Gynomite!

I have kind of a stupid question for you: how do you know if your drinking is a problem?  I drink all the time but the worst that happens is that I run out of money to drink, or I show up at work hungover one or two days a week, or rarely, I blackout.  Where’s the line between party and problem?

This is a great question, and one I can’t believe I haven’t gotten already.  Get ready, because Gynomite has both the official clinical definitions and the definition from a girl with a lot of hard-partying friends.

The DSM (the manual for diagnosing folk here in America) breaks alcohol abuse into two categories:  abuse and dependence. Let me get their definitions out of the way.

Abuse is more of the one-time thing, the “oh I had too much at that New Years party and now my head hurts”.  Basically, if you’ve ever drunk alcohol and done any one of the following…

• Failed at fulfilling your major functions, like missing work, school, or important social obligations.
• Tried to drive a car or operate a machine.
• Gotten arrested for anything alcohol related.
• Had “recurrent social or interpersonal problems”

…you’ve experienced alcohol abuse.  (That last qualifier is the kicker, but we’ll get to that in a minute.)

Alcohol dependence is more serious and requires that at least three of the following happen to you:

• You develop a tolerance to alcohol and have to drink more to get drunk than you used to.
• You have withdrawal symptoms (shaking and feeling ill the next day, followed by drinking more to get rid of these symptoms).
• You drink on nights when you don’t intend to drink.
• You try to stop/slow down and you can’t.
• A lot of your time is spent either trying to obtain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or recovering from alcohol
• You stop doing as many social/work/fun things because they take away from your drinking time.
• You keep drinking even though you know it’s bad for you (unless, of course, you don’t think it’s bad for you)

I’m a much bigger believer in the criteria for dependence as being real and useful, but there are a couple of real world things I want to add to this that I feel like the DSM, in all its infinite wisdom, leaves out.

First off, whether or not you have a parent or close family member with a dependence on alcohol matters HUGELY.  See, alcoholism isn’t hereditary, but the addiction trigger is.  Some people can casually drink, but for people with that buried-deep addiction trigger, when they start using, their bodies fall instantly in love.  For people with the addiction trigger, alcohol creates a hole and then makes it so it can never be filled.  So if you have a parent that is an alcoholic, you always have to be aware of how and why you’re drinking, and how little of it may have to do with your own desires.

Not every person who is alcohol dependent needs help.  Sure, if they want to be fully actualized human beings, yes, they should get into treatment, but plenty of people have this exact same dependent relationship with food and no one is urging them into treatment.  Alcohol dependence can leave you functional enough for your day to day life, it’ll just mean that you’re living life in a sad, sickly, unhealthy cloud.   But it’s your right to live in that cloud, and as long as you’re only hurting yourself emotionally, go ahead and knock yourself out.  It’s when you start hurting yourself outside of your head that it’s time to seriously think about getting help.  So let’s break this down into “Alcohol is Fucking You Emotionally” and “Alcohol is Fucking You Physically”

Here are some of the ways you can tell that alcohol is fucking you emotionally

• You drink for any other reason than to have a good time (this includes boredom, sadness, anger)
• You eschew going to non-alcohol-laden social events because they are not alcohol-laden
• You drink more nights than you don’t drink
• You have woken up for work in the morning still drunk from the night before
• You have to be told what happened at the party the night before, and it involves you doing something you’re not super proud of
• You have lost a job/your license/a person you’re dating because of alcohol

Here are some ways you can tell that alcohol is going beyond fucking with your social life and is now starting to become a thing that is changing you

• You leave a party to go drink at home where it’s cheaper
• …and relatedly, you drink alone
• You have the shakes
• You have the sweats

Now, if alcohol is fucking you emotionally, things are not always rosy for you, but you’re most likely able to function just fine.  I would just challenge you to think about how much longer you want to live your life in a fog like this, relying on a substance to let you know when you’re ok.  But if alcohol is fucking with you physically, isolating you and making you sick, it’s important that you seek treatment, and that you remember that some people are just not physically capable of drinking casually.