Are you really an alcoholic?
- Amanda
- Feb 17
- 5 min read
Years ago a little voice inside my head would plague me every now and again. It was annoying as hell.
It would always be at its loudest after a heavy night of drinking.
"You're in trouble... you feel like crap. You cannot keep control of your drinking. Everyone else can! LOSER."
"Wow. You did it again. You texted that person late at night. NOW what trouble are you in. Eh?"
"You idiot. You can hardly walk or work. Your head is all tizzy. You feel like a bag of dirt. You will rot your brain with booze. Maybe you already have."
"Can't you even stop at a few? Why do you have to drink so much?
Are you an alcoholic? You probably are."
On and on it would go, ripping in to me, just when I didn't need it. Added to this horrible internal voice was the nagging feeling I was killing myself. It was really difficult to live with sometimes. Our internal thoughts are sometimes the cruelest of enemies, aren't they? And even though we know these are just thoughts, they are close enough to us to have an influence on our moods and feelings.
Sometimes I would Google: "Am I an alcoholic?" or "What is an alcoholic?" - read it quickly, and then delete the search history, just in case anyone looked at my laptop.
Sounds pretty miserable, huh?
The thing is, I am not keen on that word: "Alcoholic".
You know why? Because it blames the imbiber, not the substance, or the marketers that shove it down our throats despite our best intentions.
Do we call smokers, "smoke-aholics"?
No. Tobacco is bad. You are addicted to tobacco. Therefore, tobacco is at fault. You can say exactly the same thing for drugs, too.
Fact: Alcohol is more addictive than any drug or tobacco product out there. It kills more people, globally, than all the drug taking and smoking put together. And yet, the person drinking the addictive substance, with alcohol, is the one at fault. How?
Fact: Did you know that alcohol is addictive to all human beings? It is not just the homeless person, or the person down on their luck. In fact, you are more likely to get addicted to alcohol if you are affluent and have a good job!
The difference is you might have given alcohol a job to do.
Yep - you heard me.
For me, I lost my son, as many of you who follow my story know. I also lost my Mum and Dad, but it was after my 12 year old son died of cancer that I gave alcohol a job. And that job was to numb me for a while until I could wrap my head around my life again.
For you, it could be you are hiding from grief too. Or maybe you are hiding from work stress. A really tough day at work, especially after my son died, could throw me right over the edge on stress-levels, and the first thing I would do is drown my sorrows in a bottle of wine once his brother was safely tucked up in bed for the night. Then it became more than one bottle. A bottle and a half. Sometimes two.
I would try to give up, or moderate. I tried so many times. But every time I ended up drinking more and more until, towards the end of my drinking journey, I would occasionally black-out completely.
Do you know why we black out? Your body does it to you so it can deal solely with the poison you have just ingested. To others you still talk and look okay, but your brain no longer registers anything at all. No memories at all. How scary is that?
I digress.... Maybe you are drinking more because you are burned out? It can feel pretty hopeless when you are, and alcohol feels like a good tool to numb that pain, doesn't it. And your brain will agree with you! It temporarily removes you from that pain. So it works, right?
Or maybe you are just sad, or lonely, or bored.
Except, alcohol is the wrong tool for all of the above jobs, and deep down, we all know it. It's a poison, and we are slowly drinking ourselves to death. We lose friends and family to alcohol too, because it causes innumerable diseases such as cancer, strokes and heart disease. Directly or indirectly, alcohol kills.
So, if you are addicted to alcohol, should you be blaming yourself?
What happens when you decide to cut down, or give up?
It can feel difficult. You are surrounded by alcohol advertisements everywhere you go, and on every movie or TV show. Glossy adverts that suggest you are missing out on all the fun without alcohol! Every second billboard, all over the internet, advertised on racing cars and golf courses, in cricket matches, during the Super Bowl, alcohol is everywhere. Because alcohol marketers have billions of dollars to use in order to lure you into their honey trap.
Even worse, alcohol is so socially acceptable, your very own friends will jibe you when you decide to take a break.
"Oh, come on mate, you aren't that bad! Just have one? Stop being such a melt!"
"What, are you an alcoholic, or something? [laughs]"
Think about it. If you really think about it, deep down, you know it's is not your fault. You have been encouraged to drink a poisonous, addictive substance, and that liquid is so socially acceptable it is considered odd if you do not want to drink it! You simply couldn't make it up.
One day in the future - hopefully not too distant - people will look back on us all with wonder. Just like smoking, alcohol will finally be recognised as the horrific death-dealing poison, which is causing death and sickness at epidemic proportions across the globe. And our kids will be able to order a non-alcoholic drink without comment or raised eyebrows.
So stop blaming yourself, and start getting angry at the billion-dollar alcohol marketing industry that makes it all seem so glamorous.
You are not an alcoholic. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It is not your fault.
Let me know your thoughts.
Amanda
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