My DH has 2-3 drinks per night - is he an alcoholic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ditto all those who are saying that it's not about the number of drinks but the reason behind them. I used to have 1-2 glasses of wine a night. I loved those glasses of wine and looked forward to them. I did become concerned that I was a bit too dependent on alcohol. So I cut way back and learned that I wasn't dependent on the alcohol - I just enjoyed wine and got in the HABIT of having that glass or two of wine every night. That is not alcoholism. That is enjoying a bit of alcohol mixed with habit. A habit that was easy to break once I decided to, even though it was an enjoyable habit. An alcoholic can't break the habit that easily.

Exactly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:17:37 you seem really defensive and hung up on the label. This is the deal: whether one glass or fifty, what defines an alcoholic is the need - or perceived need - to drink alcohol and the inability to control that urge. Sorry if this hits a nerve for you, but that's the reality.

I'm not defensive. I just think it is kind of clueless and offensive to people who have had loved ones who are actual alcoholics to pretend that having 2 drinks/night is alcoholism. Alcoholism has a clinical definition -- no matter how much you like those two drinks, it does not make you an alcoholic. Get back to me when your loved one is literally falling over drunk in their puke; still drunk the next morning; and you literally fear for their lives. Not all alcoholism is this severe all the time, but it is just stupid to act like two drinks is a "problem" any where close to the equivalent of true alcoholism, the kind that obviously threatens your health, job, and relationships.

Pp, I don't think you're reading carefully what I and at least one other pp are saying. We're talking about whether someone who has two to three drinks a day has to have it. People who can take it or leave it don't have a problem. But if you can't function without it, you have a problem. And I have actual loved ones who were and are alcoholics so I know what I'm talking about. You're not the only one who has been through this.

If you want to argue that you have suffered more than I because your alcoholic was falling over drunk in their own puke, that's fine with me. I'm guessing that you had it worse just based on this statement. But I watched my mom go off into her old age fuzzy-headed and self-medicating her anxiety and obsessing about her drink quotient when she could have been clear-minded and living a much fuller and rich life. You want to say she wasn't a real alcoholic - fine. But she had a problem that made her old age much worse than it should have been and she would have been a lot better off if she had quit drinking.

New poster. Two drinks a night ruined her old age????? Fuzzy-headed and self-medicating? On two drinks?

My grandmother had her doctor write her a prescription for two glasses of red wine at dinner every night at her retirement home. She went into her old age smiling broadly, as happy as a clam. She had a good, long, happy life and loved her two glasses of wine.

This is a far cry from the PP's experience.

Did your grandmother tell you that she couldn't bear going out to dinner with her son who was in early recovery because she wouldn't be able to have a drink? Did she tell you that she wasn't happy about your brother moving in with her after he left rehab because she'd have to put the alcohol away? Did she freak out when you told her you were considering the possibility of having a wedding without alcohol? I'm sure your grandmother was just fine but not everyone has the positive experience your grandmother fortunately had.

And yes my point was that it was not the same as the pp's experience. I wasn't arguing that. I was pointing out that, yes, having to drink two drinks a night can be a problem for some people - even if they don't end up lying in their puke like the pp's relative. I'm happy for your grandmother that she was able to have her two glasses of wine a night because she wanted them and not because she had to have them!

[Anonymous]

So, OP, after all that, the short answer is ... maybe, or maybe not ... it depends ... no one knows for sure.