do I have a drink problem?

[farmhouseSally]

have namechanged though am not a prolific poster. would welcome honest views please.

I have a drink most evenings, always wine. I never get drunk but am worried really because I am never able to resist having a glass... I've never had great willpower on anything "nice" - chocolate, wine, staying up too late to read a good book even when exhausted etc.

Most mornings I wake up, feel vaugely fuzzy, not hungover but always think "I won't have a drink tonight". But when it gets to 5 o'clock I'm thinking, "once dd is in bed I'd love a glass of wine." and so around 7.30pm I have 1 glass, usually 2, 3 tops. I find it virtually impossible to go without wine (or chocolate, or staying up late etc) once I've decided that's what I would "like" / "need" / "deserve". Am a lone parent btw.

I do know I'm not an alcoholic in that I don't drink in the mornings, get drunk, drink regardless of the context etc etc. If there was no wine in the house in the evening I wouldn't go out to buy it and leave dd in the house alone for example. I'm not drinking to excess but I also know that 2 glasses a night on average still isn't that good for my health when I add up the units. and my lack of willpower is what worries me. There is wine in the house now because I had guests for dinner on Saturday and they all brought a bottle.

sorry this is so long. would be very interested in views on this and any advice.

thanks

That's true, Doris, but was just trying to offer another point of view.

I do think it's demonised here and that approach doesn't work.

Because then people come to see it as a treat or a reward rather than a complement to food, and that's a lot of the difference between drinking in the UK and drinking in many parts of mainland Europe.

When you see it as a treat or a reward you're more likely to do it to excess and not do it with food.

Another aside if you are having 2-3 self poured glasses of wine a night, 1 large(r) glass of wine can equal 3 units that's 6 in a night (optimistically)2 nights and you're near the limit. So I would suggest that it's not within safe drinking levels either.

( the gov ad campaign running atm for my figures if anyone doesn't agree)

Sorry if i'm banging on i'll disappear now.

sorry didn't quite finish my train of thought in penultimate paragraph - meant to say - is an inability to get rid of booze in house owing to lame(ish) excuse a bit of a neon sign??

expat thanks for your most recent post, I posted before I'd seen that and I think that your suggested appraoch is a good place to start from. there is definitely a level of "guilt" about the whole thing because of spurious limits and ever-contradictory health scares. (drink a glass of red wine a day = good for heart. drink one drink a day = you will get breast cancer.)

Only your opinion really counts on this because, if you don't think you have a problem, you won't do anything about it.

But:

"I find it virtually impossible to go without wine (or chocolate, or staying up late etc)" - false comparison. Chocolate and staying up late don't cause liver and kidney problems, throat, mouth and stomach cancer, clinical depression, or a hundred and one different types of domestic and traffic accidents. Keep focussing on the wine because that's the one it would be very dangerous to be wrong about.

"I have 1 glass, usually 2, 3 tops." Contrary to what Solid (and many people) say, one glass is very unlikely to be one unit unless it is a pub measure (small glass) of 10% ABV wine. A home measure of normal strength wine is more likely to be two or even three units. Time to do the maths again.

"I do know I'm not an alcoholic in that I don't drink in the mornings, get drunk, drink regardless of the context etc etc." All myths, I'm afraid. An alcoholic - or, if you prefer, problem drinker - is someone whose drinking gets in the way of the life they want but who keeps doing it, basically. The rest is details.

"If there was no wine in the house in the evening I wouldn't go out to buy it and leave dd in the house alone." The biggest con of all - as long as you keep buying more wine in a day than you drink in a night, you're never going to put yourself in a position to test that theory, are you? It's a red herring - you could drink two glasses a week or two litres a night and still sort yourself out so you never get caught short.

Anyway, your decision is the one that counts - but don't lull yourself into a false sense of security while you're making it!

Good luck, whatever you decide.

Was going but......

Having worked in the health service with medics specialisng in liver disease, I know WHY the government is also banging on about this problem (and to some extent demonising it) It is a hidden problem that will as drinking habits have changed become more and more dominant over the next few years.

Many of the women admitted with liver problems I could relate to.tThey were not "problem" drinkers, just had a glass in the evening to relax etc, as I used to, and tbh at the start it shocked me as I could relate so easily to their drinking style.

dh and I had cut down to weekend only before i got pregnant and his revelation, and now there is no alcohol in the house as I want to be suportive (doesn't stop the occasional god I fancy a glass tonight after a particularly hideous day), but I do feel people are too relaxed about alcohol as it is seen as the least harmful of the smoking , drugs, alchol trio.

Have to say, agree completely with ManIFeelLikeAWoman...well put. Damn.

Well, I agree, that's a wise post, too, MIFLAW.

I dunno, just trying to go all philosophical about it and avoid getting off my duff to a) clean the kitchen b) fold the washing c) hoover d) change the sheets on the bed (thereby creating more washing).

Hmm, a bath would also be a good excuse to get out of doing the chores, too, come to think of it . . .

ManI feellikeawoman has put it all so much more eloquently.

Good luck Sally

I guess it would be a lot harder to cut down if your partner or spouse also likes a drink, too.

My husband is close to teetotal not because he ever had a problem with drink, he just never liked it much.

He went out for a Christmas do and had a few pints, but that'll be him sorted for the year.

Duff.

What a great word.

OP

At the risk of outing you, the phrase "mental obsession" features prominently in AA literature.

You're not worried about this more than you're letting on and doing a little bit of "background reading" or "window shopping", are you?

I used to window shop like that myself. Often whilst quaffing yet more wine.

But I was a bottle a night person. Two at weekends and often enough even three.

I took some covincing myself - my copy of the book has got red wine stains on it!

hey, just checking back in as have been over to the other thread on teetotalism / heavy drinking. there is a link on there to the "drinkulator" which is an online programme to help you assess your alcohol dependency, set up by the liver team at Southampton hospital. Very helpful and points to what I think I suspected / knew already - ie I don't have anything like high alcohol dependency but have a couple of the signs of early / mild alcohol dependency - in particular: "Drinking more than you planned to in an evening."

So a very useful signpost to me that as things stand I'm generally ok, but am perhaps starting on a slippery slope and therefore NOW is the time to do something about it.

The other really scary bit is in those posts above about liver disease being very prevalent amongst those who drink socially - classic stuff that is hard to imagine will "ever happen to me."

I think that it is hard for some people, including me obviously, to not drink as it seems to be woven into the British middle-class attitude to drink, ie nearly always having a bottle of wine with dinner, and it being generally accepted that teenagers will drink and allowing them to do so. I started going to the pub when I was 15, with the full knowledge of my parents and drink is just one of those things that I and my peers took to be part of everyday life, throughout university, graduate jobs, 20-something dinner parties and into our 30s - though to less excess now given the needs of small children now in our lives.

Well, that's a good point, too, FS.

I come from the US (am a naturalised Brit now) and I can't speak for England and Wales, having never lived there, but I do find there's a relative dearth of activities to do in the evenings that don't revolve around drink or places with access to drink.

For example, many gyms in the US are open till 11PM or even later, including specialist gyms like climbing gyms, or yoga ashrams and tennis courts.

Even shopping malls and bookshops are open till 10PM.

And afterwards, there are tons of cafes, teahouses and juice bars open late.

I've had to get some other distractions - like chatting online whilst watching Police Interceptors and eating a small bag of crisps at the same time .

MIFLAW - just to answer your post, I was responding to a previous poster in this thread

LauriefairycakeeatsCupid @ Fri 27-Feb-09 18:41:55
"alcoholism is nothing to with when you drink, what you drink, how much you drink

It is to do with a mental obsession with alcohol."

That isn't meant to sound defensive, am just answering your post. Definitely haven't been doing any window shopping. I am very pleased I posted here because it has worried me recently, that whole angel / devil on the shoulder internal dialogue of: "ooh been a long day with dd, can't wait for a nice glass of wine later .. oh but thought I was going to be good and not have one ... yes but I deserve it ... well I'll end up going to bed late and feeling crap in the morning ... ah fuck it." and getting honest views is what I wanted and knew I would get from MN.

See I find the whole 'be good' thing just makes it every difficult for a lot of people to have a healthy relationship with alcohol, because like you said, it's like food, they take two glasses and then think, 'Oh, hell, that's six units. May as well have the whole bottle!'

I'm just trying to see this from the angle of how one slips into the habit of drinking AND where it could become a problem for some.

Sorry to be a fly in the ointment here but nearly all my friends (outside AA, obviously) drink and I don't think any of them "nearly always have a bottom of wine with dinner." Except for the one who's started to worry about his drinking ...

With the drinkulator, obviously it's all relative. I haven't used it myself as I don't need to but a typical medical definition of heavy or high dependency would be up ther with the jaundice cases and the hostel dwellers and the wet brains. Not saying that's you, obviously - but that is what your "mild" dependency is probably being benchmarked against.

expat again you are so right about the British alternatives to drinking as (social) evening entertainment ... very few are generally on offer!

yes of course us Brits could all go and do an evening class but I bet any socialising afterwards would be down the pub and not in the local late-nite juice bar! drinking is woven into our culture very tightly indeed.

Another thing a few German friends pointed out to me: Not a lot of people seem to play games here.

In some cultures, it's common to get together with friends at their homes or a cafe to play a game.

Guess that sort of ties in with the evening spent doing sport.

I have no idea what a bottom of wine is.

Maybe it's like a bottle.

I'll get my coat.

Hmm, a bottom of wine. I think that would be me digging out the bottles from the recycle bin at 3 in the morning to see if there was a swallow or two left?

MIFLAW, I guess most people I know are alcohol dependent to some degree then. Certainly among my parents' and in-laws' generation wine on the dinner table is a certainty (as is a G&T or 2 before dinner - which NEVER happens in my house). Most of my friends will drink with their dinner most nights. Not every friend, not every night. I don't drink every night. I'm also very aware of units and how the "1 glass = 1 unit" is a massive under-estimation, and understand that aspect without kidding myself.

On the definitions, would be interested in your take on the drinkulator website, which draws on Alcohol Concern for the following advice about alcohol dependency: this link

I suppose it depends on how many people are sharing the bottle! Anyway, I didn't say that that meantyou were alcohol dependent - just that it is nowhere near as typical as you seem to think.

I looked at the drinkulator. I found some of the questions misleading or pointless - I had my first alcoholic drink around the age of 8, for example, but did not drink regularly or without my parents until I was 17 - but I filled it in as if I was still drinking and tried to answer as honestly as the 28 year old me could have managed. Here is an extract from my feedback:

"The CAGE test indicated that alcohol may be a little too important in your life and you do have some features of alcohol dependency."

This is based on my telling the computer I drank 140 units a week, which I probably did, on average. Apparently, 140 units a week means "alcohol may be a little too important in your life"!

Does that put your "mild" dependency in perspective?

Have to say when I looked at it I wasn't very impressed with the questions and I agree, (again) that the definition of mild is a relative term.

I also think that middle class social drinking is normalised, but not any less dangerous. Just becuase no park bench is involved, doesn't mean there is no problem.