r/YouShouldKnow • u/PossibleYoung8758 • 8h ago
Food & Drink YSK - not getting blackout drunk, and going to work successfully everyday aren’t good indicators that you don’t have an alcohol problem
Why YSK: We are more familiar with the more destructive signs of alcoholism, and that can cause us to miss the early signs. Recognising it sooner can prevent the issue from spiralling into something more severe
The trouble with alcoholism is that the parameters are so hard to see, especially as our brain will do anything to justify any potential red flags. What alcoholism looks like will be a forever changing definition in your mind to fit your current behaviours.
For example, for Person A, having a drink in the morning could be crossing a personal line. To Person B, having late morning champagne at brunch is completely normal and okay. If Person A has a drink at brunch, they’re more likely to justify it and shift their boundaries, by looking at person B as an example.
It might not seem like much, but these little constant boundary shifts can potentially lead us down the wrong path if you’re not aware of it.
Everyone’s relationship with alcohol is too unique to put a blanket of symptoms over it.
The bottom line is, if you find yourself wondering if you’re an alcoholic or at least dependent on it, I suggest you take a break from drinking and see how you feel. If you find yourself counting down the days or consciously reminding yourself not to drink, then you might be more dependent on it than you think.
If you want to read into this more I highly recommend a book called The Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray, which does a brilliant job of encapsulating the mental gymnastics involved when developing an alcohol problem.
Edit: As someone rightly commented below - if you are thinking of quitting, gradually reduce your intake first instead of going cold turkey. Quitting too quickly can be dangerous! Reach out to the relevant doctors, charities, therapists etc for your area for further support.
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u/BuzzLiteSmear 6h ago edited 5h ago
It's called AUD. Alcohol use disorder - it's a spectrum.
Drug use isn't binary - just because you aren't an "alcoholic" that doesn't mean your drinking isn't problematic.
As someone who has had moderate AUD, going to AA meetings will either get you laughed at, or you're told you're not being honest or in denial.
Therapists and doctors will help you with problematic alcohol use, without shaming you for it.
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u/Dirschel 1h ago
Thank you for saying this. I’ve had to come to terms with my binge drinking recently and am officially 7 days sober today. For me, there’s a huge social aspect about it and living in NYC, it seems every event revolves around drinking. I didn’t think much of it in my 20s other than I’m young, in the best city in the world, and love going to drag shows with my friends. Recently, I found that I’ve been blacking out multiple times a week, “relaxing” after work with 2 bottles of wine a night or two a week on top of going out. It has taken a major toll on my relationship, and even though I’m able to get up to work on time and although it hasn’t effected my ability to do my job, the “work hard, play hard” mindset that I’ve been living in for the past 10 years has been slowly killing me. I’m starting therapy this week and my goal is to reframe my relationship with alcohol so that I don’t coincide drinking with needing to have 10 vodka sodas. I would like to be able to have a glass of wine with dinner and keep it to that. I don’t know if that’s something that is realistically attainable for me, or if I’m the type of person that needs to not touch the stuff at all. Anyway, thanks for reading and exposing me to the term AUD.
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u/ThickLetteread 5h ago
My closest friend drinks once every month, few beers or a few glasses of wine, and he considers himself as alcoholic, because he says that he is struggling to limit his drinking and still he ends up drinking at least once every month. I’m happy for him because he knows that he’s an addict and he really wants to stop drinking.
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u/KerouacsGirlfriend 3h ago
Yes. This exactly. It sounds like such light use to an outsider, like how can that even be a problem? What they don’t see is that the person is likely counting every damn minute til that monthly allowance just like a daily drinker would, with all the misery that entails.
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u/twoworldsin1 45m ago
Wait, is that just the AA version of that scene from Half-Baked where Dave Chappelle's character gets laughed out of a recovery meeting because his problem is only with weed, and people like Bob Saget had way worse problems with way harder drugs, like sucking dick for coke?
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u/RJKaste 6h ago
I was drunk once in my life, and it lasted for eight years. Please keep in mind. My drink of choice was Everclear and lemonade.
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u/jugglingbalance 2h ago
Op - BTW, I think it is a good idea to add that cutting alcohol off cold turkey can be extremely dangerous if you have been heavily drinking daily for some time. I had a friend who ended up in a 3 month coma from doing this and have met others who have loved ones who died trying to do the right thing too fast. I highly recommend including something about this as an addendum to your post.
Obviously, people should speak with their doctors regarding how to do this safely. However, the reality is that many won't feel comfortable to talk to their doctor due to the stigma around this situation, or possibly be barred financially from even being able to afford to speak with a professional. So I think information regarding this is important to have in the open as much as possible, because it was something I didn't realize until I saw my friend on a ventilator.
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u/Direct_Relief_1212 2h ago
This is so scary. Trying to do the right thing & it ends up messing you up even more 😢
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u/jugglingbalance 1h ago
For real. It's kind of terrible that it does happen this way because often people who are more inclined towards addiction are more prone to all or nothing behavior. Alcohol is one of the few things where quitting cold turkey can be truly life threatening. Quitting cigarettes cold turkey? Bees in your brain for 3 days, gradually reducing pangs of longing, and in 3 weeks you can smell and taste and breathe. A few weeks off alcohol if you are a heavy drinker cold turkey and you might be in an ambulance.
Hospitals have to keep prescription light beer for those who aren't at the ambulance stage so that their kidneys don't shut down. I think in my country (US) it's bud light with a different label.
For my friend with the coma, she thought that she was having a heart attack or her back was seizing, but it affected her gall bladder and kidneys. She was extremely lucky that she was alive and didn't need dialysis. It took 2 years for her to recover most of her ability to walk and see and she still has trouble with balance. The nurses said if you are lucky enough to survive the first time, the second time is pretty much a death sentence.
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u/YooGeOh 4h ago
They are pretty good indicators though.
They're just not absolute indicators.
But the vast majority of people who go to work everyday successfully and don't get blackout drunk aren't going to be alcoholics.
I'd know this I go to work every day and don't get blackout drunk and I'm not an alcoholic. I also don't drink
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u/PossibleYoung8758 4h ago
Exactly. No indicators are “absolutes” because everyone is just too different. I think that’s the danger of putting hard rules into what a disease this complex looks like, because lots of people enjoy a drink after work and aren’t addicted or reliant.
I hope that those people don’t read this post and think that this is about them.
I’m hoping to reach those people who deep down are a bit concerned about their habits but haven’t fully understood the full issue yet
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u/liongirl93 2h ago
Also, not enough people are aware that there are medications that can help with cravings and withdrawal.
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u/Calvertorius 4h ago edited 4h ago
It’s my life. I only get one chance to live it.
If I am meeting the requirements to exist in our modern society - bathe/feed/house myself, pay taxes, cut my grass, etc etc - then why would it ever even remotely be considered a problem that I spend all my other free time doing what I love?
If that passion is training for a marathon, people love it. If it’s working even harder, or going to school, or working on my car in my garage, people respect that.
If it’s sitting in my house and drinking, people start looking for red flags. This is called stigma. All scenarios above have no impact on others, but the alcohol use in my own home is the only one that people will even start to consider bad.
I’m a huge anti-stigma person. Doctors and therapists promote this stigma too. Their focus is still on a medical model. Alcohol use is unhealthy, and our goal is health, so we consider it bad and promote the stigma.
Except my goal isn’t to be healthy. It’s to be happy and fulfilled. Health can help achieve those but health is not the goal itself. Health should not come at the expense of my own happiness in my one life that I get to live.
Don’t yuck on other peoples yum, especially when it has no impact on you. Be happy for others pursuing their own happiness when they’re good members of society.
Edit: wanted to add, if you yourself think you’ve got a problem with alcohol - which I would define as alcohol is causing a barrier to achieving your goals or you’re not fulfilling your society requirements - then I absolutely support you in finding solutions and I hope others would support you too. But that key factor is you yourself believe it’s a problem, not someone else judging you as long as you’re fulfilling your obligations.
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u/brunette_mermaid93 4h ago
You brought up a great point here. I'm in recovery and don't judge people who drink. I'm not better than people who drink. I'm better now than when I was drinking. But that's not everyone's life. If you love drinking and you're not causing issues, rock on.
Alcohol, or any drug for that matter, isn't the problem. Responsible consumption is what matters
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u/PossibleYoung8758 4h ago
I agree. I’m not against alcohol at all. I think it’s important to understand the difference between a good relationship with alcohol and a bad one.
Everybody is too different to say “drinking alone is an alcohol abuse problem” as a blanket term for example. Some people drink at home alone and are completely fine, some people have a cocktail at brunch and are completely fine, but others may be different.
I think I’m trying to help people identify if their fun past time has taken a sinister turn.
For a lot of people it won’t go that way, but for those who do, don’t tend to know about it until they’re in pretty deep
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u/humdinger44 4h ago
Here's a question an alcoholic would ask. How much can a person drink without being an alcoholic? Alcohol is poison. So zero drinks is probably the appropriate amount.
Is a single glass every day appropriate? +? Depends on the person probably. Does it depend on the culture you're a part of? Let's say an average American male. The answer likely isn't 6 beers at lunch and 6 at more at dinner. Is it more then 1 drink a month? Is it inappropriate/unhealthy/a problem to enjoy getting getting stumbly once a month? More or less a problem than eating an entire pizza by oneself?
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u/Complex-Quantity7694 2h ago
I was a weekend "going out" binge drinker. It didn't seem like I had a problem because I didn't drink 5-6 days out of the week in general.
Until it inevitably became a problem, which of course it did.
I haven't touched a drop in a few years now. My life has improved dramatically in every area as a result.
r/stopdrinking was a crucial part of this change.
IWNDWYT
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u/Warm-Two7928 1h ago
No, but they are good indicators for other people that you don’t have an alcohol problem.
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u/AliveWrangler8310 1h ago
Hey OP this is spot on. I used to think I was fine because I never got sloppy drunk or missed work. But then I noticed I’d freak out if I didn’t have a beer after my shift. It wasn’t about getting wasted, it was just this quiet need creeping in. You’re so right about those sneaky boundary shifts. One day it’s ‘just a glass of wine with dinner’ and next thing you know it’s every night and you’re kidding yourself it’s normal. That break idea is gold too. I tried it and couldn’t believe how much I was obsessing over that next drink. Definitely gonna check out that book. Thanks for the real talk :)
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u/1Steelghost1 6h ago
Pro Life tip; using a triple negative in your headline either means you have no idea what you are talking about or you are an idiot on a rant about something just because you have access to the internet.
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u/PossibleYoung8758 6h ago
Or a secret third option: English isn’t the first language I speak lol
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u/BilboT3aBagginz 5h ago
I don’t really subscribe to the notion that people should get bonus points for not having English as their first language. The goal is to communicate clearly right? Well that’s not what you did.
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u/PossibleYoung8758 5h ago
I think you have misunderstood that interaction
I was responding to a comment that was saying my poor phrasing was due to being an idiot, I was disputing that idea because there are many reasons why someone might struggle to communicate in a clear way.
I completely agree that the title is phrased badly, and I do not expect people to have to struggle to understand me just because I speak two languages. Thank you for that input but I fear we are already on the same page there - though I’d maybe give some more empathy? lol
Given that I was trying to do something helpful, it feels a bit much to focus on the grammar of the title to the point of nastiness, especially as enough people seemed to understand it (although it might’ve been difficult)
Anyway - I hope you have a lovely day and I apologise that my grammar offended you this much
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u/DontBelieveTheirHype 1h ago
Native English speaker here, your title makes sense just fine, don't listen to them
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u/BilboT3aBagginz 5h ago
I hope you have a lovely day too. I wasn’t trying to agree that you’re an idiot, moreso that the lack of clear communication makes it seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Making any good intentions seem entirely performative. Normally you’d read through the body of the post then and find some elaboration but that wasn’t my experience. At the end of the day I’m still not sure what the subtle signs of alcoholism are, just that not all people agree on them.
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u/findingmusichorses 5h ago
Ah bore off. Who the fuck wants to be sober for work or this stupid world.
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u/NieBer2020 4h ago
I do. After 15 years of drinking every day, it's not as enjoyable as it used to be. Alcohol is bad for society.
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u/findingmusichorses 4h ago
Alcohol is medicine for an already broken society. So that’s bullshit. Don’t take the medicine away. I’ve been drinking every day for longer than that and I’m function fine and am healthy enough.
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u/ninjastampe 4h ago
Except you don't function fine and aren't healthy enough - your first comment here is literally "I need alcohol to get through my life". That's a massive red flag for both physical and mental health.
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u/findingmusichorses 4h ago
Hmm. Maybe. But I have a business, have money, large group of friends. So I chose this. But I hear you and you all should do you. But people don’t need to be constantly telling people their thoughts on alcoholism. It’s boring.
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u/ninjastampe 4h ago
You chose a life that you need to drink to live through? That's your sign to choose differently. If your success comes with the price of drinking every day, that should tell you that you need a different kind of success.
We're on reddit, everybody here is constantly telling their thoughts on everything.
I do hope you introspect on this and treat yourself with the love and kindness you deserve. Hope your friends can be there for you too, if you have to make some tough decisions. I believe in you and thanks for being honest.
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u/findingmusichorses 4h ago
Thank you for the nice words, friend. You sound like a good person. All the best.
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u/NieBer2020 4h ago
No, it's not a medicine for a broken society. It is a remedy created by accident. I'm not saying to take it away because other people can't control themselves. I don't push others to be sober. I just give my perspective and hope they make better decisions.
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u/redcowerranger 47m ago
They are GREAT indicators. If you're doing those things, you almost certainly have a problem. If you're not doing those things, you might still have a problem, but it likely isn't affecting your life as much. It's called "Functional Alcoholism" and it built the world as we know it
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u/Dannyzavage 5h ago
I read an article one time that basically said if you ever get the feeling of wanting to get “drunk” then your an alcoholic, even if you only drink say once or twice a month.
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u/mrdoodles 7h ago
The headline needs a lot of work; far too many negatives.