To be concerned about this..alchohol+drinking too much...

[Janos]

Genuine AIBU.

Just got off the phone to my boyfriend/DP/whatever (DP for short).

I'm away...big family birthday.

He told me last night, he sat and drank the equivalent of 10 pints of beer last night, on his own.

I was really shocked and thought it was way too much and said so.

Is this normal or what? It has just really bothered me.

Please be honest.

TheHedgeWitch, I think I am expressing myself particularly badly today. I am (wrongly) using the term alcoholism as a catch all word for a problem with alcohol. Maybe a better term would be an unhealthy relationship with alcohol?

DH and I have had many, many debates on this topic over the last few years since he admitted he had a problem with alcohol because in the beginning I tried all sorts of ways to pretend that it wasn't so much of a problem as he said it was.

Anyway, this thread isn't about me, it is about Janos and her DP, but I'll just add that my DH has been happily sober for nearly two years now.

Janos, are there any underlying issues like depression? There often are.

llareggub I think unhealthy drinking sounds more like DP.

Yes, I reckon there are underlying issues and I suspect he might be depressed although he would find that had to admit although he is pretty open about his feelings (sometimes a bit too much ) which I think is a good sign.

Bad sentence there reading back - hope YKWIM.

Well my parents are from a Welsh mining background and it doesn't change my view of the situation at all. It doesn't actually matter that it's 'socially acceptable' to someone of his background. In Merthyr Tydfil, where my parents came from, there developed a massive heroin problem when the mines closed. So because all the young kids were doing it, did that make it OK?

10 pints of beer is excessive and unhealthy and a problem. End of story. My father developed diabetes, end stage renal failure leading to a kidney transplant, almost total loss of vision and had two below knee amputations. And he only ever drank beer. It IS a problem.

The fact that one alcoholic may drink a couple of bottles of vodka a day, doesn't make the alcoholic who drinks only 1 bottle a day less of an alcoholic.

The old joke about the definition of an alcoholic being someone who drinks more than you, is not a useful guideline to use in RL!

I agree with whoever said that if one of you thinks it's a problem, then it's probably a real problem.