Is Your Spouse an Alcoholic or a Heavy Drinker?

What's the difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic? Yes, there's definitely a difference, but it's not as much difference as you might think. In fact, the only difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic is honestly just a few years and sometimes months. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth. You are watching the YouTube channel put the Shovel Down. This channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction and alcoholism so that you can stay five steps ahead of it, so you can beat alcoholism or addiction and put it behind you for good. I've been helping people and families overcome these problems for more than 20 years now. And my goal is to help people catch this problem sooner so they can solve this problem before they lose everything. And today's video is exactly for that purpose. So let's dive into what is a heavy drinker, what is an alcohol alcoholic? And how does one get from one stage to the next? The key word there is stages. Alcoholism isn't a real clinical term. It's actually called alcohol use disorder. It's fancy. It's three words instead of one. So I usually just call it alcoholism because it's faster and most people have an idea in their mind about what that means. So alcoholism, it's not like you either are or you're not if you drink alcohol. There's really just a continuum, right? From non problematic drinking to extremely problematic drinking. Instead of trying to say either I'm an alcoholic or I'm not an alcoholic, it's more like where am I at on this continuum or this, it's more like where am I at in the process? Most people that would consider themselves heavy drinkers maybe even call themselves problematic drinkers, they don't consider themselves alcoholic usually because they feel like they can stop if they wanted to stop. A lot of times people that have what I would call an earlier stage of alcoholism, like alcoholism stage three is maybe what you might call heavy drinker or problematic drinker. And what that usually entails is it's not like they have to drink every day, but it's more like has a lot of difficulty stopping once you start. And typically this involves a lot of like, promises to yourself of saying, I'm only going to have, you know, three, four, five, whatever it is, and then you exceed your limit or you promise yourself that the bad thing isn't going to happen this time. Like you're not going to drunk dial your ex, like you're not going to forget your kids ball game, like you're not going to say the really terrible, mean things to your spouse, like, you're not going to get in a fight this time, you're not going to get in your car and drive off. But time after time, it just keeps happening. I'm not saying it happens every time. I'm just saying it does keep happening regularly enough that it's causing you problems. A big indicator that you could be in this stage three, alcoholism, probably them, alcoholic drinker kind of thing, is that the people in your life, the ones that, like, live with you or that are really close to you, are upset with you, and they're trying to talk to you about your drinking, which I know you totally hate, and it feels controlling and it feels negative and critical, and who wants to talk about that? I totally get it. But if the people that are closest to you are frustrated with you about your drinking and you've made promises to them and you're dodging the questions, I really don't want you to ignore that sign. Don't be one of these people who say, well, I'm not really an alcoholic. I just like to drink. I just drink too much sometimes. Because if this problem continues and you don't deal with it and you don't address it, guess what happens. It moves on and it progresses until you get into stage four, alcoholism, which is probably what most people have in their mind when they think about what is a real alcoholic. And that typically involves a person that either needs to drink every day or they have the shakes if they don't drink, or they're drinking in the morning or, you know, they don't work, their family's left them, they've lost everything. And yes, it is all true. That is definitely an alcoholic. But the truth of it is is that long before you get to that stage, you're an alcoholic. In fact, you kind of have to be an alcoholic to let things get to the point that all that bad stuff happens to you. You kind of have to be an alcoholic long before the point that you have to drink every day, because that's what's causing you to keep going back and drinking regularly enough and often enough to get your body physically dependent. So if I could get one message out there in the universe, it is, do not wait until you absolutely cannot stop. Do not wait until you hit bottom. Don't wait until you lose everything. You can solve this problem. It's actually very solvable. Don't believe all those, like, statistics and crap people put out there and say, you know, people, 10% don't beat addiction, blah, blah, blah. The thing of it is, those statistics is, yes, most people don't beat addiction the first time. Okay? So when you look at those numbers, it's like for the first time, everyone tries, yeah, maybe 10% beat it the first time. In fact, I don't even think that's true. It's probably less than that. Most people, it takes a few times. But in the end, if you want to solve this problem, it's totally solvable. And I see people get better from it every day. And the sooner they intervene in the process, the easier it is. The better chances they have, the less problems they have to fix. You know, it's like this channel is actually called put the shovel down. Because it's about, you hit your bottom when you put the shovel down. You don't have to keep waiting until you lose everything. You don't have to wait until that option is taken away from you. You can decide to stop. All you have to do is see the writing on the wall. If you are someone who has trouble stopping once you start with, bad stuff keeps happening to you. Your family's upset with you. You have a lot of regret, a lot of remorse, a lot of shame, a lot of embarrassment. There's been a lot of broken promises to yourself and to other people. Please do not ignore those signs. You are definitely there. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, yeah, Amber, but the idea of living life without drinking sounds horrible, But I want to let you in on a little secret. The reason it sounds horrible is because you've been drinking so regularly that your brain actually needs the alcohol to experience jo and happiness and pleasure. But if you stop drinking and it takes a few weeks, okay, it's not immediate, but once you stop drinking, your brain chemicals begin to normalize and you actually feel about 3,000 times better. Your skin looks better, your body feels healthier, and you will actually get, like, motivation and desire back. And I know you don't believe me, but you will start to enjoy regular life stuff again. And once you get three months out from this thing, six months out from this thing, you are going to look back on yourself and you're going to think, think, oh, my gosh, how did I function like that? So long? I was so miserable. Why did I let that go on so long? You are going to look back at all your buddies and all the other people that are still living that way, and you're going to think, I feel sorry for those people because I know they are miserable and they are stuck. You're going to feel like you have this, like, secret gift that the universe gave you that other people don't have. And the truth of it is. And actually that's a kind of. And actually that's kind of true. Because problematic drinking is so pervasive. In fact, not only is it acceptable, but it's encouraged and validated. And we ag on our drinking buddies and we make it funny and we make it okay to do stupid things and to mess up and to feel like crap every day. It's like a joke. But you definitely cannot be living your best life and be in that problematic drinking stage. And if that's not enough to convince you, please hear me when I say if you do not address it, you will move into stage four. It doesn't plateau, it doesn't stop. Alcohol use disorder is something that, when not addressed, always progresses. And I told you in the beginning of this video, I was going to tell you. How do you get from one stage to the next? Typically, not always, but typically what happens is you stay in that stage three a lot of times for years. You go through a lot of bargaining. You promise you're going to cut it back, you cut it back, but then you fall back. You take time off, but then you fall back, back and forth, off and on, off and on, until event something in your life breaks. Like you lose the job. Like you have an injury and you have to go out for medical leave. Like your spouse finally gets fed up and they leave you. Whatever has been holding that dam in place that makes you sort of stay in that functional category. Like, you have to keep it better. You have to keep the drinking somewhat cut back so you can function. If whatever that thing is goes away, then you don't have anything there to keep you solid in that stage three anymore. And the drinking creeps in more frequently earlier and earlier and earlier in the day. And that is how people move from stage three to stage four. It happens like when people retire another time when it happened like big time is during COVID yet a lot of people that were like heavy drinkers already, problematic drinkers. Stage three, once Covid happened and everyone was working from home, the drinking escalated. They didn't have to wait till the end of the day. They're drinking, you know, at lunchtime and during the zoom calls, and they could get away with it. A lot of people shifted from heavy drinker to stage four alcoholism during that point because that thing that kind of blocked you and forced you to keep some control over it was removed. Don't wait until that happens. To you. You don't have to go through all of that suffering. You can decide, hey, this just doesn't work for me anymore. It makes me feel like crap, makes people around me upset with me and innocent and basically just deep downside, you know, you're not being your best self. Now, if you really want to know the exact criteria for alcohol use disorder, and you want to decide if you have it or your loved one has it, and exactly how severe it is, then I want you to watch this video next where I go through the actual real life clinical criteria for alcohol use disorder and you can count them up on your fingers and decide for yourself where you're at in that continuum. I'll link that video right up here so you can watch it next.