Confused about the definition of an alcoholic vs an alcohol abuser - Al-Anon Family Group

ilovedogs · ~*Service Worker*~

Confused about the definition of an alcoholic vs an alcohol abuser

Overcome · Senior Member

I think for me, I have to ask myself, "do I have an issue with someone's drinking?" If the answer is yes, then I belong in al-anon. If the answer is no, then I do not. I have heard too many alcoholics say that the only person who can call an alcoholic, an alcoholic, is the alcoholic....to ever call someone "an alcoholic" who hasn't admitted that they are an alcoholic, just sets me up for abuse by the alcoholic.

Overcome

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha ILDs are you looking for a solution to the problem so that you can drink without
consequences? You desire to drink again...what is stopping you is the answer to
whether your Dad or Mom are or are not really alcoholic? After all you have seen and
been thru and all the judging you are going thru now the information isn't enough to
logically convince you that people who drink alcoholically and abusively have problems
caused by alcohol on all levels of their lives including in their families and with their
children. There is a "T" shirt statement about alcohol I saw years ago that says,
"Instant asshole...just add alcohol" isn't that what you just said. Would you agree
that alcohol is a mind and mood altering drug which causes among other things
severe behavioral problems.   So do you think you're different and that It cannot
and willnot affect you like millions of others who use this mind and mood altering
chemical. This isn't milk or grapefruit juice or Kool Aid or Soda. This is that powerful
cunning and baffling chemical alcohol.   In spite of the information and experience
you have, you also have the desire to deny that inspite of the reality you desire to
drink alcohol.   Have you read the first step...both halfs of it? It sounds like you know
that step and that you are powerless over alcohol within others but?.... Your life
had become unmanagable back then but?....

I thought I was different when I was drinking and even when I got into Al-Anon.
My friends and family told me I was different and the difference they used didn't
tell me I wasn't Alcoholic in fact when I finally took the time to listen to what they
had told me and what was happening to me I never went back to drinking. I am
alcoholic...once I start I don't stop even if I am given reasons to.   There is a
compulsion in my mind that is always there that in an unguarded moment when my
program of recovery was relaxing might give into taking another drinking...faster
than I could say no and a second tought would come to late. I never thought I had
a problem even after overdosing on it.   Lots of members at MIP have talked about
their husbands doing the same thing. The compulsion will trump any information I
now have about alcoholism. What it doesn't trump so easily is the continuation of
days I have spent not drinking at all and working my program and having a strong
grip on the coat tails of my Higher Power.

Drink...don't Drink...What consequences do you want?      (((((hugs))))) smile

ilovedogs · ~*Service Worker*~

I get what you're saying Jerry and no, I'm not trying to give myself permission to drink. I made that decision to not drink and I'm sticking with it. What I'm trying to do is find some peace and stop judging my husband. My addictions counselor(who I'm still not sure is the right fit yet for me) made a point last week. She said that when my husband started drinking that I felt unsafe as I did when I was a child so it brought back all these memories of things my dad did and said. She said that for the 15 years that husband didn't drink I at least felt safe since he wasn't a drinker and that I wouldn't be subject to alcoholic rants and abuse. But, in reality, I was. My husband has anger issues and PTSD issues from his childhood from abuse. He has gotten a much better handle on it as he's gotten older but in his 20s he was a bear and I figure he probably suffers from depression(even though he hasn't been clinically diagnosed). She had a point, though, about the safety issue. With my dad, I avoided him like the plague, but not just when he was drinking. It's his personality, drunk or sober that is plain old oppressive to me. I know my dad has a good side: he raised money for my 4th grade teacher when her apartment burned down. He was a volunteer firefighter. He expresses concern for people who are suffering. And, I know he praises me to his friends and buddies because they all tell me that my dad speaks so highly of me. But, to my face, he walks all over me and I allow it. I become that timid, 10 year old girl who isn't allowed to express herself at all. To this day, if I start telling my dad about any problems I'm having he sounds disinterested on the phone and then says, "Oh, sorry. That sucks. Gotta go." The minute I start sharing anything about my life, he wants to get off the phone.

So, what I'm trying to do is give my husband a clean slate, so to speak, instead of grouping him with my dad in the same judgement category in my mind. Now, let me also say that my husband has told me that he will not be drinking anymore since he knows now it's a problem for me. He says (and I do believe him) that our marriage is more important than having a beer or a drink. If he chooses to drink while out with work associates, that's his choice, but the alcohol will no longer be here in our house because of how it affects me.

So, what I'm trying to accomplish in my mind these days is that I want to give people the freedom to make their own choices without me judging them. Quite frankly, there are all kinds of ways that you could judge me and I know I wouldn't like that so I want to be fair to others, does that make sense? I also want to understand why my dad and his wife were able to quit drinking without any consequence? I guess I figured that alcohol had such a hold on them that they surely would have gone through some kind of withdrawl, but they didn't.

-- Edited by ilovedogs on Saturday 5th of March 2011 09:54:20 AM

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi I Love

.

I found I judged EVERYONE over everything One of my many defects. . It made me feel superior and gave me conversations to talk about that kept the attention off me and onto others That was safe for me.

Al anon taught me that I needed to Focus on Myself- and stop gossiping and judging I did that in meetings with the replacement of the ideas I replaced judging and gossiping with the slogan " Let go to let God" Let go of judging and Let God judge.. I was then left with ACCEPTANCE

I found I could see peoples actions and say ok it is what they do and believe I have different opinions and that is OK we can still connect on another level That worked perfectly in meetings and when I took it out to my business and private life it worked even better

Acceptance does not mean I agree with the action I simply detach and take care of me and remember to validate my opinion as it refers to my beliefs for me.

Your other concern regarding stopping without pain Alcoholics are masters of denial and pretend If they are suffering from pain or discomfort they never or rarely own it. They pretend all s well and they are fine. You cannot tell how hard or painful it was for your family to stop using You do not know if they really are stopped and you do not know if they are on meds to help them stop A huge part of this disease is the pretending and dishonesty of all participants in the game.

I learned to focus on myself and that was enough

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

I related what you shared to my ex ah years ago. He said unless they are with the A every moment, they do not know if or what they are drinking or using. Do you follow them into the bathroom?

Plus we do not know what is going on inside their bodies. There is no question they would have to detox in some way. Plus remember they are surely brain damaged.

When we were teens we all drank. (well I didn't as it made me sick....I was no fun at parties, BUT I saw how they acted and did not like it)And as the years went on people got married, had kids. Some just stopped using. Not into partying anymore. Some, the A's didn't stop. they lost their marriages, kids, homes, jobs etc.

To me doing anything to excess is not good for us.

good question. love,debilyn

david62 · ~*Service Worker*~

What a great question, and awesome replies!

I particularly like what Hotrod said about covering up the truth. And boy doesn't that work both ways? I remember when my A ex-wife and I separated people were shocked! Why? Because we both hid the reality of our lives from the world, and I hid it from myself.

For me I don't call anyone an alcoholic unless they themselves have decided to refer to themselves in that way. Why? Because I just don't know. I know an individual who, in my opinion, abuses alcohol. He can drink over a case of beer in a weekend. He has confided in me that he has gotten drunk at parties and woken up the next morning at home, with no recollection of ever leaving the party or how he got home...and his car is parked outside. Sound like a blackout? Am I tempted to recommend AA to him and call him an A? I admit it, yep. We have the expression, "If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck!" But he doesn't see himself as an alcoholic. And he can go days/weeks without drinking. He plans to get drunk and he does it! And so far, he hasn't really suffered any sever consequences of his drinking.

My self proclaimed alcoholic ex-wife never drank the amount of alcohol at one time that he does. Yet she knew she had a problem. She didn't plan to get drunk, but if she drank she did and when she was drunk she did things that she regretted and would never have done sober.

So I leave the definition up to the other person and work on asking my HP to help to not have the need to define what anyone else is. Live and Let Live. I am learning that putting a label on someone else is irrelevant to me and my happiness. And I have been given this lesson over and over again the last seven years since I started coming to Al-Anon. Are they an Alcohol Abuser? Are they an Alcoholic? Are they a Social Drinker? A Drug Addict? A Sexaholic? Gambling Addict? A Good Christian? and on and on an on.

The thing for me is, like Overcome said, does the drinking bother me? If it does, and boy did it ever, I needed Al-Anon. After a while of going to meetings I learned something even more amazing! It wasn't just the drinking that bothered me. It was just about every aspect of what those other people were doing that I judged to be wrong, bad, inefficient, embarrassing, etc. etc. that bothered me. Booze just got to be the scapegoat and catch all for me. If the booze were gone, well then that other person would shape up completely and life would become the fairy tale I believed it should be.

It doesn't effect me in the same way it used to to be around people who are drinking, but I also do like you and your husband did. If I am at a party or somewhere where there is a lot of drinking, I will usually leave when the room starts resembling a drunk tank. I just don't want to be around it, and I don't have to and I don't feel guilty about putting me first.

My Higher Power wants me to be happy, and to be of service to mankind. If I am judging others, it no longer makes me happy and it will surely influence my ability to be of service.

Thanks for the posts.

Yours in Recovery,
David

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

I wonder if when you say you've been judging your friends who drink, you mean you've been seeing their drinking from a new perspective. And worrying about their drinking.

I grew up in a home without alcoholism (although we had plenty of other problems!) So I had no experience of alcoholism at all -- my parents hardly ever drank any alcohol. When I'd finally gone through the experience with my ex AH and found Al-Anon and learned a lot, I realized that I had known a lot of alcoholics in the past and I never picked up on it. I believe one of my ex-boyfriends was actually an alcoholic, but I just never understood the signs. Fortunately we weren't together that long so it didn't affect me that much, that time. But I also realized that some friends have issues with alcohol -- and I think I pegged it right there, as the friends have gone on to have worse alcohol problems.

So what I'm saying is that maybe now you, like me, are using your new awareness to re-evaluate behavior you wouldn't have thought twice about before. And if you've been hurt by alcoholism, it makes sense that you would have a bad reaction to it again. It takes a lot of practice before we can detach from alcoholic behavior without having a strong emotional response.

I can also understand your confusion about your dad and his wife. Your description sure makes them sound like hard-core alcoholics. I don't mean to sound awful, but these are early days still -- if they're still dry in two years, that will be something to celebrate. But maybe their health problems made them hit their bottom and they're white-knuckling it through sobriety. Maybe they'll hang on to sobriety for the forseeable future. They may still have dry-drunk behavior, but any degree of sobriety is a good start. I wouldn't take this as evidence that they never had alcohol problems, though. It's clear from your description that they did. I don't think you need to rethink any of that. Their example shows that when the stakes are high enough, some people get scared enough to make the right decision. I devoutly hope they can stick to it. And you sound as if you've made a very wise decision not to risk drinking yourself.

Understanding all this is a challenge. Whatever the exact definitions, alcohol causes people to act insane, and we get sucked into it, however it happens. Keep taking care of yourself and your own serenity. Hugs.

Jennifer · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello ilovedogs,

I certainly understand your desire to understand what makes alcoholism. And why people can appear alcoholic but not be. I believe there are those who suffer from alcoholism, some people who abuse alcohol, and others have habits. Not an addiction habit exactly but a habit .... like Friday's are for mingling with friends and drinking. The thought never occurs that there are other things to go do. My dad had a habit of drinking when we went out to dinner and to have a social life, I imagine he made an $ss of himself at some point in time. Health and lifestyle changes have given him the reason to choose not to drink at all now and it has been such a beautiful thing to watch. Once he chose to change that habit he found all kinds of activities and small things in life that make him happy on Fridays instead of that same old habit. It is really cool to know he would much rather sit and watch the wildlife around his house then go out out Friday anymore. His sharing with me of how choosing not to drink out of habit has opened a whole new world to him has inspired me to look at habits of my own. Just small things even like a tendency to turn the TV on when I get home, but that is a whole different discussion

More important is the other thought I had reading your post. When I start to question mysel about how to categorize other people is usually when I am avoiding dealing with something inside myself. When it comes to the bottom line as long as I know who and what, good and bad, is inside me it does not matter what anyone is or isn't or suffers from because I am too busy trying to be the best person I can be.

Thanks for letting me share!
Jen

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