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Most Heavy Drinkers Are Not Alcoholics

PriestTheyCalledHim

PriestTheyCalledHim

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Oct 7, 2005
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NY Times Tara-Parker Pope said:
Most people who drink to get drunk are not alcoholics, suggesting that more can be done to help heavy drinkers cut back, a new government report concludes.

The finding, from a government survey of 138,100 adults, counters the conventional wisdom that every “falling-down drunk” must be addicted to alcohol. Instead, the results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health show that nine out of 10 people who drink too much are not addicts, and can change their behavior with a little — or perhaps a lot of — prompting.

“Many people tend to equate excessive drinking with alcohol dependence,’’ sad Dr. Robert Brewer, who leads the alcohol program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need to think about other strategies to address these people who are drinking too much but who are not addicted to alcohol.”

Excessive drinking is viewed as a major public health problem that results in 88,000 deaths a year, from causes that include alcohol poisoning and liver disease, to car accidents and other accidental deaths. Excessive drinking is defined as drinking too much at one time or over the course of a week. For men, it’s having five or more drinks in one sitting or 15 drinks or more during a week. For women, it’s four drinks on one occasion or eight drinks over the course of a week. Underage drinkers and women who drink any amount while pregnant also are defined as “excessive drinkers.”

Surprisingly, about 29 percent of the population meets the definition for excessive drinking, but 90 percent of them do not meet the definition of alcoholism. That’s good news because it means excessive drinking may be an easier problem to solve than previously believed.
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Full article at link: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/...s-are-not-alcoholics-study-finds/?ref=us&_r=0
 
This is just playing with the definition of "alcoholic", I think, and doesn't really represent a fundamental shift in the way we view addiction and alcohol.
 
How is this news? Obviously not all people that get drunk are alcoholics, but all alcoholics get drunk.
 
f33lg00d said:
How is this news?
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Agreed. Mental health professionals who are current in their field have known for some time that having an addiction has a lot less to do with what quantities you use, but more to do with when you use, why you use, and what tends to happen to you when you use.

I think there is definitely such a thing as a "lush", namely, a person who drinks alcohol in amounts that are physically unhealthy, but does not use in a pattern that smacks of jeopardized mental health, and does not have a problem cutting down when circumstances demand it. At the other end of the spectrum, I have seen "dry drunks", who drinks well within the recommended limits for quantity over time, but nevertheless uses it as a crutch, and tends to cause bad situations for themselves even on the rare occasions that they have a little alcohol.

Quality over quantity.
 
Many alcoholics almost never get "falling down drunk" as well. This result seems to be the binge type drunk.
 
slimvictor said:
This is just playing with the definition of "alcoholic", I think, and doesn't really represent a fundamental shift in the way we view addiction and alcohol.
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Indeed.

I posted this because it does play with the definition of "alcoholic".

I've heard people claim that if you drink more than 2 drinks in a night then you are an alcoholic; but I'm not sure if that's true?

The comments on that article from people who are alcoholics and who are sober and who have gone though recovery were interesting.

neversickanymore said:
Many alcoholics almost never get "falling down drunk" as well. This result seems to be the binge type drunk.
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That's true as well. I've been around alcoholics who wouldn't get "falling down drunk" but would drink all day, hide their drinking, and because of their tolerance did not appear drunk at all.
 
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