how do you know if you have a problem with alcohol?

sorry if these seem like stupid questions, but i'm very confused right now and i need help.

1) how does one stay away from alcohol when playing music in pubs is a crucial source of happiness?

i dont know. in this country the pub culture is very strong, everything in the evening revolves around alcohol...there are not many people who go to pubs and dont drink, and the ones that dont tend to be people who dont like alcohol anyway. perhaps the answer is not 'no drinking' but allowable limits?

2) if i stop drinking, will my social skills get worse or better?

i dont know

3) if i have an alcohol problem, how do i deal with friends who have drug addictions, without letting their problems affect me?

difficult to say without more info

i have tried to stop before. it seems like about every six months, i make an endeavour to quit. the longest i lasted was three weeks.

I read a book which I thought had some interesting, potentially useful things to say about alcoholism and addiction. It was titled The Science of Self Control. It is not a self-help book, and parts of it were too technical for me, but it might at least give you a useful take on these issues you're dealing with. It specifically deals with the difficulties created by alcohol's close tie to social rewards.

Another interesting book, The Guru Papers, has some discussion of addiction that is at least, well, interesting; but it's somewhat more eccentric and definitely less academic than the other title.

Probably you should be talking with others who have dealt with the same problem.

"OPEN MEETINGS: As the term suggests, meetings of this type are open to alcoholics and their families and to anyone interested in solving a personal drinking problem or helping someone else to solve such a problem.

Most open meetings follow a more or less set pattern, although distinctive variations have developed in some areas. A chairperson describes the A.A. program briefly for the benefit of newcomers in the audience and introduces one, two or three speakers who relate their personal drinking histories and may give their personal interpretation of A.A.

Midway through the meeting there is usually a period for local A.A. announcements, and a treasurer passes the hat to defraycosts of the meeting hall, literature, and incidental expenses. The meeting adjourns, often followed by informal visiting over coffee or other light refreshments."

Good luck...I wish you well...

It has worked brilliantly for me: I've been sober for over ten years. It's a much kinder organisation than I anticipated, and not at all sanctimonious. I expected halls full of grim old men but there are lots of women, and a wide age range of people, and many of them are very funny. The Higher Power stuff can be intimidating at first but you don't have to become a lunatic Christian to stay sober; I certainly haven't. Sobriety has improved my life dramatically.

A word of advice: if you do go to AA, don't tell people about it unless you have to. They nearly always have fucked reactions: patronising, disrespectful, suspicious, rude. Also, after a while you won't look like an alcoholic (if you do now) so they will think you're being dramatic about nothing. Also, they will bore you with laundry lists of how little they drink, and regale you with their tips on controlled drinking, which is a hopeless dream for the bona fide alcoholic. I'm only discussing it here because no-one knows me.

Good luck.

As far as AA goes, several years ago I dated someone who had quite a few years "in the program", and attended a few meetings with him just to keep him company. I've also seeked out an NA meeting on my own. It's going to be difficult to explain my feelings about this without sounding dreadful, but I will press forward anyway. If I am faced with the choice of drinking too much at home, playing some nonsense lp way too loud, and making maudlin phone calls at midnight, or perhaps once again propping up some crummy bar and downing far too much while hoping to god that I dont recall some topic that will shatter my pleasant social facade... and going to an unatractive church basement to attend a meeting full of people that, oh god I don't know, I mean where I'm going with this is that I'd *never* choose to go to a bunch of meetings every week instead of drinking because they're so damn blah. I know they can save your life if you're open to it. But I know (or I dearly hope) that I'll never hit a bottom so low that AA seems like an appealing choice. IF AA is a sound option for you this is in no way an attempt to talk you out of it. And must i point out that of course I'm rambling.

I believe that for myself alchohol and drugs yes, are a demon, but they are only a symptom of a larger problem, the need to escape from what I feel, for whatever reason, is the less than satisfactory quality of my life. If i were happy I am confident that i would have no problems with addiction. This isn't to suggest that a potential harmful set of behaviors should be allowed to exist unchecked, but to state that working on those symptoms without addressing the root cause doesn't make sense to me. Naturally, I have no ideas for addressing that cause.

Maybe part of it comes down to your tolerance for pain. I mean just how bad did it get for all the people in AA? Sure some of them probably ended up on the street jobless, but the vast majority im guessing just got to a point where they just couldn't take the way things were anymore. No matter how bad things have gotten for me (don't hold your breath for the details), I guess it's just not *bad enough* for me.

Good luck.

if you're an alcoholic then willpower won't work, period. it will work for a time and you'll get really, really miserable. if you can hold old long enough, you could eventually find yourself drinking just to stay sane.

self-knowledge (knowing what's going to happen once you start)isn't any help either, as you've experienced.

aa works, and many people have experiences very different from the ones above. many people find that every aspect of their lives gets much better, quickly. there's compassion there that you would not believe.

write me if you like, even if you've written before.

gareth is right--the only people who wonder whether or not they're alcoholics are alcoholics.

I disagree. Strongly. But this isn't the place for that.

I'm sorry that people have had bad experiences with AA. I have obviously been lucky. While I have met assholes there, as I might anywhere else I go, at least none of them have assaulted me, sexually abused me or ripped me off, which is more than can be said for quite a few of my drinking buddies.

Also, my drinking was very bad and I doubt I would be alive by now if I hadn't stopped. Sitting in a dingy hall on a hard folding chair drinking coffee from a chipped mug is a small price to pay for a happy life.

(I'm really embarrassed by this thread, even though I'm totally anonymous here. I guess I'm cringing because I'm no fool but some people probably think I am, trotting along to a religious, controlling cult because I can't handle my problems. I keep wanting to defend myself, to tell you how accomplished and attractive I am, but I don't wish to be defensive about this, or anything else.)

You might also want to take a look at this link, which I think fairly summarizes the key points of debate in addictions treatment: AA and the disease model of addictions, the Rand Report, the Sobells study, Kishline, controlled drinking vs. abstinence, etc.:

http://www.doctordeluca.com/Library/AbstinenceHR/FourDecadesAcrimony.htm

*reads said post* If you've heard that, then they're not kidding. *encouraging thoughts* Whether it's a meeting or just talking to a counsellor one on one or whatever, do what needs doing with what you think is available. Deadness, no -- more an alternate channeling of energy.

"Over time, and with work, the desire to stay clean and sober that lies within us can grow into the actual power to do it. We see "Higher Powers" and the rest of the theological material as redundant at best to the recovery process. "

*alcohol, smartasses

I find it offensive and condescending but I am healthy. It can be different for an atheist/agnostic who is physically and emotionally sick, that aa endoctrination thing can break down their rational mind. It's like uncritically pushing religion on children and dying people, it's abuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous have ok critical links and alternatives. just saying, because I don't think it was ever said on that board.

We looked askance at many individuals who claimed to be godly. How could a Supreme Being have anything to do with it all? And who could comprehend a Supreme Being anyhow? Yet, in other moments, we found ourselves thinking, when enchanted by a starlit night, 'Who, then, made all this?'

Oh, is that what we did. Is it really.

Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will prejudiced for as long as some of us were.

Ooh... the fear motivation. "Destruction." They also talk about the only alternative as being "institutionalization." It's either God or a straightjacket, apparently.

When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the Spirit of the Universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God.

Is doubting the existence of God really my problem?

Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God.

Sigh.

Listen, not to offend, but I know a little something about the rhetorical tools by religious cults to manipulate people, and this has all the earmarks. It preys on the weak, it offers dichotomies where none exist and persents itself as the *only* solution... this is fundie Xtianity 101, really. It makes me bristle like you would not believe.

http://www.smartrecovery.org/intro/index.htm

Our Approach

* Teaches self-empowerment and self-reliance.
* Works on addictions/compulsions as complex maladaptive behaviors with possible physiological factors.
* Teaches tools and techniques for self-directed change.
* Encourages individuals to recover and live satisfying lives.
* Meetings are educational and include open discussions.
* Advocates the appropriate use of prescribed medications and psychological treatments.
* Evolves as scientific knowledge evolves.

You had me at "self-empowerment."

I have learned (not from my terrible doctor who never told me) that some medication I am taking not only really exacerbates the effect of alcohol on your liver, but it also makes the medicine basically not work.

I love my liver. I need it to LIVE!

Looks like I get a few sips from a decanter of Chivas at Christmas and my birthday then.

Alcohol's KEE-RAZY!

it is amazing what doctors/nurses/pharmacists won't tell you. my sis-in-law once told me about a prescription med she was taking while on the contraceptive pill - which made the pill ineffective. she was picking up both from the pharmacy at the same time on a regular basis for a very long time before she found out.

Haha I had the same thing with this exact prescription as well, not finding out for a year and a half I had way better chance of getting lol preggos. (They put me on Pill Grande for the Larger Lovin' Lady, altho I am not so much the 'larger')

wtf? there is a special pill for big gals??

Something!

The patch doesn't work if you weigh over 190 lbs....

(86 kg)

i have a pretty much blanket distrust of the medical profession after a few too many (relatively minor) bad experiences. like the doctor who mixed up my xrays and told my mum i was an attention seeking brat.

the patch?

NB I do not weigh that much. 'Not that there's anything wrong with that'

Birth control patch.

My name is Otto, and I looove to get blotto!

birth control patch??? i have not heard of this thing! 80kg is not that big anyway, esp if you are tall and have largish boobs.

My medication is Just Fucking Speed, for serious, like a notch below trucker-grade, so alcohol does not so much have an effect on it as the other way around. I don't really get drunk, which makes the whole drinking thing a little less satisfying.

But here's something my doctor didn't tell me: vitamin C makes my medication not work. Strange but true. I have to be careful about fruit juice intake and such first thing in the morning, which it when one would normally have fruit juice. I can have a hamburger, sure, but not a glass of orange juice. And I don't want a hamburger!

I do.

(Because I'm wasted)

You were a surfer.
You had a skateborad.
You were so something yeah you lived on a strannnnnnd.
You were so wasted.
You were wasted.

Wasted on life.

You were so knocked out you were out of our head.
You were so wasted.
You were wasted...
ON LIFE! :D

I drink *and* take paracetamol based medication. I'm so going to die young :(

Abbott the not drinking thing isn't so bad. I've only drank once since December and it's been a pretty interesting and eye opening experience being the sober one. Plus, not having hangovers is one of the best things ever.

Can anyone recommend a good web resource on the effects of high daily alcohol intake - basically functional alcoholism? I need to understand better what effect this is having on someone I know, even though it's not affecting job/social life.

sorry to not be a bigger help but this thread was revived with some anecdotal experience:

to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol?

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that.