Worried about becoming an alcoholic!

[jimbob2002]

I am starting to get a bit worried about becoming an alcoholic.
I dont drink during the day or anything, just when I go out I drink a lot.

Last night for instance I went out to watch the footy and had a few frames of pool beforehand so I went out at 6.30, played some pool, then went to a bar to watch the footy, then went to another bar after.

Sounds like an innocent night out, but I didnt get in until 12.30 and had drank:

7 pints of guiness
2 bottles of starapramen
1 bottle of corona
1 shot of jaegermeister

and I didnt feel wrecked at all, a bit drunk of course, but not wrecked.

Last saturday I went to the pub at 5pm to watcht the footy, decided to stay out, so arranged to meet some other friends later, ended up staying in the same pub all night, and stopped for afters and didnt leave til 5am, so basically did a 12hour stint.
I payed my tab the next day and it had:

8 pints of guiness
2 bottles of michelob
6 Gin Tonics
2 shots of jaegermeisters
3 bottles of corona
1 JD and coke

and that didnt include the free stuff for afters:

1 pint still
1 pint guiness
1 shot of jaegermeister
1 JD and coke

I am getting worried. Do you think I should be or is this okay?

[4me2]

if you can remember enough to list everything you drank then you must have had a bloody boring time and you certainly wasted your money.

Tip.

Half pissed is a waste of money.

[jimbob2002]

if you can remember enough to list everything you drank then you must have had a bloody boring time and you certainly wasted your money.

Tip.

Half pissed is a waste of money.

Well it took me a bit to count exactly what I had last night.
But saturdays list came on a handy print out as it was a tab and the bar lass put it through as a bill so I could pay on my card.

As for half pissed being a waste of money, thats my point about last night, I am saying I drank all that but wasnt very pissed. I am confused as to why! :nowords:

But not too bad on the money front as I get a discount at thet bar I was drinking in on saturday + the freebies! :thumbs
And the 3 guiness and jaiger and corona I had in there last night cost me £2.50 as I am mates with one of the bartenders who was on last night. :tongue

[4me2]

Getting pissed all depends on your frame of mind . There will always be occasions when you drink like a fish but cant get pissed . Not trying to play dear Deirdree but you obviously have other things on your mind that are stopping you enjoying yourself fully when you go out.


Worried cos you havent lost your cherry yet ? :tongue

[beansontoast]

As someone who knows a true alcoholic (& used to work with him) I can say that you've got nothing to worry about/prove.

I binge drink - big time. My mate who'd gone through a divorce drinks constantly, keeps secret stash's everywhere, drinks while at work, recognises he can't stop drinking & so just continues to do so. There is a massive difference between drinking heavily & being an alcoholic.

Just enjoy getting hammered now, I'd say the best indicator is - if you went out to enjoy yourself & did so, then why not keep doing it. If you're drinking for the sake of it - then take a look at yourself & have a think.

[jimbob2002]

Getting pissed all depends on your frame of mind . There will always be occasions when you drink like a fish but cant get pissed . Not trying to play dear Deirdree but you obviously have other things on your mind that are stopping you enjoying yourself fully when you go out.


Worried cos you havent lost your cherry yet ? :tongue

Fraid not, I'm 27 and live with my bird of 7 years.
Wish I was on the hunt for skirt! But I'm not allowed!

Maybe its the drugs?

Maybe its cos I go out drinking 3-4 times a week.

Believe me I have a good time, I love going out, so I dont know what you're on about!

[jimbob2002]

As someone who knows a true alcoholic (& used to work with him) I can say that you've got nothing to worry about/prove.

I binge drink - big time. My mate who'd gone through a divorce drinks constantly, keeps secret stash's everywhere, drinks while at work, recognises he can't stop drinking & so just continues to do so. There is a massive difference between drinking heavily & being an alcoholic.

Just enjoy getting hammered now, I'd say the best indicator is - if you went out to enjoy yourself & did so, then why not keep doing it. If you're drinking for the sake of it - then take a look at yourself & have a think.

Thanks for the advice mate :thumbs
I didnt say I thinkI am an alcoholic, I said I am worried about becoming one, one the road to being one so to speak.

I just wonder what the line is that you dont want to cross thats between being a "guy who likes a drink" and an "alcoholic"?

[Spike2k1]

"He looks like a drunk"..."No I dont think he does. Maybe he's got that disease!"... "what alcoholism?" ... "Yeah thats it"

As long as your happy and you can support it its fine mate!!

[beansontoast]

I just wonder what the line is that you dont want to cross thats between being a "guy who likes a drink" and an "alcoholic"?

There are two lines m8. The 1st is the doorway of bargain booze. The 2nd is right in front of the 3 litre white "cider" shelf

[Termy]

Whats your problem m8,,, do you have 10 bottles of whiskey hidden under your bed ?? in the kitchen cupboard ??

The difference between an alcoholic and someone who just likes a drink is that one can't see that he has a problem and the other can see when he's had enough.

Going off what you say you don't seem to have a problem. :coffee: :coffee:

[ABCMan]

the fact that you like to drink heavily, whilst not good for your health is not something to concern yourself about, you are simply building up a tollerance to alcahol so it takes much more to get you pissed up.

as someone who has had dealings with alcoholics the first thing is they deny it (you dont), they care more about their drink than work or family, they are underhand and try to hide the fact they are drinking.

you dont seem to be doing any of those, of course if you wake up in a pool of piss and vomit at 3 in the afternoon down an ally witha bottle of meths in a brown paper bag then i'd be worried

[CzarJunkie]

You could be what they call a binge alcoholic, I'm one of these and I guess lots of people are. A binge alcoholic can go without beer for days maybe weeks, right now I haven't had a drink in 4 weeks, but when they do drink they can't just have 1 or 2, its got to be enuff to get pissed, not rolling pissed, but enuff to get that buzz. Of course it's rolling drunk sometimes but always drunk. I can't go for a social pint at dinnertime or owt like that, if I do I just drink coke or water. It doesn't really worry me, my philosophy has always been that drink contains alcohol for 1 reason and 1 resaon only, to get you pissed and if you are only having 1 or 2 pints whats the fukin point, I'd rather have coke.

I really don't see it as that big a problem, if I know I'm out on the piss then I drink, if not I don't.

[Tought You]

Weekend drinking 'puts a million in casualty every year'
The costs of alcoholic excess, quitting by computer - and Middle England's big scam


By Steve Connor Science Editor
12 September 2003


Excessive drinking at weekends puts a million people in hospital casualty units every year, according to a study that reveals the huge scale of the alcohol problem in Britain.

A survey of 32 accident and emergency departments found that four out of 10 people seen on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings had been involved in an alcohol-related incident, often a violent assault or drink driving.

Colin Drummond, a specialist in addiction psychiatry at St George's Hospital Medical School in London, said that alcohol addiction was a growing problem among young people, especially women. He told the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Salford University that the Government needed a national strategy to fight a threat far more serious than drugs such as coca1ne or heroin.

Professor Drummond said the promotion of alcohol was getting out of control, with growing numbers of young men and women being drawn into a culture of serious drinking.

"The alcohol problem in the UK is much bigger than the drug problem. In the UK about a third of men and a fifth of women drink above the Government's safe guidelines for alcohol consumption. By comparison, about one in 200 people has a serious drug problem."

He said he was concernedby a 25 per cent increase in alcohol-related deaths in the past 10 years. This was compounded by a 32 per cent increase in alcohol misuse by young males aged between 18 and 24 in the past 12 years.

"All the indicators are upwards," Professor Drummond said. "If you look at women of the same age, there's actually been a 70 per cent increase in alcohol misuse over that period. There are huge marketing effects taking place. There's a lot of money spent on making drinking attractive to women and this is part of the reason."

Some more explicit forms of alcohol advertising should be restricted, he went on. "I think advertising that uses sexual imagery is a problem."

Health campaigns were competing with multinational companies that he said spent billions on advertising. This means that the health message often got lost. Professor Drummond also accused the alcohol industry of flouting voluntary advertising codes.

A national strategy was needed to consider a ban on certain forms of alcohol advertising, he said. The Government should also think about raising the drinking age, putting warning labels on bottles or increasing prices to discourage binge drinking. "There has been a lack of funding and political will to support efforts to deal with alcohol problems and we're hopeful that the Government will develop a national alcohol strategy [for] ... a sensible and appropriately funded approach," he said.

A GP who spent between 10 and 30 minutes advising a patient on an alcohol problem could reduce excessive drinking by 20 per cent over a 12- month period. That was the sort of intervention than could combat the rise in drinking, Professor Drummond said.

"If alcohol is cheap and easily available it is very often the drug that people choose first to cope with their problems and before very long they develop an addiction ... so it becomes very hard to cope with any problem without alcohol," he said. "Alcohol is a drug like heroin or cannabis, and it produces addiction in a small proportion of people. The wealthier we are as a nation, the more we can afford to drink, and in the absence of any intervention to increase the cost of alcohol, you're going to get this upward trend."


11 September 2003 20:20

source

[beansontoast]

Oh do fook off professor Drummond. That is utter shite & the last sentence of that excerpt is the biggest, most bigotted pile of w@nk I've ever read. If the wealthier we are the more we can afford to drink - explain Poland/Russia etc.

It is unlikely for my view to be read by someone who does this sort of 'research' but here goes:

I'm a heavy drinker of a weekend. That isn't because I'm an alcoholic. It also isn't my only 'drug' (& I hate to see booze called a drug, let's just call them all intoxicants).

Though I'd say booze is the most sociable intoxicant of them all. I'm more addicted to going out & totally enjoying myself. Try doing that when you're the only sober bloke out of half a dozen. I've never committed a violent act whilst hammered (that didn't involve defending myself/mates). To eradicate binge drinking in it's current form this nation needs to abolish the licensing hours. Increase prices to cut drinking..? That is the easy answer blurted out by the chancellor every year (i.e. smoking/travel) & I don't care how much a pint costs, the social benefit of boozing with mates & strangers & fanny is priceless.