Is labeling yourself an addict or alcoholic harmful or helpful?

Now, if you've ever been to any kind of 12 step meeting, then you've probably noticed that before anyone speaks or says anything in one of these meetings, they introduce themselves with their name and then they add addict or alcoholic on the end of it. So for example, you would say, hi, I'm Amber, I'm an alcoholic. And then you would say whatever it is you wanted to say in the meeting. Have you ever wondered why people say that and reinforce that over and over? Have you ever wondered to yourself, is that even helpful or does that do more harm than good? That's what we're going to talk about in today's video video. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel Down. I'm Amber Hollingsworth and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can get your life and your family back on track. Alright, back to our topic. Is it helpful to use the terms addict and alcoholic? Now, there's a big push these days that talk about destigmatizing addiction, which I think is great. But as part of that push, there are a lot of people out there who really resist the words addict and alcoholic. And I can see pros and cons on either side of that dilemma. You see many people have in their mind some kind of image of what an addict or an alcoholic is. And most people that have that image see the most severest form of that when they think of the terms. And so it's really hard to identify yourself as that if maybe you aren't to that stage of substance use problem. So for example, every time you think of an alcoholic, you think about someone living under a bridge with a brown paper bag, then it's going to be hard to identify yourself as an alcoholic. If you go to work every day and you have a good job or you support your family. So for that reason, a lot of people, because they can't come to terms with that, because their life, what they know about themselves and their life doesn't fit that situation. It's just hard to grab onto that diagnosis. It's not really a diagnosis because officially it's called alcohol use disorder, but that label or identification. So in some ways the title can be a little bit harmful, but in other ways the title is actually really helpful. So let's take a look at the other side of that argument. You see, most of us, when we think about addict or alcoholic, we think about those terms. There's kind of an automatic assumption that goes with that that says if you're an addict or an alcoholic, you can't control your substance use. When you decide that you take on that label, there's this other thing that comes with it, which is you acknowledging that you can't control it anymore. And I think that that is beneficial thing that comes along with these labels. Because you see, if you're identifying yourself as a problem drinker, then you're probably thinking, well, I just need to get it under control or cut it back. And as you're watching this video right now, you're thinking, yes, Amber, that is exactly it. Well, the bad news is that probably won't work for you if you are already to the moderate to severe levels of alcohol use disorder. If you want to know where you're at on that continuum, check out this video and you can actually assess yourself and figure that out. Because once you get to a certain level of problem with alcoholism or alcohol use disorder, or addiction, or substance use disorder, whatever you want to call it, you really aren't going to be able to manage it consistently. You might manage it sometimes. There may be times when you can stop for short periods of time, but overall, the problem is going to keep growing and you're going to keep having more and more and more life problems associated with the addiction. Now, if you're struggling with thinking, okay, I'm just not that severe, then you can think about it as if I am somewhere on the continuum of problematic substance use. Honestly, in the end, it doesn't matter to me what you call it. Whatever you want to call it or not call it, is completely fine. The thing that matters to me is that you wrap your head around the fact that trying to control that substance use with all of those things that you've been trying before just isn't going to work. And if you cannot call it alcoholism and you cannot call it addiction, but you can understand that truth, then you're fine. Because the reason for this constant identification of addict or alcoholic in meetings over and over and over again, it really is because it's a reminder that you can't manage the substance. So whatever you have to do to get that into your noggin, that's what you need to do. It's not about the label. It's about understanding the problem. Now, to help you get an even better understanding of it, I want you to watch this video next because it's going to explain a lot more about the behind the scenes of what we just talked about.