I would consider myself a drunk, not an alcoholic. I would only weekend binge drink, and would enjoy the effects of drinking too much alcohol (being drunk) to “enhance” different experiences.
I believe an alcoholic is someone who is dependent on alcohol, either physically, or mentally, to carry themselves through the day.
Whats your thoughts?
Edit: i should have been more thorough in my post. Im not trying to get permission to drink. I was trying to get different perspectives on whether there is or is not a difference between a drunk and an alcoholic. Reading the responses have made me realize using these terms, however, are kinda pointless as in the end, alcohol is still the source of the problem.
Im a rookie here so im just trying to gather as much information as possible🙂
The thoughts are what’s the difference if alcohol is causing problems in your life. I assume alcohol is causing you problems because you’re here. If you’re just sober curious try a 90 day challenge removing alcohol and see how it treats you. Best wishes
It doesn’t really matter to me and I’m not a big fan of either of those terms, actually. I’m just a non-drinker now. I made a smart choice to get alcohol out of my life so I could live my best life. That’s all.
As a fellow former binge drinker I never described as an alcoholic. But I know lots of people who do/ did. It’s just semantics really. If drinking is a problem then sobriety is a solution!
I’m with @LeeHawk I just think of myself as a teetotaler
Good perspectives. You dont have to categorize any style of drinking. At the end of the day, if drinking is negatively impacting your life, it should be eliminated from your life.
Let me ask you, during the week, were you thinking about either, how great the weekend is going to be because your going to an event or doing something where drinking is involved, or were you thinking, man I can’t wait for the weekend because it’s been a tough week and I want to get drunk. For me i answered yes to at least one of those questions every week. That right there is the mental addiction. You might not crave or need it everyday but I found great comfort and motivation in knowing the weekend binge was always going to be just a few days away. I know I’m an alcoholic, now it’s time for me to do the work and learn a new, better way to live my life.
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path . Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
I thank AA and my HP everyday for keeping me sober and able to learn everyday how to change, and learn a new way of living life
Our thoughts don’t matter in this situation. It’s your life. If your looking for “permission” to keep drinking I highly doubt this is the forum for that.
Welcome!! This forum can be an excellent tool in gathering information and various resources for sobriety. Certainly you are not the first (nor will you be the last) person to ask this question. I think many of us asked a similar question or bunch of questions as we truly started wrestling with what to do about our drinking. It is a process for sure and such questions are a step in that process.
There is no shame in looking for answers or trying to understand our relationship with alcohol. Many people feel comfortable identifying as an alcoholic, or a drunk, or a binge drinker, or fill in the blank. For others, labels feel limiting or just don’t work. All approaches are okay in my book.
The goal is to not drink and to heal the part of you that the drink was medicating.
How we get there is as individual as we all are.
I have found that staying curious and open helps me in sobriety and in life.
Gathering info is definitely a positive step for your self and sobriety and this is an excellent place to do so…lots to read!! Discovery is part of the process.
If you drink regularly enough you’ll come to drink not just to enhance but also decrease, avoid, modify, regulate, take the edge off, all ways to change how we feel about sth, someone or in ourselves. And if you do that often enough you come to not just enjoy doing that, you’ll come to need to do that. Because you don’t give yourself a chance to deal with the reality of life, unmodified by alk, you unlearn how to deal, you don’t progress but you regress emotionally and mentally. Then you need alk to cope. That’s dependency. You’ve only described one aspect of it, the willing aspect. The fun aspect. We have all had fun becoming alcoholics. It works for a good while, to deal with life with alk/DOC, otherwise noone would become addicted.
Welcome, fellow drunk, hopefully fellow sober person. Have a good strong sober day!
I am 59 days with no alcohol. I agree with your statement. I have chosen to become a non-drinker. I’m feeling happy, healthy, more energetic and focused without alcohol.
Let me start off by saying I’m 95 days sober today. I’ve always considered myself a functional alcoholic but my drinking behavior at times would probably have me considered a drunk by some. Someone had commented to my face about me no longer being a drunk( and they did mean it in a good way) it crushed me though to hear that from someone I love cause I didn’t know they felt like that.
In my experience they are two sides of the same coin at the end of the day.
Alcoholism is a degenerative pattern of behaviour. Most alcoholics probably start out as binge drinkers, only drinking when the right occasion presents itself - think of the one friend we all have, who has a reputation for being “that guy or girl” at every wedding or birthday. I was that person who just loved alcohol a little bit too much.
I never had a problem with drinking at inappropriate times, but over the years i found myself start to normalise drinking on my own, or for no particular special reason. I still couldn’t moderate in these situations and i feel like if i had of kept on down that path it would have led to drinking every day.
I think it really depends on how deep into it you are. As a “drunk” or binge drinker you could be one tragic event, or bout if depression away from becoming a fully fledged alcoholic and i think that is an extremely scary and dangerous possibility for us all.
From you post I believe you “abuse alcohol”. If you keep abusing alcohol eventually you’ll enter into alcoholism ( if you haven’t already), from which there is no return to “Normal” etc…social drinking.
I also believe You know something is wrong within You (relating to Your alcohol consumption) or You would not have reached-out.
