There is no dignity in alcoholism

So those of us who are alcoholics chose to be an alcoholic?
You don't get a warning that you will become an alcoholic. You don't feel it and there is no warning klaxon. Believe me if I'd known I would never have taken that first drink.
The only choice I had in the end was to seek help which I did. I had no choice over being an alcoholic. I really wish people would educate themselves before spouting off on a subject they know nothing about

You’re an idiot.

@RosesAreNice
How so??
An addiction is an addiction regardless of the substance???

Being an alcoholic is personal. There is no 1.2.3, to being addicted.

There doesnt have to be some major life assault that starts it.

Its a dirty addiction

Women get drunk and piss everywhere too

This has to be the most stupid post I have ever read. It is so obtuse, that I can’t be bothered to get into it with you 🙄

@Jade520so you think people are out there just persevering with the drink until they become an alcoholic? I don't think you understand addiction at all, actually. Try reading Alcohol Explained.

@eyeeyeeyeeyeeye
Same principle,

However reading it back it does seem quite a graphic explanation 🤣

Edna, the inebriate woman. One of the best 'Play for today'.

The story deals with a 60-year-old woman, Edna O'Casey (Patricia Hayes), who wanders through life in an alcoholic haze without a home, a job or any money. She starts at a hostel where she is checked for fleas and her clothes are bagged and sterilised. A doctor and psychiatrist interview a series of elderly homeless men, assessing whether they can stay at the hostel. Edna goes on the road again, drinking from rivers and gleaning potatoes from fields. She wanders town and country seeking a bed for each night; in a queue, she meets another homeless woman and they travel together.
Social Services are of little help and refuse her money. For her "breakfast ticket" she gets three soups. Edna joins a large homeless group living under a bridge, where she has a long conversation with an Irish man who also feeds her. They mock the young drug user who has joined the group.
Later she walks in the country with a female tramp. A man asking directions to Torrington is obliged to give them a lift. The younger one offers him a good time for "half a quid".
A further female who denies being a "les" shows old photos of her husband and good times. She used to be beautiful. The hostel manager says "Micks only" (Irish only) but Edna hides under a bed until discovered and thrown out. Back at Social Security she gets upset at being labelled and shouts over and over "I am not the vagrant". She ends in court for disturbance of the peace and from there is placed in a psychiatric ward under the name of Edna Rodgers. There, a patient (June Brown) asks her for any spare pills. Edna does not like the fish they serve and exclaims "This is slop!" They medicate her to control her behaviour and give her electroconvulsive therapy. Examined thereafter they ask if she knows the date: she asks if it is the 32nd. She tries to gas herself to stay another week then changes her mind and goes back on the road.
She rakes through the bins for food scraps. She washes her clothes in public lavatories. She gets clothes and boots from a charity. She has a new obsession that all phone calls are for her. She get thrown out of her hostel for wetting the bed. Back at Social Security she tries to claim as Edna MacLean. She is sent somewhere where a proof of name and address is given. With head down she claims to be Robert Tewt. She ends back in court on breach of the peace charges again. They bring up her record for drunk and disorderly and larceny. She goes to prison but is quite content.
She is interviewed by "Jesus Saves" for a place in their hostel. The interviewer, Josie Quinn (Barbara Jefford), grants her a place. But 'Jesus Saves', is closed down after an inquiry, following the complaints of neighbours. Edna and the other women are on the road again. She ends at the "Jesus Saves" hostel. Although disturbing the other residents in the dormitory conditions she settles to this new way of life. The young woman, Trudi, in the neighbouring bed has issues of her own. Edna comes home drunk and is surprised not only to be let in, but to have a civilised discussion with Josie. Edna cleans up a bit.
Back in court the neighbours of the hostel have raised a complaint: the hostel does not have planning permission and causes a nuisance to neighbours. Josie has to defend her actions. On cue, when the court discusses vagrancy, Edna loudly cries out "I am not the vagrant". She is brought under new care under nuns. She remembers her mum and dad and how they did not love her. Her alcoholic father beat her mother. When her mother went to prison for child abandonment Edna and her siblings were placed in care.
Back at "Jesus Saves" Edna expects rejection. Josie gets the written decision that her hostel is closed and has one month to cease operations. Edna cries for her mummy in the toilet. She starts to self-harm. The hostel closes and Edna is back on the street. In the final scene on a city street at night she is with Teresa discussing the love of her life. Teresa presumes they are going to the same lodgings, but Edna wanders into the night saying she prefers to flitter from place to place.

You’re wrong. The effect of those early drinks on someone with a physiological predisposition to become addicted to it, is very different to someone who isn’t. The flooding of dopamine and other neuro-chemicals in their brains is of a different magnitude to other people. The road to addiction is embarked on from the beginning. For the person who becomes an alcoholic, there is more to those early drinking days than getting pissed.

I also speak as someone who drunk a lot and got drunk a lot in my youth, but then could take it or leave it. My husband is an alcoholic. He has been sober for 6-years. He most definitely can’t take it or leave it!

Your imagination is wrong. And like the OP selfish and ignorant.

It is an illness, doesn't matter that it self inflected, once it takes hold, the addiction becomes a FUCKING DISGUSTING ILLNESS.

I had it. My family had it. We still have it.

Can assume you have never suffered from it.

From a fellow former alcoholic this is not the same thing.

Bit much

It is obviously awful behaviour and horrible for those around him. But when I see someone who seems to be a chronic alcoholic, I feel a sense of empathy that they are likely going through immense physical and emotional suffering on a daily basis. Yes it appears selfish from the outside perspective but there is a lot of real pain there too. I know I wouldn't want to be the smelly pissed man on the tube embarrassing himself and falling in a dangerous place. I would imagine he hasn't actively chosen that either.

Calling it an illness is just unhelpful. It absolves the addict of responsibility to start or stop. Genetics may well load the gun, but lifestyle and choices pull the trigger. Every time.

Addiction is by definition inherently selfish. The desire to pursue the addiction is followed before all other things, including children and other people in orbit of an addict. An alcoholic will prioritise their next drink above anyone else's needs or wants. And all the help in the world will be piss in the wind unless the addict actively chooses to stop.

I can only imagine that you ourself are "obv lucky enough" not to have an addict in your immediate entourage.

Ah ok, I understand after reading some other posters opinions now,
Therefore as such, I will be eating a fuck load of chocolate tonight and then proceed to go round to the neighbours and knife her repeatedly, so will then come him and go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there will be no repercussions as it wasn't my fault, it was the addiction to chocolate which caused me to get such a rush from all the sugar I became temporarily without capacity and intent therefore no case to answer to
happy days, 👏👏👍👍

It’s true that not all alcoholics have horrific life stories, but they are all addicted. Alcoholism is a progressive disease and it eventually takes those within its grip to a place where that is all there is. Nothing else matters. That is a terrible place to be.

How many people drink? How many people start drinking thinking "I'm going to have a drink so that when I'm an old man I can wee freely on the tube and expose my self to everyone in the process then fall out the door onto the platform - that's my plan!'.

Some people have a physiological predisposition to become addicted to alcohol, some don’t. Everyone who starts drinking alcohol starts the same way, some are sucked into addiction. It’s not as simple as choice.

How dare you.
It is an illness, much like dementia and vascular dementia is sometimes "self inflicted" according to your terminology.
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/risk-factors-vascular-dementia

But no, he shouldn't be exposing himself, this should be dealt with appropriately

I don't tend to comment on such threads however it is getting beyond a joke now, it seem the general consensus on MN that people are allowed to do whatever they like and an excuse is ALWAYS forthcoming,
As above, a bloke gets his cock out in public in front of children therefore probably causing them psychological trauma, but according to MN that's ok because' it's not his fault, it's the addiction that's caused it, fuck off, have we now become a nation that is law less because everyone had a piss poor excuse for any stupid action,
Mass killing of innocent children?? MN = aww it wasn't his fault, he had MH issues/ addiction problems,
Stabbed his/ her wife repeatedly after Subjecting them to DV for 20yrs,
MN - ahh it wasn't anybody's fault, it was the drink/ drugs/ mental health problems/ child hood trauma/ he/ she might have a bad home life

Young child experiences SA by parent throughout childhood, is there empathy and sympathy for the child?? Is there bollocks, as MN will confirm that it wasn't parents fault, ' they had MH/ addiction issues'

🤣

MN seems to be do what you like regardless of the damage you inflict because you never have to take responsibility for your actions as there is a vast array of excuse which can justify it.

None of us are perfect, I am guessing that 99% of people have a sob story to tell, me included, however this does not give anyone the excuse to behave like a twat,
Have I behaved like a twat in my life and made poor choices , absolutely, but that was my own doing and I learnt my lesson, took ownership of said twatty behaviour and gave my head a shake, that's what grown ups do,
Nobody is ever made accountable any more due to fucking do gooders making excuses for them.
& before anyone jumps on the ' you don't understand train' I can confirm I am an Ex addict/ alcoholic so I have first hand experience, and do you no what it wasn't due to anything else apart my shitty behaviour and poor choices,

It's about time individuals are held to account for their shitty behaviour and are made to pay the price, not be enabled to continue said shitty behaviour by dickheads who do the ' there there, it's not your fault you took out your knob in public'
Being drunk does not stop you from knowing the difference between right & wrong'

I await the onslaught from other posters, of what a horrible person I am for speaking the truth, on your marks Mumsnet and off you go..........

At some point drinking alcohol was a choice and he kept drinking until it became an addiction. Nobody becomes an addict with one drink or ten drinks. People believe that homeless people end up turning to drugs or alcohol from having to live on the streets when actually research found 'Two-thirds of homeless people cite drugs or alcohol as a reason for first becoming homeless' according to Street connect and I think I've also read the same on Crisis. The issue was already there before they became homeless.

I don't know why people are saying 'There but for the grace of god go I' when it's really easy not to become an alcoholic - and i say that as someone who drank plenty in my youth and didn't become one (or piss in front of people) and now don't really drink at all. It's not difficult not to become an alcoholic and no one should have to see some random blokes cock pissing everywhere. Grim.

🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢