ago. 

 

Very correct - but in modern society people like to justify their problematic alcohol consumption by failing to meet accepted norms to qualify as an alcoholic, as in the OP's post where he used online questionnaires.

 

And yes, you can be someone who drinks very rarely, but every time you do, it causes huge problems for you. That is called a problem drinker, but you are not an alcoholic, as that term implies a physical or psychological dependence on alcohol.

 

An alcoholic never gives their body time to recover, their organs will be destroyed by their constant imbibing, but a problem drinker as you mentioned above will be unlikely to suffer severe physiological damage from their occasional intake. So there is a huge difference between the two. One will die up to 25 years before their life expectancy, whereas the other will likely make the whole nine yards.

 

There is a massive difference between the two. The full-on alcoholic will likely destroy everything in their life because of their drinking habits, including themselves eventually. In-between the two is the high-functioning alcoholic - someone who drinks daily to excess but manages to maintain employment and family/friend relationships without detriment.

[impulse]

41 minutes ago, pr9spk said:

And yes, you can be someone who drinks very rarely, but every time you do, it causes huge problems for you. That is called a problem drinker, but you are not an alcoholic, as that term implies a physical or psychological dependence on alcohol.

 

I didn't say "every time"  I said I couldn't predict or control what was going to happen.  Lots of times, I was in bed by 11:00.

 

Your conventional wisdom dooms millions to die every year, and their families to be destroyed because it only identifies one of many kinds of alcoholics.  Those of us who don't meet the false criteria of drinking every day and having a train wreck of a life can benefit by getting help.

 

And, just like I cannot tell you if you (or the OP) are an alcoholic or not, I'm the only one who can decide whether I am an alcoholic or not.  So I get way from the label.  Drinking caused me problems in my life.  So I had a drinking problem.  Thousands of free meetings over 30+ years, hearing from tens of thousands of alcoholics has convinced me it's alcoholism.  But I'm just as happy calling it a drinking problem.

 

Edit:  The 3rd tradition of AA (short form) says, "The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking".  Doesn't say you have to be an alcoholic to get help.  It works quite well on problem drinkers, too.

 

[SteveK]

1 hour ago, impulse said:

 

I didn't say "every time"  I said I couldn't predict or control what was going to happen.  Lots of times, I was in bed by 11:00.

 

Well then you aren't even in the ball park of the kind of patients I used to treat. You, and AA, are correct in thinking that anyone who wants to stop drinking should be offered help, it's just that your level of drinking almost certainly never kills people or destroys their lives. What you are saying is akin to someone who eats 3 chocolate bars in one sitting once a month claiming to have an eating disorder.

 

I went to university to get my understanding of what you call "conventional wisdom" - I have never doomed anyone to die, in fact I have gone out of my way every working day to help these kinds of people. 

 

What I have posted is generally accepted truths about alcoholism, if you you have some kind of "unconventional wisdom" about it then you must know better than me. I have worked in at least 6 geriatric wards in UK hospitals and have seen people who didn't even know their full name because of what some people call "wet-brain", but i would call Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, coming on here and saying that you attended AA because you got drunk every few months is an absolute joke and an insult to people who have real problems. What you have is not alcoholism, it's something else, which is the point of this thread.

 

EDIT: Sorry, that didn't mean to be a rant, and I understand your opinion and position. I just strongly resent being accused of dooming people to die, when I have spent my professional life doing everything that I can to avoid that precise scenario. Your drinking was a problem to you, I accept that, but I just want you to understand that you are nowhere near to the kind of depravity that the patients some hospital workers see very regularly.

 

I respect what you contributed to this topic, but it's one that is close to my heart after having seen a close friend spiral out of control and die despite all the interventions made to save her life. You are an experienced member of the forum and I appreciate all your input, I don't want to argue with anybody but this thread is called "alcoholic vs drinking too much", so I apologise if anything I have posted causes you offence, it really was not meant that way.

[impulse]

44 minutes ago, pr9spk said:

I have worked in at least 6 geriatric wards in UK hospitals and have seen people who didn't even know their full name because of what some people call "wet-brain", but i would call Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, coming on here and saying that you attended AA because you got drunk every few months is an absolute joke and an insult to people who have real problems.

 

Are you suggesting that I (or anyone else) should wait until we have a wet brain to do something about our drinking problem?

 

I wonder how many of your patients or their families would give their eye teeth to go back to the day they were wondering whether they had a problem (like me, or like the OP) and gone in for help, before the disease progressed?

 

[SteveK]

34 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Are you suggesting I (or anyone else) should wait until we have a wet brain to do something about our drinking problem?

 

What do you think? I am a healthcare professional, my job is to take care of people. You won't get "wet-brain" from getting drunk once every few months. It takes a concerted effort to get that far.

 

34 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

I wonder how many of your patients or their families would give their eye teeth to go back to the day they were wondering whether they had a problem (like me, or like the OP) and gone in for help, before the disease progressed?

 

The problem with a large proportion of alcoholics is that they first will deny the problem. Even if they can eventually admit the problem, many will refuse treatment.

 

For people in the later stages of life, drinking may be the only thing that they have left which they can enjoy. Can you force a 90-year old lady to stop drinking her daily sherries because it is damaging her health? Sometimes you have to be pragmatic.

 

Personally, if I was in my 90's and enjoyed a few whiskies during the daytime, I would be irritated and annoyed that my family wanted to take away my only source of enjoyment - but every case is different. Maybe ditching the booze would allow you to live 1-2 days longer, but, then again, it may not. Who really cares when they get to that age?

 

So to get away from this digression - the OP was asking about alcoholism vs enjoying a few too many drinks. The former has little control over their compulsion, even when they know it is causing physical and psychological harm, but the later does. Someone who gets drunk once every few months would fall under neither of those terms, and in fact may even be considered a normal person.

[balo]

5 hours ago, roroeow7 said:

but in a day where I start drinking that early I might have 12-16 beers before the night is over.

Then you are living on the edge of becoming an alcoholic, but do you need a beer when you wake up?

 

I would start exercising and drink plenty of water so your mind can focus on something else than alcohol. Your brain has already accepted the heavy intake of alcohol and that could get worse over time.

 

And I would stay away from the bar scene. 

 

 

 

[Curt1591]

For me, the tell is anyone who can't predict the outcome of any drinking encounter, once initiated.

A "heavy drinker" will go out, with the intention of having a few beers, wrap it up and go home. An alcoholic may go out, with the same intention, but wind up closing the bar and grabbing a six pack for the road.

My sister is an alcoholic, although she denied it for years. Her reasoning was that she only drank maybe 2 or 3 times a years. I pointed out to her that, every time she did drink, it was a disaster - she would not know where her car was; most of her furniture would be out on the front lawn; she even wound up in a neighboring state one time!

It's when alcohol takes control ...

[SteveK]

4 minutes ago, Curt1591 said:

A "heavy drinker" will go out, with the intention of having a few beers, wrap it up and go home. An alcoholic may go out, with the same intention, but wind up closing the bar and grabbing a six pack for the road.
 

An alcoholic will start drinking earlier, and finish later. They will drink alone in private. They will hide around their house bottles of alcohol and the empties to hide their problem. They will damage everything else in their life to feed the addiction. Hardcore alcoholics rarely get blackout drunk seeing as they have superhuman powers to metabolise alcohol and therefore to appear sober. And alcoholics often don't get hangovers like the rest of us.

 

Alcoholics get sick when they DON'T drink, not when they do.

[quandow]

2 minutes ago, pr9spk said:

Hardcore alcoholics rarely get blackout drunk seeing as they have superhuman powers to metabolize alcohol

When alcoholics get to the latest stage of their disease, smaller amounts of alcohol will put them down. And it really does depend on the individual, there are generalities that apply to all, then there are unique reactions in each.

[Orton Rd]

Is there such a thing as being a part time alcoholic? I religiously only drink 4 days a week after drinking every day for years. I might start having a drink early morning on drink days, but not in the evening as it upsets my stomach that late. Probably drink 2-3 times the recommended 14 weekly units. Cutting down I found it helps to drink something else instead, I get through a lot of rock soda water.

[SteveK]

56 minutes ago, quandow said:

When alcoholics get to the latest stage of their disease, smaller amounts of alcohol will put them down.

Yes - that is called "reverse tolerance", and is an indicator of your liver being severely damaged and shutting down. Over a long period of time, the alcoholic's liver will get more and more proficient in metabolising alcohol, which means that they will have to drink more and more to get the same effect, this is called tolerance.

 

After decades of bashing your liver non-stop on a daily basis, your liver should eventually become so cirrhotic and damaged, that it simply can't perform the functions that it used to, so a few glasses of wine will get you intoxicated instead of the several bottles you used to drink for breakfast.

 

Unfortunately, because the liver is so resilient, by the time these types of symptoms appear, it will usually be way too late to do anything about it.

 

For most people, to get to the point of "reverse tolerance" will take a seriously intense effort to destroy yourself over a few decades, as well as a lot of money wasted on the addiction.

 

The interesting thing is that if most alcoholics give up booze, they can usually recover to a normal state of health and live a fulfilling life. The liver is an amazing organ. You can surgically remove a huge chunk of someone's liver and they are still able to live a normal life. 

 

But bear in mind that lifelong excessive alcohol intake can also lead to heart problems, kidney problems, pancreatitis, neurological conditions, and more. It essentially degrades every part of your body. It also massively increases your risk of cancers from the oesophagus to the bladder, or any body part you can name, to be honest. In some depressed people, deliberate and prolonged excessive alcohol consumption can be a self-harm issue, and a symptom of severe psychological illness.

 

But like everything in life, it's the luck of the draw. Some people have never even tried an alcoholic drink but go on to die of liver disease. And then there are people who have gotten drunk on a daily basis for decades but are still in good health. It all depends on your genes, and your cytochrome 450 enzymes in your liver - which are heavily gene-dependent. 

 

[Curt1591]

1 hour ago, pr9spk said:

An alcoholic will start drinking earlier, and finish later. They will drink alone in private. They will hide around their house bottles of alcohol and the empties to hide their problem. They will damage everything else in their life to feed the addiction. Hardcore alcoholics rarely get blackout drunk seeing as they have superhuman powers to metabolise alcohol and therefore to appear sober. And alcoholics often don't get hangovers like the rest of us.

 

Alcoholics get sick when they DON'T drink, not when they do.

You mean, like when alcohol takes control ....

[ding]

I sure can't say if you're alcoholic at all or not.

I do know there are many styles of alcoholic drinking; binging, maintenance - and then there is the progression of the disease and various stages along that continuum.

 

Take care and good luck!

[Berkshire]

4 hours ago, pr9spk said:

Yes - that is called "reverse tolerance", and is an indicator of your liver being severely damaged and shutting down. Over a long period of time, the alcoholic's liver will get more and more proficient in metabolising alcohol, which means that they will have to drink more and more to get the same effect, this is called tolerance.

 

After decades of bashing your liver non-stop on a daily basis, your liver should eventually become so cirrhotic and damaged, that it simply can't perform the functions that it used to, so a few glasses of wine will get you intoxicated instead of the several bottles you used to drink for breakfast.

 

Unfortunately, because the liver is so resilient, by the time these types of symptoms appear, it will usually be way too late to do anything about it.

 

For most people, to get to the point of "reverse tolerance" will take a seriously intense effort to destroy yourself over a few decades, as well as a lot of money wasted on the addiction.

 

The interesting thing is that if most alcoholics give up booze, they can usually recover to a normal state of health and live a fulfilling life. The liver is an amazing organ. You can surgically remove a huge chunk of someone's liver and they are still able to live a normal life. 

 

But bear in mind that lifelong excessive alcohol intake can also lead to heart problems, kidney problems, pancreatitis, neurological conditions, and more. It essentially degrades every part of your body. It also massively increases your risk of cancers from the oesophagus to the bladder, or any body part you can name, to be honest. In some depressed people, deliberate and prolonged excessive alcohol consumption can be a self-harm issue, and a symptom of severe psychological illness.

 

But like everything in life, it's the luck of the draw. Some people have never even tried an alcoholic drink but go on to die of liver disease. And then there are people who have gotten drunk on a daily basis for decades but are still in good health. It all depends on your genes, and your cytochrome 450 enzymes in your liver - which are heavily gene-dependent. 

 

You seem quite knowledgeable in these matters.  Question:  Can 2 to 3 beers, every single day, damage one's liver or other organs? 

[55Jay]

OP, IMO, the fact you can still conduct critical self-assessment and not make excuses for yourself, is a good sign. 

 

The celebration of one's personal freedom from the grind, the rat race, is a great feeling.  You're living the dream in paradise.  Drink whenever you want and sleep till noon.  Because You Can! 

 

But alcohol can become central to nearly everything you do - before, during and after. 

 

Happened to me and many guys I know here.  My wake up call, ironically enough, came from one of my fellow bar fly drinking buddies.  Just a casual, probably good-natured comment he made caused me to reflect, and I didn't like what I saw.  It was time for a drastic change of behavior. 

 

So you're right to keep an eye on yourself, and your wife may be more concerned than she's letting on, as to not rock the boat.  

 

Also found, at least for me, that getting out of Thailand now and then breaks the routine... bit of a sanity check as well.  Good luck.

[luckyluke]

I am 70+, drinking for more than 50 years.

I still decide when I drink, for instance I never drank at home. 

However when I decide to drink (3-4 times in a week/daytime), I won't go home before I feel I am intoxicated enough. 

[AlexRich]

Another long-winded newbie "story"?

 

 

[nikmar]

that's how it started with me, but, damn, it can easily become a habit.

[from the home of CC]

it's not the amount you drink, it's how you change when under the influence...

[SteveK]

9 hours ago, Berkshire said:

You seem quite knowledgeable in these matters.  Question:  Can 2 to 3 beers, every single day, damage one's liver or other organs? 

Yes, 2-3 beers every single day over many years MAY cause liver damage, but it is not particularly likely. It will be more likely if you are smaller, or if you take any medications which are metabolised by your liver as well.

 

Statistically, if you drink 8 ounces or more of ethanol a day for 20 years, you have a 50% chance of developing cirrhosis.

 

8 fluid ounces of ethanol is about 225g. A 500ml bottle of Singha will contain about 20 grams of alcohol, so your 2-3 large bottles of beer will contain 40-60 grams of alcohol. Way short of the 225g daily intake required to give you a 50% chance of cirrhosis at the 20 years mark.

 

8 grams of alcohol is one unit. A litre of vodka, which many alcoholics can polish off daily, contains approximately 320g of ethanol. 

 

But remember that even if you don't damage your liver, the alcohol can still cause mouth/throat cancer, stomach cancer etc, and the chance of getting cancers varies wildly depending on your genetics.

 

And also - these are all probabilities. Even if you have never drunk alcohol in your life, your chance of cirrhosis is not 0%, and even if you drink 2 litres of vodka a day, your chance of cirrhosis is not 100%.

[sometimewoodworker]

On 3/21/2019 at 1:04 AM, madmen said:

You nailed it to much time on your hands. How about a hobby? I have a flight sim at home and fly the study sim pmdg 777 all over the world so that can keep me busy 4 hours a day easy and Ive just stopped drinking after a heavy few months in Pattaya.

 

12-16 beers spread over 12 hours is no big deal once a week or so but problems start when it becomes a habit. Weight is also a big problem with lots of beer. Easy to balloon out quickly.

Getting a hobby or work during the day will help for sure

Too much time, possibly, but completely wrong on the heavy drinking once a week being no big deal, it does far more damage than any other pattern.

 

personally I drink little because of how I feel next day, I could build up a tolerance by drinking more often but then I'm just wasting money and fighting the weight gain that goes with it.

[thailand49]

You have too much time on your hand, the fact that you address your concerns with a number of excuses you might not be there yet but you surely are headed in that direction!  

[impulse]

On 3/20/2019 at 4:10 PM, pr9spk said:

Well then you aren't even in the ball park of the kind of patients I used to treat. You, and AA, are correct in thinking that anyone who wants to stop drinking should be offered help, it's just that your level of drinking almost certainly never kills people or destroys their lives. What you are saying is akin to someone who eats 3 chocolate bars in one sitting once a month claiming to have an eating disorder.

 

You say you worked in geriatric facilities with wet brain alcoholics.  That’s admirable work, and I salute you for it.  But it represents a failure.  Not your failure, but a systemic failure long before those patients got to you.

 

The alcoholics you’re talking about are in the end stages of a years long process.  Nobody’s alcoholism starts out the way you describe alcoholism.  There are months, years, or even decades of warning signs before they get to that stage.  Anyone waiting until they display the symptoms you describe have already ignored years of warning signs.  Signs like the ones listed in the OP, the ones I listed for myself, and others that I won’t go into in a public forum.

 

Alcoholism is like an elevator going down into a pit that includes cirrhosis of the liver, loss of cognitive ability, heart (and other organ) damage, legal problems, and on and on and on.  You can ride the elevator all the way to the bottom, or you can choose to get off whenever you’ve had enough.  Some people do ride it all the way to the bottom and end up in geriatric facilities with wet brain, some die of alcohol related causes -but not alcoholism- before they get to the bottom, and some die of unrelated causes before their alcoholism gets as bad as you describe.

 

I chose to get off the downward spiral when I saw in myself the warning signs.  Not when someone else pointed out my faults.  I had to see them myself.  And I’m very grateful that I did.

 

Here’s warning sign #1- though probably not definitive on its own.  If you’re worried that you may have a drinking problem, you just might.

[kingstonkid]

An alcoholic is someone that can not self regulate and does not know when to quit.  I would suggest based on the people I have known that you are not but that you easily could become one.  My advice is to trade beer for something else when you drink for a while and see what happens.

 

Consider this at this time you have a good deal of free time.  Imagine if your wife tells you where to go and leaves you then you will have more time.  My suggestion to see if you can find something that you both like and do it.  I have started going window shopping only because she likes it.  

 

You re in more danger of screwing up your life with your family than you are at this point being an alcoholic but if you screw up the family you could end up there easily.