Me and Alcohol
I believe I am a controlled alcoholic. I use that term because I recognize in myself two characteristics of alcoholism, yet I control my use so as to never put myself or others in immediate danger. The first indication of my alcoholism is that as soon as I have one drink, I crave another. If I indulge in the second, I crave a third.
The second symptom is that if I begin to drink, I cannot predict when I will stop. Many times I have become impaired when I intended to have only a drink or two. Too many times I end up binge drinking, especially if I am with others doing the same. I never get “falling down drunk”, but I do reach states where my words begin to slur and my balance is off a bit.
I justify my drinking because I enjoy it, and I limit my consumption to situations where I have no reason to drive, operate equipment, or need sound judgement and/or physical coordination. I realize that emergencies could occur where these conditions change. So far in my sixty years of alcohol use, that has not happened.
I am writing about this now to help me define how I want to use alcohol in the future. I seem to be following my father and sister with irritable bowel syndrome, and there is no doubt that alcohol (and coffee, which I tend to also abuse) aggravate my bowels. The day after an afternoon and evening of binging tends to be unpleasant, with either a headache, gut ache, depression, or all three dominating my consciousness.
My father, and three of my four siblings shared these same characteristics with alcohol use, and my children do as well. My mother used, and my wife uses, used alcohol very differently. My mother did, and my wife does, consume some alcohol, but in very limited amounts. Neither had or has any need to drink enough to become impaired.
My alcohol use is almost exclusively beer, although a glass (or two or three) of wine is also appealing at times. As of now I am determined to limit my consumption to an average of one drink a day, with never more than three in a day. Most of the benefit is in the form of feeling mildly euphoric after the first one. I don’t want to give that up, so as of now I do not want to stop completely. I will post sometime in the future how that works for me.
