Does drinking a bottle of wine every night make you an alcoholic?

[LyraSilvertongue]

I ask because I was having a conversation about drink with a (male) colleague and he says he drinks a bottle a night. I was a bit . He's quite small, shorter than me, so the men can drink more thing doesn't really apply. Do you think he's addicted?

Yes, CD, I know exactly where you are coming from

DH and I have given up alcohol for a month once a year recently. It's interesting.

One of the reasons is to see how hard we find it - on the basis that if we do find it hard we need to "have a word with ourselves". Another is that it really ratchets your drinking down when you start again. Also, you realise how much of your drinking is habit (ooh - I always have a cold glass of white wine as early as decent on a Friday evening etc). Plus you realise that actually you can get through a very boring work function/a boozy night out with mates/a fantastically nice home cooked meal on a lazy Saturday evening at home/a slightly tense entire family Sunday lunch without a drink.

It worked well for us having the peer pressure of each other. Made it clear to me that I don't have a "problem" with drinking (combination of liking it and it being a habit, but nothing more than that). Found the first few days a bit twitchy but actually - gasp - found it quite easy after that.

We tend not to drink during the week (Mon-Thurs) at all now. But that is partly also the legacy of having a child who has been a fairly ropy sleeper.

Wannabe - that's exactly how I feel.

I'm considered unusual and people guffaw when I say I dont drink - as though I'm some kind of freak. Then I'm quizzed as to why I don't, as apparently drinking is the social norm. It's almost akin to in my teenage years when your teenage friends asking you if you smoke, and you feel you have to to fit in. Not that I drink to fit in.

I do get pretty fed up by the reaction I get to refusing a glass of wine though. "oh, why, are you driving? Get a cab home" or "oh, are you pregnant" or "just one wont hurt" "it will help you relax" as though I look tense or uptight (only at being quizzed re drinking). I say I don't like it and I get asked why. I mean honestly - why are people so interested to know why I dont? I do occasionally have a glass of wine, but, it's incredibly rare.

I don't need to drink to relax, or to have fun. I find laughter and conversation does that for me. Perhaps I am just a simple soul.

I did all my drinking and smoking in my teenage years. I derive intense enjoyment from doing things I enjoy - which does involve socialising amongst other things. I don't need to imbibe noxious substances in order to heighten my enjoyment - in fact I find it blurs things. Not my idea of fun. I dont think that's weird.

VVV, me too (for different reasons though, I overdid the teenage drinking/drugging part) and I suspect people ask a zillion questions because it makes them uncomfortable to have to consider why they DO drink.

Its good to see so many people doing just that here, though

IME, the people who go on and on about the fact that I don't drink are the people who are the teensiest bit worried about their own drinking (rightly or wrongly).

LOL! I know, I had to chuckle the other day when my mum bemoaned my dad's drinking habits "he drinks when he gets in from work and is still drinking wine at midnight. He'll finish a bottle to himself and he drinks the strong wine. I just drink the cheap, weak stuff - it's like drinking pear juice (what's the point then?) and I stop at 9pm and start drinking coffee"

So I pointed out that she started earlier than him though, because had her first glass of wine each day during her lunch break at work........

She wasn't impressed

I was a heavy binge drinker in my 20s.
I hardly drink now, and I love being near sober.
I have the odd beer or perhaps a glass of champagne or wine now (once every few weeks)
I love being in control and not drunk and obnoxious and boring and emotional etc.
I love not having a hangover and being energetic everyday.
I wish I had drunk less in the previous decade of my life.
I think most people drink way too much, but never tell them as it's not my business, but boy do people like to offer their opinion on my not really drinking much, and I am sick of the pressure to drink more, and often think of excuses not to go on nights out drinking as it really bores me now, (the pressure to drink and the continually having to justify it I mean)

I hear you VeniVV, I find the reactions to non-drinking disturbing. It's exactly like being a teenager, 'wot, u don't smoke ? well you're not in our gang!'
What makes me laugh is that the people who demonise non-drinkers tend to think of themselves as liberal-minded, modern women when in fact as a non-drinker you are treated in a similar fashion to a peadophile: i.e 'Wtf is wrong with you?' Also, the fact you can enjoy a night out, lucid, intelligent conversation, and SHOCK HORROR you can actually dance without altering the chemical balance of your brain (well some can + also keep your dignity i.e not flashing your knickers/being sick etc.I think that some people just can't accept that and I think that in itself is quite sad (in every sense).

Also relate to the boredom DarrellR

And i worry about one can of cider a night which is 3 units.
Me and DH only just manage to SHARE one bottle of wine at the weekend and even then we get sleepy with it.
Once somebody needs a drink or even thinks about it in the morning is an alcoholic.

CD, you are very like me in this regard.

Problem is that some people think that teetotalers are really just reformed alcoholics and that if they have that ONE drink then they'll get ill again.
My dad does not drink as my mum does it all for him!

I have found this thread fascinating (thanks, Lyrasilvertongue), but have been absolutely flabbergasted at the amount some people drink - and seem oblivious or are just not worried about what it will do to their health.

Being (ahem) a more mature mner, I can remember when it was considered unacceptable for women to get drunk. At family weddings (of which I had to attend many in the 1960's because of older cousins) you might see the odd male drunk, but never women. That would have been completely beyond the pale. Young men were a little indulged because they were young and inexperienced with alcohol, but older men who didn't know when to stop were pitied and barely tolerated.

This was a time when if you were well brought up, you didn't eat in the street (unless it was an icecream cone) and my mother would never have dreamed of smoking outdoors.

Shortly before this, perhaps in the early 1950's, women didn't go into the main part of a public bar on their own. For those of you who remember the early days of Corrie, Ena Sharples, Minnie Cauldwell and Martha Longhurst drank in the 'Snug', IIRC.

Here is my mother's alcohol consumption for the year in, say 1960:
Half a bottle of sweet white wine with lunch on Christmas day.
A couple of whiskies on Hogmanay and ditto on New Year's Day.
One whisky if visitors or rellies came round of an evening...maybe once every 10 days to a fortnight.
An aperitif if they were out for a meal, which didn't happen very often - maybe 3 or 4 times a year.
My mother was unusual for a woman in preferring whisky to sherry.

Drink was expensive then and tho' my dad spent many many happy hours in the pub, he went to meet his male friends, mum didn't go.

The total sea-change in attitude to alcohol is a huge factor behind the alcohol related health problems nowadays.

The attitude to alcohol in this country is just plain unhealthy

I have wondered recently whether I have any kind of "problem" with alcohol - I didn't think so, but I was drinking wine pretty much every evening - we'd open a bottle to have a glass with dinner then drink the rest over the course of the evening.

A couple of weekends ago we had friends round for a roast dinner, and drank a bottle of red wine each over the course of 4 hours or so (so not downing it) - I had a cracking hangover the next day which inspired me not to drink for a couple of weeks to see if I did have any kind of dependency on it.

For the first couple of days I did have to physically stop myself opening a bottle as I cooked dinner, but I think it was more habit than anything. After that I really didn't think about it. I had one beer at my leaving drinks at work last week, and one glass of wine over the weekend.

I happen to LOVE the taste of wine - I really enjoy trying new ones - maybe because I don't buy cheap wine anymore...

I'm off out for a work dinner this week and we're going to a restaurant which has an amazing wine list, so I think I'll probably be indulging. But after that I don't think we'll go back to drinking everyday, now we've broken the habit.

Zippi, I was thanking them for this:
As far as I saw it, the op was using her friend as reference, so that a discussion might be had on whether such amounts of alcohol constitutes a dependency in general, not because she was intending to encourage him in the direction of the nearest AA meeting.

and this:
If Lyra had just put 'do you think drinking a bottle of wine a night is too much/makes you an alcoholic' then teh very next post would be 'why do you ask? Are you drinking that much' so I do think the context for her musings is valid. It's not like a single bloke will be trawling MN and think hmmm...I work with a Lyra Silvertongue - she must mean me, dammit!

But thanks for bumping Zippi.

very interesting thread.
But if anything, it has comforted the idea that generally many of us drink too much, or rather too systematically, out of habit and are unwilling to admit it.

For most it is not a problem as such but it is a slippery slope.

Wonder what you'd all think if you replaced daily half bottle of wine with sharing the occasional joint 2 or 3 times a week. surely, many more people would be inclined to think there was some sort of addiction.
Is it any different?

Not everybody who drinks thinks that teetotallers need to be nagged or interrogated. If I am out with someone and they ask for a soft drink I just get them one. It's none of my business what they want to drink or don't want to drink. But some teetotallers can be very tiresome and make a big production out of the fact that they DOn't Drink because they are Better People. (like my Enemy who is an ex-alcoholic which he thinks entitles him to take the moral high ground with everyone who ever orders a half of shandy. Despite the fact that he, while not touching alcohol, takes a fuck of a lot of ketamine, which is one of the reasons why he is such an utter bellend).

And this is the reason why I am going for alcohol counselling tomorrow.

Sick of the shakes and the anxiety, you be surprised how it sneaks up on you...
I am an alcoholic. I consume around 150 units a week.. As soon as I try to get sober, my slep is drisrupted by shit dreams and the cold wet sweats of the night. And hot sweats in the daytime. Anxiety, pacing the carpet....

I've already seen the criticism in RL here. Told a friend I had one night sober..met with peals of hahaahahah down the phone. Nice.

But I do need to do this. For me, my health and my darling dd's.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

wish you the best.

Good for you, PurpleEnd, you deserve a happier life and I promise you, its totally reachable...good luck today, and don't forget the support thread for recovering (and non-recovering) alcoholics is here too

Best of luck PurpleOne - supposed friends can be incredibly insensitive. Must be great to be actually making a start on recovery. I'll be thinking of you.

I drink too much - out of habit I think. I've started this week by not drinking. I spend too long alone - dh works away - and often open wine in the evening after the 4 dcs are at last in bed. It's expensive too. I'll be interested to see if I can break the habit.

I think my problem is that I too, like Manhattanmama, LOVE the taste of wine, the experience of drinking it, and that is why I like to open a bottle in the evenings (couple of glasses maybe a night, not every). I get really rather pee'd off if I start to notice that it is having an effect, because it means I need to stop.
And of course, after months of abstainance with pregnancy and bf, I now cannot drink nearly as much as I used to before I feel tiddly.....

I wish wine could be non-alcoholic, and then I could drink gallons of the stuff.

Definitely a habit thing though, and if you ask me, a little like, if there is chocolate lying around the house, I'll eat them, same with crisps, other snacks. Can't resist.
Same with wine, but if there is no bottle in the house, then no drink, no panic. I think if 'one' was rushing out of the house to the corner shop in desperation to get a bottle on a Tuesday evening, then it might be classed as addiction.

Great thread, Lyra. Very interesting to see how much people think of as acceptable, and how some people worry about relatively small amounts of alcohol.

But what it says to me more than anything is that this is an issue we're all quite often worried about, and there is no clear guidance as to what is or isn't acceptable, or what is or isn't safe. I would be prepared to put money on it that this is because it is impossible, because we're all physically different and deal with alcohol differently.

Making it the big baddie and villifying it will not work - look at Prohibition in the US - but what will?

I often wonder about cultures that are held up as shining examples of 'civlised drinking' such as France and Italy - just how much do people really drink there? Are they opening a bottle of wine and drinking one every night? Because if they are, then that's 4.5 units (on average) per person each night, so way above the supposed recommended levels in the UK.

And a final tip - if you want to cut down the amount of alcohol/units but not the volume of wine you're drinking, Sainsbury have launched a range of 10% wines, and they're called 10%, with rather nice, calligraphic labels. They do a 2 or 3 whites, a rose and a red. I haven't tried the red, but the others are very palatable.

(And I don't work for Sainsbury!)

in france wine is with food not on the coffee table in front of the tv all eveing

and they do have more bottles of water on the table than wine

and the meals are not 3 minutes long

Quick google search gives some info about drinking in France. It seems we really do drink substantially more than the French

15% of adult population say they drink every day but, broken down by gender, 23% are men and 8% women. 35% of total population drink at least once a week but 48% of women say they drink only occasionally.

In 2005, only 15% of adults said they had been drunk over the previous year and only 5.5% said it had happened more than 3 times. Only 7% of women said they had been drunk over the previous year.

www.ofdt.fr/ofdtdev/live/produits/alcool/conso.html

Agree with Madamez, if out with non drinkers just buy them a soft drink, no question, no nagging, no nothing.

Some non drinkers are a total PITA and actively try to push for a reaction to their choice so they can harp on about it in a sanctimonious fashion. Then act all bruised when people question their decision .

Thank God our culture has changed from the time probablyaslytherin mentioned!!