Just done 7 nights on the bounce, never even thought about a drink except for the odd coffee or green tea. 1st night off tonight & there's a bottle of red in the kitchen & I can hear it calling me, like that bottle in Alice in Wonderland with the label on saying 'drink me'.
I have a drink every night when I'm not on nights so do you reckon it's a habit/bingy thing?
I've put the bottle in a cupboard but I can still hear it.
I have this habit, seem to have to get a bit lashed every Friday night to get the working week out of my system. I always regret it on Saturday as it kills my motivation to do anything. I see it more as a mental crux than alcohol dependency, but I am going to make an effort to knock it on the head.
Although it doesn't seem that similar to your situation actually.
It's Monday, beat it into you!
It's clearly a problem when you think it's a problem and drink anyway.
Two bottles of vodka a week and at least 6 beers a day? By my own admission I was an alcoholic, perhaps not by anyone else's definition but I was aware of my problem.
Behaviour Modifications Required, chaps.
Two bottles of vodka a week and at least 6 beers a day?
😯 That's a LOT of piss.
I could have written the OP. Was out last weekend, had a bottle of wine in the house, was gifted two more, had pals round, went to a birthday. First no drink in at least 8 days. Only talking a glass or two (ok two) but bought a bottle today for future use. Now it's talking to me as I type. I'm not opening it for this reason.
Some useful questions to ask yourself:
[url= https://ncadd.org/learn-about-alcohol/alcohol-abuse-self-test ]Link[/url]
I have a small glass of wine with my food most days, does that make me an alcy? Three pints and I'm smashed and hungover the next day though.
I have a small glass of wine with my food most days, does that make me an alcy? Three pints and I'm smashed and hungover the next day though.
Not being able to manage without a drink makes you an alcy. A small or large capacity for booze is sort of irrelevant, some of the properly off the rails alcoholics I've know can get smashed on very little booze - a can of cooking lager and they're away, their problem isn't amount they drink, its just that they can't cope with not being drunk
Two bottles of vodka a week and at least 6 beers a day?That's a LOT of piss.
It's a good bit but there's those that drink that a day easily.
esselgruntfuttock if you can go 7 nights without one then you're along way off.
I scored 2 on Shermers linky test. 😕
Some questions in that test make no sense.
Of course I can. I'm not 15 anymore.2. Can you handle more alcohol now than when you first started to drink?
Yes. But somehow it's "better" to drink heavily for no reason at all?11. Do you usually have a reason for the occasions when you drink heavily?
Yeah, because I don't drink as much as I used to so have lower tolerance.21. Have you recently noticed that you can’t drink as much as you used to?
I have a small glass of wine with my food most days, does that make me an alcy? Three pints and I'm smashed and hungover the next day though.
I have a glass of very fine homebrew most evenings, a glass of wine instead on Saturdays when having dinner with the parents. Dad has a glass of wine with dinner every night. However I've not been drunk since my student days, and I've never seen him drunk.
So are we alcoholics? I score zero on that test, by the way.
I scored 2 on Shermers linky test
I scored 5 and I'm not alcoholic. A lot of them questions are bollocks.
It's american, they still have a vein of a puritanical attitude towards alcohol.
I used to drink half a cup of half pint a night for health, honest to god I do that, but given up because some of them cheap red wine taste like shite. Can't be arsed anymore. 😀
'early rising is good for the wealth but early drinking is good for the health' (Rabelais)
If you're thinking about drink in the morning, thats when you have a problem. A small drink every night is habit.
BillMC - Member'early rising is good for the wealth but early drinking is good for the health' (Rabelais)
Ya, but not when the wine taste shite. 😡
I now just drink two table spoons of apple cyder vinegar instead which is much cheaper and sometimes not so bad. 😛
A small drink every night is habit.
Question is, can you break the habit though?
I got into the habit of having a drink most nights. It became part of the routine, go make dinner, pour a drink whilst cooking. But I stopped thinking about it, I wasn't getting a drink because I wanted a drink, it was just what I did.
Thing is, once I'd realised what I was doing, breaking that habit proved to be harder than I'd ever anticipated. I'd go though the day without thinking twice about it, get home and actually really struggle when that step of the evening was removed. I can easily see how it'd creep up on you, for "habit" to become "problem."
Some questions in that test make no sense.
Quite
Can you drink as much as you used to, I'm in my 50's and don't drink as much as I did as a studnet. Guess what? I get drink faster than I used to.
Also, Do you anxious or depressed after a bout of heavy drinking?
I very rarely get hangovers now, not because of phenomenal drinking abilty but because I don't drink that much. When I do, I lie in bed feeeling sorry myself wasting a day when I could be out in the hills, riding amy bike or doing anything more fun than lying in bed with a hangover. That depresses me.
JUst nailed the benylin and thinking about the toLiet dUck....leaving thE LIghter FLuiD in Case I WAke up...jn.. the niighhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Thing is, once I'd realised what I was doing, breaking that habit proved to be harder than I'd ever anticipated. I'd go though the day without thinking twice about it, get home and actually really struggle when that step of the evening was removed. I can easily see how it'd creep up on you, for "habit" to become "problem."
Ditto!
I now drink red wine every night because I like the taste and presumably the effects of the alcohol.Habit yes,but if I'm driving or riding of an evening then of course I wouldn't have a drink.This does mean I have to manage to squeeze all my driving and riding in during the day 🙂
Can I flip it around and ask how much per night will damage your liver? If your not wrecking your liver and you are controlling the size of your belly, is it a problem?
I ask that as someone who has drunk 1 pint of homebrew, 1 tescos finest DIPA, 1 V&T, 1 large Punk IPA & 1 Adnams Broadside over the last 5 1/2 hrs.
These days I have Tuesdays & Thursdays off, I rarely get drunk (once a year, maybe) but I definitely drink more when my wife's on late's.
If I had 24 cans of cold Carling/Fosters/... in the fridge I'd drink herbal tea or milk. I just love the taste of great beers
If you answered “yes” to more than 8 questions, you may have a serious level of alcohol-related problems requiring immediate attention and possible treatment. You should seek professional guidance. You should consider contacting the NCADD affiliate office nearest to you. A representative will be happy to assist you in the scheduling of a professional evaluation.
That test really needs re-calibrated for Irish people.
If I had 24 cans of cold Carling/Fosters/... in the fridge I'd drink herbal tea or milk. I just love the taste of great beers
Very much so. Well I won't drink herbal tea you big poof, but I know where you are coming from. People have left 6 packs of Harp,Carlsberg,Tennets etc in my fridge for 6-months to a year...until I next see them and they can have them. I'd rather not drink anything at all than drinky cheap pissy beer.
Honest question: what's different about an alcohol habit that makes it worse than other habits?
I have a cup of coffee every morning, that's a habit I've had for decades. Is by beer every evening a worse habit than my cup of coffee in the morning?
To put it another way, I've stopped smoking, taking drugs & shagging women apart from my wife. Surely drinking beer 5 nights a week is ok
Do you really want to live till your brain turns to mush and your legs stop working...?
5 for me on that test
2. Can you handle more alcohol now than when you first started to drink? Yes
3. Have you ever been unable to remember part of the previous evening, even though
your friends say you didn’t pass out? Yes
11. Do you usually have a reason for the occasions when you drink heavily? Yes, it's generally a piss up with my mates, I don't drink otherwise!
12. When you’re sober, do you sometimes regret things you did or said while drinking? Yes
26. Have any of your blood relatives ever had a problem with alcohol? Yes
Pretty much par for the course, very few people I know wouldn't answer yes to the above? 😆
That shit happens much quicker with heavy alcohol abuse! 😆Mugboo - Member
Do you really want to live till your brain turns to mush and your legs stop working...?
cirrhosis of the liver and things like that! 😆bencooper - Member
Honest question: what's different about an alcohol habit that makes it worse than other habits?I have a cup of coffee every morning, that's a habit I've had for decades. Is by beer every evening a worse habit than my cup of coffee in the morning?
We were down the pub and one of my friends said: "when was the last time you went 72 hours without a drink" the answer was that I had no idea, but I can frequently go weeks without a drink or I can drink every night. It depends on the circumstances. The fact that he could remember exactly when it was for him implies to me that he has a problem. Why should it matter when you abstained? It should be like asking when was the last time you had macaroni cheese? The answer should not be a significant event in your life.
Honest question: what's different about an alcohol habit that makes it worse than other habits?I have a cup of coffee every morning, that's a habit I've had for decades. Is by beer every evening a worse habit than my cup of coffee in the morning?
The difference is firstly the risk that you can't actually control the habit and secondly that people often end up drinking more than they think/are willing to say with the resultant medical effects.
i use 'dry january' as a measure of whether im an alcy or not 😀
if i can go a month after christmas with no alcohol then i figure i can do without it if i have to and im ok. if i ever give in before the months out, then thats when ill start asking a few more questions of myself.....
Cost in terms of money not spent on the bike or time out on the bike or with family
Once you realise that alcohol is actually poison and your body does everything it can to get rid of it, it kind of gives you a different perspective on booze.
I like wine and beer and the socialising that goes with them but I look at that attractively designed label and then what's in the bottle and think again
Good health
Too much coffee harms the liver too - too much of anything isn't good for you. My question is why a moderate amount of alcohol is different to a moderate amount of coffee.
I guess it's more a Puritanical point about whether addiction to any substance is a bad thing - in which case sugar and fatty foods should be on the list too.
I saw a very good analogy recently about how drinking damages your liver. Every drink is like pricking your hand with a needle. A couple a night and you will recover. Loads at once, and with rest, it will be sore for a while but you will recover. 20 every day and your hand will get gangrene and drop off.
I am fully persuaded of the evils of drinking large amounts, or modest amounts regularly. But stuff like that self-addiction checklist that was linked earlier are (at best) of questionable use.
[i]"Has a family member ever complained about your drinking?"[/i]
Yes, obviously. My wife, every time I come home at 11pm after having 3 pints, so drunk that I bought some chips and now find my own farts hilarious. That isn't necessarily a symptom of problem drinking, it could just be further evidence that my wife is annoying.
I get the sense that most people answer "yes" to the question "do you usually have a reason when you drink heavily?". Because, yes, I do have a reason. Like "it was the Christmas party". I'd feel odd if the answer was "no, I drink all the time, I don't need a reason".
So that's two strikes straight away, and we're into "you should be worried about your drinking". which of course makes it more likely that my wife will complain about my drinking, reinforcing the spiral of depravity into which my life is sinking, and before we know it I have to answer "yes" to questions like "does your drinking harm your relationships?" because after the first time I took the quiz and scored a 2 my wife has got annoyed every time I look at a bottle of sherry.
Hey ho. Better safe than sorry! 🙂
A simple way to look at it is, "is your drinking having a negative effect on you or others around you?"
On a side note, alcoholics don't just sit on the bench and wee themselves in the park.
They can be high functioning and can go weeks, months or years without a drink.
I know what the OP means by drink calling you, but I think it's more conditioning than addiction. We used to drink 1-2 glasses of wine every day over dinner, and I often felt I had to have a glass of wine but it was mainly habit. Cut right back now to only drinking Fri/Sat night (mainly due to my expanding waistline).
[quote=BigDummy ]I am fully persuaded of the evils of drinking large amounts, or modest amounts regularly. But stuff like that self-addiction checklist that was linked earlier are (at best) of questionable use.
It is indeed bollocks - I get straight into needing to consult a professional just because I have more alcohol tolerance than I did at 14 (given my aunt died of alcohol related problems). I reckon it's possibly even counter-productive as it allows people to dismiss real alcohol related problems (ie annoying your wide).
Post-festive season and with the bad weather I found I'd slipped into a couple of bottles of beer or a couple of glasses of red during the week then abit more at weekends. Not stupid amounts more but enough that it became a routine and my body didn't have a rest.
Now its Monday, Tues, Wed - no alcohol. Thursday - two bottles (Dragon Stout) allowed. Friday- 1/2bottle of red/two bottles of Stout. Sat- same or two double rums instead of the wine.
When you think about the wine (I do sometimes as its routine/habit forming in the least)- then it should spur you to have a break even more.
One thing that I find with alcohol- it slows my heart right down so I'll literally not move at all all evening then fall asleep by 10pm.
If I have an alcohol free night I need to do stuff/tv is boring and things get done. I also go to sleep at 11pmish.
@bigdummyI'd say in that example it's probably you who's annoying rather than your wife
Indeed I am, as are many people, much of the time.
But periodic annoyingness =/= alcoholism. 🙂
I do wonder about myself. When I lived on my own I'd drink every night, and quite a bit - now I'm a grown-up responsible married man, I drink on weekend evenings and maybe a Thursday night, if it's a bad week. So I drink a lot less than I used to, but still, I do wonder - I do just like drinking, and being drunk. Don't need a reason, I'm happier staying in and watching a film than I am down the pub.
[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/people-who-drink-alcohol-outlive-those-who-abstain-study-shows-8995879.html ]Pissheads live longer than wowsers[/url].
(Yeah yeah I'm cherry picking whatever. Still interesting.)
OP if you're not happy with your level of drinking you should probably reduce it until you are, but for god's sake don't beat yourself up for having a drink if you want one, life's hard enough as it is without paying attention to guilt-tripping puritans.
Not being able to manage without a drink makes you an alcy. A small or large capacity for booze is sort of irrelevant, some of the properly off the rails alcoholics I've know can get smashed on very little booze - a can of cooking lager and they're away, their problem isn't amount they drink, its just that they can't cope with not being drunk
This. OP, if you think you are drinking too much stop and have a break, for your own piece of mind at least. I got to the point where I was drinking minor amounts every evening - a pint of beer, a glass or wine or a G&T - after the kids were in bed. I know it was a crutch for stress relief.
I decided to use Lent as an excuse to give it a break, so I haven't had a drink since mid-Feb - although I'm racking it up for the end of lent of Friday without guilt, becuase I simply enjoy a drink, although not being drunk and have all the responsibility that comes with 2 young Kids to ensure I self-moderate.
As much as I curse them, hangovers always keep my drinking to a reasonable limit. I had a busy social week just gone and spent the weekend in bed feeling rotten.
Someone told me a definition of an alcoholic is someone who can't stop drinking for two days.
Too much of anything is bad for you. If you think enjoying a glass or two of wine with a meal is alcoholism you don't understand alcoholism.
I would define addiction as needing to have a drink to get through the day, as opposed to feeling like one at the end of everyday which is just a habit.
I always feel like having a drink at the end of the day, a glass or two of wine, but don't have to...
Being able to take a break does not necessarily mean all is well.
A relation of a friend started drinking in his early teens but could always stop if he wanted to, often for weeks or a month. This did seem to be accurate, the ability to stop and has remained true all his life. So alls well? Not really...
When he went on a bender every few weeks or months I have been told he would sometimes be bed ridden for several days from the after effects. Some periods he drank large amounts for days or weeks running, in between the breaks. But there were always gaps of weeks at a time.
He is in his 50's now and has developed epilepsy that is related in some way to alcohol, so is on pills all the time. He has liver damage, gout, various other issues including a near death experience from an alcohol related/aggravated gut problem that then involved major surgery and which could come back (yes, he still drinks).
He has no partner, no kids, hangs around with alcoholics. He did have a partner within my memory but it did not last long as I believe he used to hit her when on a bender.
Being able to abstain for a short period of days or a month means nothing, its not much of an indicator if you are an alcoholic or not. Its more complex and indeed more scary than that.
All addicts think they can stop, its a viewpoint that empowers their belief that they are 'ok really, don't have any problem'.
Being 'able to stop anytime I want' also can be used to brush off the fears and distress of the people who have to live with an alcholic.
I know of someone else who was drinking shorts at breakfast and who sunk so low in the 'its not a problem' belief that he blamed his teenage daughter (trying to do her exams) for 'being the problem' when she could not cope with his appalling behaviours.
He lost his wife and kids in the end, when he went straight back to drinking when released from rehab. A man who knew how to put himself first. He got put on a liver transplant list (what a waste of a liver) but died from alcohol related injury before he got one. He was found dead after no one had seen or heard from him for days. It took that long for someone to notice.
He was really loved by his family once. You can destroy any amount of love if you really make the effort....
If you're question yourself...make a change and cut down?
I don't drink as it taste like blurgh except expensive wine in Oz Mmm!
Green tea anyone?