Moderation Questions and General Chat Thread

But the Cockney described at the end of your post isn't necessarily an alcoholic, who can just be someone who has a couple of glasses of wine with colleagues every lunchtime out of necessity.

it's a myth that alcoholics wake up and have to drink

yes some do that but not all

many are able to hold off until they are free of responsibilities and not start until done with work for the day

is cuepee the one who drinks 10 bottles of wine in a day?

I'm saying if alcohol consumption causes him to become violent, or has other significant negative impacts on his life or the lives of those close to him, he is an alcoholic regardless of the absolute quantities involved. Conversely, some people can drink ungodly amounts on a regular basis and it has little or no negative impact on their lives; I wouldn't call them alcoholics.

If I'm on a bender I'll certainly get cravings for it when I wake up. I started working from home a lot a few years before Covid, which is how I ended up so wasted most of the time. I'd just start in the morning and go through till night days on end, whereas before I'd be going to the office where I obviously wouldn't be drinking. Doing that, it's quite easy to go through 3 or 4 bottles (of wine) a day for a week straight for sure. 10 is crazy talk.

I understand that but disagree with the last clause. What I was saying is that alcoholism is defined by compulsion not by quantity or otherwise negative behaviour.

I'd probably say probably an element of both. I have no idea what the "official" definition is, or even if there is one; the definition I articulated is the one I find most useful.

You can be fully addicted to a substance without it causing you any significant problem in life. The most common example is coffee for many millions of people (not all coffee drinkers of course).
Many coffee drinkers have significant problems if they stop completly for a week. Those are addicts, coffeholics.

For me an alcoholic is someone who if he stops drinking for a week has significant withdrawal symptoms. Ie an addict to the substance.

If he is good at managing his addiction or not, that's a completly orthogonal point that doesn't affect the definition.

There is "problem drinker" to use for the person who becomes a threat to others when he drinks.

Anyway checking around definitions differ, some use mine some yours, so i guess not even experts agree on that.

Fair enough. I've always regarded it as similar to any drug addiction and wouldn't call a fun drinker an alcoholic if they were able to stop drinking for a few days, a week or even a month when they needed to, which thankfully I was.

The ones who tell themselves "I don't have a problem, I can go a whole lunch without drinking."

If you're drinking enough to actually cause physical withdrawal symptoms (i.e. DTs), you're basically in tramp drinking cheap aftershave territory. The vast majority of people I'd call "alcoholics" don't get anywhere near that point. Keep in mind "cravings" are not really physical withdrawals, they're psychological withdrawals, unlike getting "sick" for a heroin addict, for example.

My favourite ones are:

- I'm not an alcoholic, alcoholics go to meetings.
- I don't have a drinking problem, goes in my mouth every time.

I can quit drinking. I do it every night.

Or, as George Best put it "in 1969 I gave up smoking, women, and alcohol. Worst 20 minutes of my life".

I've had DTs more times than I can remember and was never tempted to start morning drinking. I drank most evenings for pleasure with others and never alone and enjoyed taking a break from it every now and then so I don't think I met the alcoholic criteria (despite often pushing it further than others wanted to), unlike one guy I often drank with for a couple of years who was often so visibly pissed in the afternoon he came close to losing his job over it.

I doubt you had DTs. People say that without knowing what it really is. Real DTs can be fatal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_t...

Come on

Yeah, curling up in the fetal position and going "why is it so ****ing hot/cold in here" for about 10 hours is pretty standard, still not DTs, although it has that in common with the onset of DTs.

Well it says it lasts several days but I found that the hair of the dog soon halted my research into that possibility.

Alcohol doesn’t have real physical withdrawals? Like heroin? You sure about that ? Wanna bet ?

It does. They're called DTs. Try that reading thing we talked about.

Nonsensical to talk of healthy or unhealthy relationships with alcohol if your career and relationships are progressing well, your social life is full and you happily don't drink for a few days or weeks every now and then.

once had an elderly coworker who would send me on runs to get a beer which he'd discreetly pound and then get to work

he always explained that it wasn't because he wanted to drink it, but that he had gone so long without having a drink that he could sense an inability to function coming along

remember once i saw him trying to write something down and his hand was shaking so much that he couldn't do it so i just said "no worries i'm on it" and then walked down to the store for him

felt bad for him, he clearly had no interest in being drunk during regular hours but a lifetime of 24/7 drinking on weekends and regularly drinking at evenings had caught up to him to the point where he had to self medicate in order to keep on functioning during the sober parts of his life

whenever you see all those empty nips on the side of roads, i always wonder if it's people like him just trying to stave off withdrawal or if people actually are literally taking shots on their drive

I like water with my alcohol. And hops