How addictive is alcohol really? Allen Carr vs. AA.

There are some people out there who are addicted to alcohol. They will face withdrawal if they stop drinking. There are many more people out there (including myself) who have done something they may have regretted while drinking like acted foolish at a party.

My beef with groups like AA is that they lump anybody and everybody who has ever made a "mistake" with alcohol as an "alcoholic." According to these people's definition of "alcoholic" somebody who has had 5 or more drinks in one sitting is just as much of an alcoholic as a person who must drink a few shots of whiskey to get out of bed in the morning. Somebody who once got drunk at a party is just as much of an alcoholic as somebody who has been arrested several times while intoxicated and who frequently shows up drunk to work.

There needs to be some nuance. The world is not made up of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. There is a spectrum of behaviors. On one end there are people with powerful physical addictions who have done or will do destructive things as a result of alcohol abuse. On the other end there are people who have never had a drink in their lives. Most of us are in the middle somewhere.

The question is not whether one is or is not an alcoholic, because anybody who has ever taken a drink has some alcoholic tendencies. The question should be whether your drinking habits are harming you.

lets see..

when your on your way home from work...are you thinking about how many beers are left in the fridge...

do you stop and get more, just incase??

do you hide the empties from your family?

if you get a day off from work..are you counting the minutes until noon?

yet you manage to work really hard..never miss a day at work.

never are actually "drunk".

I say there is a problem, and an addiction...I'm just saying.

No one makes you take that drink. You and you alone ultimately have control over what you put in your mouth. Therefore, if you have an addiction, then you CHOOSE to have that addiction. If you don't want to be an addict then simply don't do it. You have the choice. It's all in your head.

IMO, people who are "alcoholics" drink either every day or almost every day. They use alcohol as a coping mechanism to numb themselves and temporarily escape from whatever it is in their lives that is either currently bothering them or has bothered them in the past and is still bothering them on a subconscious level.

Traumatic events such as suicides & deaths in the family, victims of child abuse or rape, divorces, etc. - all these events are triggers. To the psychologically scarred person, alcohol becomes a coping mechanism to numb problems and painful emotions, depression, despair, etc.

The "alcoholic" eventually must learn to deal with their trauma/problems head on rather than run to the bottle to escape. They can really only do this by carefully analyzing why they drink. They will usually be in denial over why they drink, often blaming genetics and playing the victim. "Well, my father drank and his father drank, so I drink too - it runs in my family." I don't buy that it is a disease. Alcohol doesn't make you open your mouth and tip the bottle.

Having said that, I could really go for a beer right now.

reply to post by coastalite

Great post, but does one really CHOOSE an addiction?
I thought when you're addicted CHOICE is negated.
Isn't the very essence of being addicted losing choice?

I think it is hugely environmental. I grew up in a dry home and could never develop a taste for it.

reply to post by calstorm

Perhaps, on the other hand, the fact that your home was dry meant a lack of genetic preconditions for an alcoholic gene.
I have heard of serious drinkers and alcoholics from dry homes and even cultures.
Colonized cultures were often partly destroyed by alcohol, and they went from virtually dry to problem drinkers within a generation.