Binge drinking is alcoholism too
Many people looking for help on this site do not consider themselves to be alcoholics. They are not drinking all day, every day. But they are regularly binge drinking alcohol to excess, such that they are damaging their health, their relationships and their self esteem.
It is easier to convince yourself that you haven’t got an alcohol problem if you can regularly have days where you don’t drink at all. You think you’ve got control of your drinking again, so you’re not so concerned any more.
Then it happens again – you binge, and wake up feeling awful. Maybe you carry on drinking heavily for a couple of days to deal with how guilty you feel about it all. But this type of binge drinking can have serious negative consequences which you need to do something about.
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I’m 36 and have been binge drinking for half of my life. I go anywhere from 2 months to 6 months without craving a drink but, inevitably, I take that first drink and I don’t stop for at least 2 days. I wake up extremely sick and paranoid. I don’t remember who I ran into or called during blackout periods and I am afraid to go out of the house or answer the phone for a couple of days. It doesnt matter what state my life is in–from a poor college student, 26 year old live in relationship to a 36 year old health concsious, financially stable adult–I do the exact same thing over and over. Traditional support groups haven’t been of much help because I don’t crave alcohol on a daily or weekly basis. I’ve gone up to 6 months without even wanting to drink, but one night I just decide this might be the night to get a slight buzz and then it’s the same ol thing. Someone said there must be an underlying issue and this is what I’ve been thinking too. There has to be a reason for this self destructive pattern. I wish everyone well.
Just want to talk to someone.
mindful,
i can go without alcohol for a lng time, weeks, probably months if i wanted to. When I was pregnant it really wasn’t a problem. But something very bizzare is happening to me. My husband is an alcoholic and sometimes I get very upet, angry or frustrated and when I do I just crave a drink. And then when I finally get an opportunity, for a night out with a babysitter, I can stay out till 7 in the morning!! Drinking with total starngers.
I think we are searching for oblivion because there is something deep down inside going on that we don’t want to face. Emotions we don’t want to deal with. We can blame anyhting. I could blame my alcoholic husband but it truth I think it has something to do with my childhood.
My husband binge drinks at home. He’s on the road all week and I usually work a day on the weekend. I come home and he is trashed. I talk to him about it, he says he will stop, and then he does it again. I’m getting worried. Is it to destress? Or, is it an emotional problem? His first wife died of cancer and it was horrible. Don’t know what to do? Ignore? Leave? Babysit him?
I had hit rock bottom.
It started off with only 1 glass of wine at night to wind down from a stressful job. Then it escalated to 1 bottle a night to deal not only with a stressful job but a stressful relationship to. I came up with many excuses as to why I should have a drink….but now I realise that’s all they were.
I realised I had a problem when I have these blank patches – how did my car end up in that car park? How did I get home? These then led to guilt – OMG what did I do last night? What kind of example am I setting for my child?
I needed to do something and I realised that I couldn’t do it by myself. I went and got hypnotherapy. 4 sessions and it has given me the willpower that I need to change my life around. That was 3 months ago.
I can still have a drink but I will limit it to 1 or 2. I keep a diary on how much I do drink so that I can’t lie to myself and so that I can monitor if it starts getting bad again. I now use other methods of relaxing – bubble bath, cammomile tea and self hypnosis.
I know that I can always go back to my therapist if I need help again and that makes me feel in control. I’m on a new path and I am going to be proud of who I am.
Well done – you should be so proud of yourself.
Been very helpful to read all these comments. I started binge drinking in college and have had some many bad outcomes due to alcohol. I am 31 now and can attribute almost every bad situation to drinking. 1 DUI, fights, relationships problems, embarassing moments, hangovers. The last straw was losing a whole vacation weekend with friends because I was so wasted that I blacked out and stayed in the hotel passed out the whole time. How embarassing! I have never actively tried to cut down the drinking because i was in denial. Lke many others, I dont drink during the week but cant wait for the weekend to “party”. I always feel like I have a high tolerance and dont have to monitor my intake. Many times no bad things will happen but way too many times they have. Almost all my friends drink so it makes it way more acceptable in my circle.
I am in denial no longer. I think I can control this on my own, but if my attempts fail I will have to seek professional help. These comments let me know that it’s not just me (which helps). Have seen a few books on line that may give me some insight. All I know is that getting wasted to the point I do is just uneccessary. I think I will stop drinking for the unforeesable future. Saying i will never drink again is a lie at this point, but stopping for now has to be a good idea. If others can control it, I feel that I can. Good luck to everyone.
I am a binge drinker and I am an alcoholic. It was very hard for me to identify as an alcoholic because I didn’t do a lot of the things that “typical” alcoholics do: I never drank every day, I never needed a drink in the morning, I never drank at work, never got the “shakes” or other withdrawal symptoms when I didn’t drink, I never got arrested .. the list goes on. I graduated college with honors in four years, went on to law school, passed the bar exam, and have been a practicing lawyer for nearly four years.
But, since the time I started drinking at 16, I knew that I didn’t drink like a “normal” person. Once I had a drink, it was always very hard to control how much I drank for the rest of the night. Sometimes, if I fought really hard to “stay in control”, I’d wind up not getting too drunk, and this would make me think that I was in control of my drinking. But other times, I would lose count of how much I was drinking and I’d wind up in a black-out, not knowing what I did or how I got home when I woke up in a hungover nightmare the next morning.
I got sober in AA for about a year and a half about 5 years ago, but then decided I wanted to do a little more “research” on my drinking. I drank without consequence for about 8 months, and then the black-outs started again. I went through another 3 years of black-out drinking, mixed with controlled drinking, and tried moderation management through psychologists, as well as different medications to help try to kill the cravings for more alcohol once I started drinking.
A few months ago, I gave up the fight and went back to AA. I couldn’t fool myself anymore into thinking that one day, I would be able to drink like a grown-up. I’m 32 years old and it will never happen. Why? Because I’m an alcoholic. Alcoholics are simply people who develop a craving for MORE alcohol once they start drinking. It is that simple. If you identify with that statement, then you are an alcoholic, too. Please consider giving AA a try. If you don’t like the first meeting that you go to, try another one. Not all meetings are a bunch of old men. My home group is made up of mostly educated men and women in their 20′s and 30′s. We go out to dinner together, play softball together, go to concerts together, and go on trips together. And the best part is that we remember it all at the end of the weekend.
Feel free to contact me if you want to talk about getting sober.
Nicole,
When you said an alcoholic is simply someone who craves another drink after they start, that kinda hit home pretty hard. You are of course 100% right.
All,
I have already posted my story in this thread. I exhibit all the same symptoms, reactions and thoughts and destructive relationship with alcohol as you all. I love coming back here and reading more people’s stories because I believe binge drinking is a unique form of alcoholism with its own unique set of problems.
I recently quit drinking cold turkey for 4 months and then fell for the moderation lie 2 weeks ago and binge drank on 3 separate occasions. I was devastated that I gave in to this horrible cycle again but a few weeks later now and I feel like I am back on the road to recovery again.
The hardest part though are these recurring thoughts that life can’t be fun without alcohol. I want nothing more than to rid myself of this horrible poison which has affected my life negatively for a decade now. But still, every once in awhile, especially when I am going out to some party or something, I have this overwhelming feeling that quitting drinking is wrong. Just try it again this one last time, live a little, have some fun etc. Sigh, I am just another sufferer of this disease. It is not easy. I feel for you all. Cheers.
Having been a binge drinker myself for many years now,in fact 23 I always was perplexed as to why the binge drinking behaviour would continue to be repeated despite the consequences and repercussions,this sort of loop and repetitive behaviour.
What I have come to realise is that it is addiction but also there is an underlying notion of an individual who does binge drink to conquer the issue and become a master over it.Unfortunately the binge drinker will attempt to achieve this by still consuming the substance and that in itself is the trap…the determination to control something which regrettably is already out of control because of an apparent addiction.
The only way to control addiction is to totally abstain.It is the only stable datum.
In addition, individuals do not make theselves binge drinkers neither are they born so.A binge drinker is created not by what that individual has done but by what has been done to that individual.As any individual drinks alcohol(a drug) it restimulates their bank,an area of mental aberration and demons if you like and this in turn opens a whole box of uglies hence people’s strange behaviour when high, or drunk.
The mistake folks make is seeing one generation of a family with substance abuse problems and then the next following generation with the same issues and assuming it is a genetic link where it is not,if there is any link it is on body cellular level more likely and this in turn is brought on by contagion of aberration.
I read all of your blurbs, I have come to the conclusion that I must be an alcoholic even though I only do binge drinking, simple because I feel so badly, do down on myself, wanting to hide, wanting to sleep for the next day or so, at least until the bad feelings are gone, then, in a while (like a week or so) I give intot he demon alcohol once again, it is now a pattern with me, where do I go for help with this problem, besides AA.
Hi Rochelle, I used to have the same stigma to AA (I am the partner of an alcoholic) I used to think the people who went there were the people who couldnt get through a day without alcohol, but you have to remember that there are many types of alcoholism, binge drinking is one of the types and, like any form, you need to get help. If you really want to avoid the AA, there are brilliant alcohol counsellers out there, but they are costly. Also, there is a good book dedicated to binge drinking and cutting down called Controlling your drinking by William R Miller, hypnosis is another alternative, there are some good MP3′s you can download for quite cheap. Small steps, small goals, one day at a time. Good luck.
Is binge drinking a form of alcoholism? I believe so but I’m starting to doubt it. My boyfriend binges once or twice a week at the weekend.. We don’t go out much as we cant afford it, but every weekend, he will buy 8x330ml bottles of beer and drink them, sometimes on his own if I go to bed. When I question it, he calls me a prude, that I don’t like drink, that I’ve changed, that he can handle his drink more than me (sizewise) I love a drink, but a social drink, not sloppy, slurry rubbish. The type that is the result of a whole bottle of wine and beers all by himself. Not drinking for the sake of it. Last weekend, he had 5 bottles of beer and a bottle of wine and sat up on his own till half 2 putting weird posts on facebook.
Over the years, Ive bought hypnosis cds and books to try to help him, but nothing sticks. Last weekend I told him that if he didn’t change his drinking, I couldn’t see a future together. That was the night he drank the beer and wine and the next day (hungover and remorseful as usual) he said he did drink too much, that I was right, he needed to go talk to someone, he was going for a liver check-up and was going to phone the next day. He never phoned and tonight, one week later, he said ‘I might get a bottle of wine tonight, I love the wine’ and I just thought what the hell am I doing. I asked why the change from last week and he said he thinks I should drop it. So I said I think I should drop you and he stormed off to get the alcohol and drink it in his mam’s house. I don’t feel sad, I haven’t cried tonight, I just feel numb, sick of the same pattern of behaviour. He wont change if I nag him, he wont change if I don’t, so I guess I have no choice but to leave. Maybe I’m being harsh, maybe I’m over-reacting, but in my heart and soul I don’t think I am. I’m 30 and we talk about having a family, but Im starting to question what sort of family life we could have together with this problem.
Help.
Sarah, I’m so sorry to hear that you are going through this with your boyfriend. You are not being harsh or over-reacting by saying that you have to leave him. You can’t change him, and it sounds like you know that, even though you really want to change him. He has to hit his own personal “bottom” first before he will change. That might happen tomorrow or 10 years from now, and there’s no way to tell just how far he will go before he realizes he can’t go on living that way anymore. Until then, the cycle of him getting drunk and then being remorseful the next day and telling you he’s going to do something about his problem will continue. He genuinely means it when he says he wants to do something about the problem. But, alcoholics have very short term memories when it comes to how they felt after a rough night of drinking. A few days later, it doesn’t seem like it was so bad, and they start getting excited to drink again. I know this because I am a recovering alcoholic. And, sorry to say, but your boyfriend’s drinking behavior sounds worse than mine was.
Picture him acting the same way he is acting now, only 4 years from now when you are married with a child. It’s probably very painful or nearly impossible to think about, but it is the truth. Please walk away before that picture becomes your reality.
Hi Aisling, thanks for replying. I have read and re-read your post and you’re right about the short-term memory when it comes to alcohol, its like ‘this time will be different, I wont get as drunk’ but it always ends up the same. I think I have no other choice. I have looked around to rent a room, it means giving up my beautiful apartment and renting it out, but at least i can sleep soundly without wondering what state he is getting into in the sitting room… I think I have given all the chances I can, thanks a million & you should be so proud of yourself. Sarah
Hi Sarah,
You sound like you are in exactly the same situation as me, and I’m online searching to see if my fiance does have a problem or not. The only difference is I am engaged due to get married next year and I have a 2 year old son.
My fiance drank 3 bottles of wine last night by himself and I heard him going to bed (in the spare room) just as me and my child were getting up. He was definately still up at 4am as woke me playing music and what a state – it disgusts me. Funnily enough he was also posting things on FB at 4am but in the morning I told him to remove comments on his page as I don’t want my sister knowing he was up at that time as she has asked me if I am sure he is right for me due to excessive drinking when we went on holiday.
Tonight he only has two bottles of wine, but also a couple of beers. He doesn’t drink during the week normally, although he did actually have a bottle of wine to himsef on Thursday.
Also like you, I have tried speaking to my fiance and he promises me he will stop or cut down and he normally does for a while bt it seems to be a weekend occurence again, which kinda stops us doing family things together as he ha a hangover or is still sleeping.
I guess what I am trying to say is think about it very hard before you have children with this man. I wish I had! I would never regret having a child but I do wish my weekends were happier and I didn’t have to worry abou his drinking.
I am sure we both deserve better! Good luck with your decision.
XX
The thing is we used to get bery drunk together, so I guess I have always known what he is like but when I got pregnant I changed and only have a couple of glasses of wine on a weekend and go out one every few months.
Hi and thank you so much for taking the time to reply, it means so much, you dont know. I’m sitting here bawling crying I just feel so lonely, I’m too embarressed to tell my family and have only told one close friend. Im really sorry that you’re going through all this with a young child, I can’t imagine how hard it is for you. I know what you mean about the facebook comments, its like a giveaway that all is not right, you must be like me and try to hide it and pretend everything is ok. I dread holidays now, i dread if he has a bad day at work, a good day at work, birthdays. You’re right, all the good things in life are dampened because our partners have a drink problem. We do deserve better & I think we need to remember that happiness comes first, there are always other options, even though they are difficult and will be painful, maybe in the long term, it is for the greater good. thank you so much. I hope you are ok. Sarah
GumboC’s post probably doesnt apply to you. You seem to be more concerned about software compatibility;))