I didn't realize, until now, that everyone in my town is an alcoholic. So are all the people with whom I've ever worked for the past 45 years.
In high school and college I drank quite a bit. Heck, I dropped out of high school in my junior year, only going to VOTEC for half a day. I would work in the morning, from 7:30am until 11:30, then walk down to the "Underpass Bar" and have lunch before hopping on a bus to go to VOTEC... A small frozen tombstone pizza and a mug of Hamms (I was only 16 at the time, but could pass for mid twenties). Then after school, it was back on the bus, and a stop off at the bar for another mug of Hamms, before having to be back at work by 4:30.
I would get drunk most weekends. After I went back and finished high school, I went to college, which is where I started my serious drinking... In fact, there was one summer where I got drunk every night, sobering up to go to work during the afternoon and evening, then getting drunk again! My roommates used to joke that they could trace my route by following the trail of empty beer and tequila bottles!
Then, I read somewhere that "if you think you might be an alcoholic, you probably are one." I didn't think that I had a drinking problem... Nope, I had that one down pretty good! But seriously, I started to get a bit worried. So I stopped drinking. And I didn't have another drink for a number of years. Then one day, I decided that I'd like a beer. So I had one. And stopped at one. And to this day, I can have a drink or two, without getting drunk, and stop at that point.
Given that, I think that I probably qualify as an alcoholic by the author's standards, but not by any reasonable definition of the clinical description of an alcoholic.
Mark
'If alcohol use leads to a pattern of social or occupational dysfunction, then you're called alcoholic.' In other words, if alcohol use causes repeated problems in your life and you continue to drink, you're alcoholic.
“Given that, I think that I probably qualify as an alcoholic by the author’s standards, but not by any reasonable definition of the clinical description of an alcoholic.”
I think you’re probably right on the money with this. Any definition of an addiction, at least to me, would have to include the word “craving.” They’re are a lot of problem drinkers and drunks who I wouldn’t consider alcoholics because they’re drinking for whatever reason without the craving for alcohol itself. It could be caused by boredom or the change in mood that is the prime catalyst in drinking. That to me is not an alcoholic. An alcoholic craves the stuff. It’s like me and tobacco. At first I want a cig, then I need a cig, then I crave one. That’s addiction.