Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So for most of the days of 2023, I had exactly one drink every night: either a glass of wine or a hard cider. My husband told me as my new years resolution I should give up alcohol because he thought I was “becoming an alcoholic.” That startled me because it never occurred to me that one drink a day would be considered being an alcoholic, so I have not had any alcohol since January 1 to prove to him I don’t need it. I am going out with a girlfriend this week who I have not seen in months and I asked him if he thinks it would be OK for me to have a glass of wine or am I going back to my “alcoholism” kind of in jest honestly. He said he thinks I should continue dry January or he’ll continue to be concerned about my alcohol consumption.
I want to respect his concerns, and I also want to show him that I do not need alcohol in my life as I am not dependent on it. How would you respond to your husband in the situation? Thanks.

If you're already thinking about your next drink, you may be more attached to alcohol than you think. Why do you need to drink with your friend? Why was your approach to the conversation snarky "jest" instead of honest communication?

Yes to all the other posters raising red flags about your husband perhaps being controlling af, but let's separate that out for a second and stay on OP's topic.

OP, if you can't go 30 days w/o thinking this much about when you're gonna drink next, you may have an alcohol use issue. If you're not dependent on it and don't need it to socialize, you wouldn't have asked, you'd have had a mocktail with your friend and moved on about your business.

A LOT of people have an alcohol use issue. You probably won't get great advice here; alcoholics don't tend to want others to quit because it invites us to look at our own alcohol use and that can be unpleasant.

-sober 6+ years

Would you say this same thing to someone who has coffee every day and wants to quit but has one here and there within 30 days? Or after-dinner dessert? Nobody can quit a habit that easily and it doesn't mean it's a problem. I feel very unpleasant when I stop and look at my sugar misuse, do you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have to have one every day, then yes you are an alcoholic.

Can this be applied to other things, like coffee? Because most people I know have to have at least one cup a day.

coffee has many benefits. We know this isn't true about alcohol no matter what the alcohol industry told us

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/9-reasons-why-the-right-amount-of-coffee-is-good-for-you

https://whitesandstreatment.com/2022/08/25/the-idea-that-wine-is-good-for-you-is-a-myth-heres-why/

But the insinuation seems to be that anything you consume on a daily basis should be questioned as a dependency.

Anonymous wrote:You're not an alcoholic.

But one drink a day is not good for your health. All the recent studies show that previous guidelines were way too lax. You're setting yourself up for cancer, cardiac issues, etc, down the line if you continue drinking every day.

Maybe shift to having a celebratory drink on weekends only?

+1. I probably average one drink a month, but I don’t think you are an alcoholic. I do think 7 drinks a week isn’t healthy and needing alcohol to relax isn’t a great coping mechanism.

Anonymous wrote:So for most of the days of 2023, I had exactly one drink every night: either a glass of wine or a hard cider. My husband told me as my new years resolution I should give up alcohol because he thought I was “becoming an alcoholic.” That startled me because it never occurred to me that one drink a day would be considered being an alcoholic, so I have not had any alcohol since January 1 to prove to him I don’t need it. I am going out with a girlfriend this week who I have not seen in months and I asked him if he thinks it would be OK for me to have a glass of wine or am I going back to my “alcoholism” kind of in jest honestly. He said he thinks I should continue dry January or he’ll continue to be concerned about my alcohol consumption.
I want to respect his concerns, and I also want to show him that I do not need alcohol in my life as I am not dependent on it. How would you respond to your husband in the situation? Thanks.

If you're already thinking about your next drink, you may be more attached to alcohol than you think. Why do you need to drink with your friend? Why was your approach to the conversation snarky "jest" instead of honest communication?

Yes to all the other posters raising red flags about your husband perhaps being controlling af, but let's separate that out for a second and stay on OP's topic.

OP, if you can't go 30 days w/o thinking this much about when you're gonna drink next, you may have an alcohol use issue. If you're not dependent on it and don't need it to socialize, you wouldn't have asked, you'd have had a mocktail with your friend and moved on about your business.

A LOT of people have an alcohol use issue. You probably won't get great advice here; alcoholics don't tend to want others to quit because it invites us to look at our own alcohol use and that can be unpleasant.

-sober 6+ years

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are you letting your husband police your relationship with alcohol? Tell him to STFU.

Lemme guess....you're in a satisfying, happy, loving marriage? Just kidding, people who are never speaking to or about their spouse this way. My spouse has a profound impact on my life and me on his. That's actually how healthy longterm marriages (and relationships in general) work. Sad you don't experience that.

OP - dry is dry. Just prove it to yourself and him that everything is fine.

Why does she have to prove to him that she can break a completely innocent habit? Why do you have to prove yourself to your husband? That doesn't sound healthy to me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The first thing that each oncologist will ask you when you get cancer is: do you drink? And how much? Then followed with: do you smoke?

Yeah, this is so dumb. There’s an uptick in cancer, but it isn’t from smoking and drinking. Do you know how much people smoked and drank all through the 20th century? Way more than today.

We want to pin the rise in cancer on personal responsibility, because then we can tell ourselves it won’t happen to us if we’re good little boys and girls, but it’s obviously from environmental causes. Toxins in our water, our air, our earth.

The war on alcohol is so bizarre. I think it's those few women who were alcoholics (that Naked Mind woman was a raging alcoholic by the way she described her drinking, but still only talked about cutting down on the "noise") and wrote books about it for all the lonely, stressed, naive women to eat up, without any real critical thinking. Light drinking became the thing they could avoid and now be safe, with no clue as to all the things that are posing a much greater risk to their health and longevity.

Anonymous wrote:Why are you letting your husband police your relationship with alcohol? Tell him to STFU.

Lemme guess....you're in a satisfying, happy, loving marriage? Just kidding, people who are never speaking to or about their spouse this way. My spouse has a profound impact on my life and me on his. That's actually how healthy longterm marriages (and relationships in general) work. Sad you don't experience that.

OP - dry is dry. Just prove it to yourself and him that everything is fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would prove him wrong and no drink.

This. Give it 30 days without one drink. If you can do it, you're not an alcoholic.

This is not true at all.

I am an alcoholic. I know plenty of other alcoholics who have quit for all kinds of reasons, including dry January, to “prove” that they’re not an alcoholic. The difference is they always go back to drinking like they did, or more, after the “prescribed” time.

Dry January should be part of a reset, not a sentence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have to have one every day, then yes you are an alcoholic.

Can this be applied to other things, like coffee? Because most people I know have to have at least one cup a day.

The human body quickly habituates to any amount of regularly consumed caffeine whether coffee or tea or soda. The person then feels they cannot be as sharp or feel optimal without the substance, and will in fact experience a number of withdrawal symptoms if they choose to go off caffeine and those symptoms will last a number of days before the body re-habituates to the absence of the caffeine.

The person might still struggle with urges related to the habit or ritual of consuming coffee or tea, but they are unlikely to experience intense cravings or struggle with disordered behavior related to the removal of the substance.

However, there is a range of expression in the human brain and for some people, yes, it is extremely difficult to detox from any substance including caffeine - these are often the type of people who drink coffee all day long rather than being good with one or two in the morning.

Sugar is also addictive to some people's brains whereas others can use it daily without triggering any sort of binge behavior. Most Americans eating a typical American diet heavy in processed foods are dependent on sugar but don't even know it because it has probably been years if not decades since they went a single day without consuming several teaspoons of sugar daily due to the hidden added sugars in nearly all shelf foods and many frozen foods.