Why don't people just stop drinking?

[PassingStranger]

Just read two crimes that were caused by alcohol.
One a speeding drunk driver, took a car and smashed Into another car on the road killing people.

Did they really think they were going to be able to negotiate the roads properly while drunk and speeding?

Another one a vile bully of a man attacked and killed his wife while he'd been drinking and she died.😱
Now two children have been left without their mum and dads in prison.
I'm sure we can all think of other crimes where drink was involved.

When are people going to stop?
Why do they need to drink all the time (sake).🙄

This. You can not genuinly think it’s that easy op. Surely.

Also, the vast majority of people who do horrible and dangerous things while drinking are not addicts. I say this as a (sober) alcoholic.

I know lots of people who have had DWIs or gotten in a fight with a partner or injured themselves or done something equally awful, because they got drunk on a one-off 'big night out'. I don't like this narrative that the only people who do horrible things are people with addictions and not the 'normal' every day drinkers. Alcohol by its very nature is impairing. You can be impaired the very first time you drink it and kill someone with your car. It doesn't mean you are an addict who can't control their drinking.

I don't think this narrative of alcoholics who do horrible things and ruin lives and normal drinkers who don't is very helpful. It ends up minimising the impact that alcohol can have on the lives of people who by all accounts drink 'moderately' (meaning only at the weekends) or 'only get drunk at weddings'. Because this type of drinking can be just as problematic, but calling it out makes people uncomfortable because it's a bit to close to home.

Ban it for the dangerous drug it is.

Also ban cancer, it ruins lives, kills people, and has no benefits at all.

Any advice that starts with "Just..." is guaranteed to be a crock of ignorant shite.

It's always far easier said than done.

The op is the kind of question a 7 year old might ask. I'd forgive them for it though, being a child.

I'm not sure how adults can be this uninformed though?

Ps op no, this does not mean I think it's ok to drink and drive. Quite the opposite.

Prohibition went really well in the USA in the 1920s, didn't it.

I agree, OP.

Drinking alcohol is not a disease. It is a CHOICE. No one holds someone down and pours alcohol down their throats. Cancer is a disease. ALN is a disease. Drinking alcohol is not, and it's disgusting to compare it with actual diseases.

I find people who drink alcohol a bit thick, really. None of the people I associate with are drinkers, and we aren't boring, loud, aggressive, embarrassing people, as are most drinkers.

The state of the NHS would be entirely different if alcohol didn't exist. I strongly believe that alcohol-related injuries/illnesses should be paid for by the patient.

What? Cancer is not a choice (unless smoking related). How gross and incomparable.

If you don't want to ban it then be honest and call it an addictive drug that does more harm than all other drugs combined.

The current fairy tale land where it's not a drug and not harmless and so fun it can be taxed isn't doing anyone any favours. Least of all the idea that we live by common sense.

Totally agree. This person who crashed and killed 3 people might only get the maximum sentence which is 14 years I believe. 14 years for taking three lives and ruining all their families lives etc.

Cancer isn't taxed.

Yet.

Well yes.....but the clue is in the word addiction

Yeah I agree. Have said this for years.

Any parent who has had to try to explain to a child at some point why you can buy alcohol in Sainsburys but get locked up for a nitrous oxide canister will certainly recognise the enforced cognitive dissonance there.

(Although to be fair it can be a moment of epiphany - where the child realises that adults are full of crap, generally not to be trusted, and best handled appropriately. ...)

Yeah I found this hypocrisy quite enraging as a teenager who loved weed.

My grandad was an alcoholic and was a nasty vicious and violent arse either way. Sadly it wouldn't stop him if he could stop drinking. Nasty people will be nasty either way, they just wouldn't have their excuse anymore (not that it would be easy for them to stop if addicted too)

It can form a world view, certainly.

Oh absolutely, I would never suggest otherwise.

My reply was to the poster that quit smoking, therefore why couldn't people stop drinking.

I wasn't dismissing any other addictions at all, I was just trying to portray how difficult and dangerous (for an alcoholic) to quit and stay quit.

Unfortunately cigarettes and alcohol aren't in the same ballpark when it comes to quitting.

For a lot of alcoholics (myself included, 5 years sober), it took a dozen rock bottoms and a lot of frights to finally scare me straight. Its a vicious disease. Thankfully, I see more and more of my age group giving it up all the time, so I think its become more acceptable in society now and hopefully more so in the future.

Addiction dosent mean you can't give up though.

I'm going to get flamed for this but yes you're right. I know because I did it once 15 years ago after a night out and it still haunts me. I am not an alcoholic, I drink on a night out and this one time I drank a lot. I still to this day have no idea why I did it and I hate myself for it. I don't even really remember it but my partner asked why my car was here when I said I was leaving it at the venue and it suddenly dawned on me what I did. I will never ever do anything so fucking disgraceful in my life again. I stopped drinking for a few years after that because I scared myself . But yeah just wanted to add it's sometimes a one time idiot (understatement) decision and I'm very very lucky I didn't kill someone.

Addiction dosent mean you can't give up though.

Not always, no. But it does mean that it's very, very difficult and that lots of addicts will fail to give up, even if they try very hard and repeatedly. That's why it sounds very silly to ask 'Why don't they just give up?', as though it's totally obvious and easy and as though you don't understand why they wouldn't all just do it just like that.

I'd put drunks up there with the most utterly boring company imaginable!

For sure there can be a nice sweet spot on the drinking spectrum, between feeling shy/inhibited before a drink and becoming morose/embarrassing/on a hair trigger after too many. But too many people can't manage to hit that spot and stay there every single time they go drinking.

OP, I completely agree with you.
It infuriates me when people call alcoholism a 'disease' - no, it's a choice.
I know I'll get jumped on and I don't particularly care, I've suffered at the hands of selfish boozers both as partners and one parent.
I have no sympathy.

Yabu to expect an addict to give up a coping mechanism that is essentially what's (probably for some time) been helping them to function until its become that level of problematic. They need something else to lean on and have better coping strategies and supports in place before they can even think about stopping.

Yabvu to think that a man who attacked and killed his wife did it because of drink. He was a perpetrator of domestic violence. Alcohol doesn't cause domestic abuse. A need to have full control, bully and create fear does that.