What type of Drinker are you?
The Department of Health has released research where they have identified nine different types of person who drinks alcohol to excess (their definition of excess being double the recommended weekly amount or more).
It might be useful to see if you can recognise which type you are. The types they defined are -
- Depressed drinker
- De-stress drinker
- Re-bonding drinker
- Conformist drinker
- Community drinker
- Boredom drinker
- Macho drinker
- Hedonistic drinker
- Borderline dependent
It’s a fairly comprehensive list, but if you’re not sure which category you might fit into, have a look at the list of criteria for each type of drinker on the BBC
Of course it would seem to suggest that people who drink fall into one type or another, whereas experience would suggest that the same person could be defined under many of the categories, depending on what is going on for them that day.
I’m been drinking two glasses of wine each evening for a number of years. I water the wine down approx. 50/50 in an attempt to reduce my actual intake. The drinking tends to make me a bit slow, and non-responsive to my family, and I have also stopped evening sport classes. Every now and then, looking over the last few years it seems to be something like each 6 months, I drink wildly to excess and become quite aggressive. The aggression usually starts with some kind of argument/disagreement and my temper flares up, and I start to destroy objects around about. I have never become physically aggressive with other people, although I feel I have been very lucky in this respect because it seems I get blackouts occassionally, and I don’t recall everything I have done while quite so drunk. The thought of hurting innocent people while I’m in this state terrifies me. I think I need to stop drinking altogether, so it becomes impossible to drink too much at some arbitrary time in the future.
I’ve stopped smoking cold turkey some twenty odd years ago, and guess I have to do the same with drink, but my mind control does not seem to be what it was back then. I seem to be able to stop for a few days, and then “just the one”, then, after a few more days, “two is only one more than the one”… If anyone here has some hints on this score, I’d welcome them. Thanks.