Problem Drinker vs. Alcoholic

What's the difference between a problem drinker and a real alcoholic? That's what we're going to talk about in today's live video. And I'll tell you, the inspiration for this video is just this week alone, I've had, like five different people that I've talked to that are struggling with this, either for themselves or for a loved one. This idea of problem drinking and. Or, you know, is it problem drinking or is it something bigger than that? And it just made me realize how many people are out there struggling with, trying to figure out, you know, what is exactly going on and what needs to happen for it to get better. So for those of you who are new here, 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, your family back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live. Okay, so back to our topic. What's the difference between a problem drinker and alcoholic? Okay, wait, I'm gonna stop you one more second. Those of you who are watching, as a family member, I am so glad you're here because you're gonna learn a lot and it's gonna be super helpful for you. However, I know sometimes when I do videos that talk about something and you really want your loved one to know it, that you'll send them this video. And hey, I love it when you guys share my videos. But don't ever send this video or one of my other videos as a weapon because it's going to come across to your loved one as passive aggressive or in your face or I told you so. And it's just not helpful to do that. And it's going to get you the opposite reaction of what you want. You're just going to get more walls built up between you and your loved one. So definitely share the video, share it on your Facebook, share it on your social media, and if you have someone in your life, you know, who would like the video, definitely share it with them. But don't do it as a weapon, because I know you guys do that a lot because I know you want them to know. But. But remember, you know, you're trying to get the wall down, all right, by the topic. So the difference between a problem drinker and a, you know, like, full out alcoholic is this. A problem drinker is one stage away from being a full alcoholic. Is that surprising to you? Because most people think either you're alcoholic or you're not, but that's not really the way that it works, if you want to think about, you know, the clinical term for it, is alcohol use disorder. That's professionally how I'm supposed to say it. So if you want to know whether or not you have that, it's really on a continuum. It's not so much, am I this or am I not this? It's where am I at on the continuum? How many symptoms of the problem do I have? How severe is it? How much is it impacting my life? And people who are problematic drinkers who continue to drink usually always move over into the category of alcohol use disorder that most of us think about when we think about an alcohol problem. People that are in the problem drinking category, sometimes they call themselves, like, functional alcoholics or something like that. They feel like they're never going to let it get to that point, but they do. And I'm going to tell you exactly how that happens. And I'm going to explain to you maybe what. What are the stages in this process so you can figure out where you are or your loved one is and what to do about it if you find yourself in one of these later down here stages. So I like to think about addiction or alcoholism in four stages. The first one, I'm going to go over the first two really quick because they're not as important as the last two. The first one is experimentation. Now, anybody who's ever done any kind of drugs or drank alcohol has went through experimentation stages. So just because you have that stage doesn't indicate a problem. It's just the first step in the process. The next step in the process is heavier use. So it starts to happen more frequently in your life. It starts to happen. You start using more. People might know you as like the party guy or the fun girl or, you know, the life of the party or whatever. You start to use enough so that people almost connect that to you. If you use publicly or socially. Sometimes people never even use socially, so you might not get that connection. Now, stage three is where I really want you guys to start paying attention. Stage 3. What starts to happen in 3 is problems start to happen, consequences start to happen. So usually the way this happens is somebody with a drinking problem, it's not so much that they drink every day. A lot of people in stage three don't drink every day. It's more that when they start drinking, they have trouble, stop drinking. So it looks like binge drinking more than in your mind, what you would think about what alcoholism would look like. We're gonna get to that in Just a second. But it's more like I have trouble stopping once I start. And when that happens, when I sort of can't seem to stop, other bad stuff happens, right? Other consequences like getting a dui, getting my husband really mad at me, get my girlfriend really mad at me, forgetting to do something really important and my kid is mad at me drinking so much that I feel super terrible and don't even get up and go to an important work function the next day. It's like things start to fall between the cracks and problems begin to trickle in because of the alcohol use. Now the psychological part is always the most important. So let's talk about that. When those problems start to trickle in, at first it's like, man, I can't believe I did that. Like, so embarrassing, you know? And you think, okay, I'm not gonna do that again. Well, you may do okay with that for a while and not happen again. And then it's gonna happen again, something else is going to happen. And then you're going to get into what I call the bargaining phase of this whole problem. So one of those episodes, you're going to wake up the next day, you're going to think, I can't believe I did that. I'm never going to do that again. Like, that was terrible. So from now on, I'm only going to do X. That could look like, from now on I'm only going to drink beer and not liquor. From now on, I'm only going to drink wine and not be here. From now on, I'm only going to drink on the weekends. From now on, I'm not going to drink more than four drinks in one sitting. From now on, I'm only going to drink social occasions, just all of these different ways that we try to manage it. It's like, it's kind of like it's the way that we're trying to cut it back and get it into control. And if you are in this stage 3 alcohol use disorder, this problematic drinking phase, you may be successful with your cutting back strategies occasionally, but you won't have consistent progress with that. So it's like, okay, most of the time when I drink, nothing really bad happens. But occasionally when I drink, I keep running into the wall, bad stuff keeps happening. And the reason is because alcohol turns off your filter. So you're literally turning off the part of your brain that can help you make the decision to stop or slow down. So there are some real biological reasons why that happens. It's not because you intend for it to. In Fact that's the whole criter is that you don't intend for that to happen, but it just keeps happening. Now you keep trying to set the lines, you start making promises to yourself. You start making promises to your loved one or to your work or whatever, and those promises keep getting broken here and there. Eventually you move up into sort of stage, what I'm going to call it, you know, like 3.6 or something like that, which is where you kind of figured out that if you start drinking, it's probably not going to be good. So you start trying to not drink very often. But you know that in the times when you drink, it's just going to be like the dam is going to break, it's going to be terrible. You are losing, when you get to that point, you're definitely losing more and more control. You're having more and more powerlessness. All these bad things that are happening in this stage is what is referred to if you go to like 12 step video, they're going to call this unmanageability. It's causing bad stuff in your life right now. Again, this person can be very functional, they can be very successful. They don't drink every day, but it's causing problems. Now most of the people that I see that drink actually fall into this category and they don't consider themselves to be alcoholic. Now that's not an official word, but everyone knows what that word means or everyone has an idea what that word means. I guess I should say people don't, they don't think that they're alcoholic. But the truth of it is is that that is alcoholism. Because if I gave you the criteria for alcoholism, there are 11 of them, which there's a link in the description that you can download them if you want to see them for yourself. The way that it works is if you have two to three of them, you have a mild alcohol use disorder. If you have three or four of them, you have a moderate alcohol use disorder. If you have like, I guess like 5 or above or 6 or above, can't remember for sure, but it says it on the list, then you have a severe alcohol use disorder. People in that stage three usually get the, the moderate, the high moderate or the severe. So you are in fact having an alcohol problem, whatever you want to call it, if you don't want to call it alcoholism, that's fine. But there's not much difference other than maybe a year or two between problem drinker and what you and your mom probably think of as like full out alcoholic. What Most people think of, when they think of that, they think of someone that has to drink. And what you're really thinking of when you have that image is you're thinking of someone that's chemically dependent. So this person who's in this stage four, four of an alcohol use disorder drinks every day, or maybe like almost every day, but pretty much every day and they're dependent on it. So if they don't drink, they feel crappy. And the longer this goes on, the more and more and more dependent that they get on the substance and they really have a hard time stopping. Now does that mean that they wake up in the morning drinking? No, that happens. You know, it's somewhere in that stage four process. You can definitely get there. But it may be that you start drinking every day after work, but you drink every day. And if you don't, it's not okay. More in that stage four. Now let's talk about what gets someone from stage three to stage four. If you just keep going down the path, you're going to get there. But I'm going to tell you a couple of things that really escalate the process. This is what happens to most people I see. The problematic drinking continues and you start burning bridges, right? So your, your husband or your wife or your girlfriend or whoever, your family member, they get really angry with you and they break up with you, or they leave you or your kids say, you know what, I don't want to talk to you anymore. As long as you're drinking, I don't want to deal with that. Or you lose your. Or maybe you're in school, maybe you're in college and you flunk out of your classes and now you're out of college. Those are typically the things, the relationships, the school, the work that are kind of holding the dam in place. So these are the things that kind of make you have to function on a day to day basis and not drink as regularly as a stage four. Eventually, when these problems keep happening, you're going to burn those bridges. And when you do, you're gonna get what I call the efforts. You're gonna be so upset with yourself, you're gonna be so angry, you're gonna feel so terrible that you're gonna just start drinking to medicate that bad feeling that you have. And eventually that drinking just kind of continues from one day to the next. So it's like eventually the binge just doesn't stop. It just rolls over to the next and rolls over to the next. Another thing that can get people from stage three to stage four is if you lose your job, like, you get fired, or even if you get, like, retired or if you go out on a disability, because maybe it's like, I have to go into work every day, so I have to get together enough to function and go to work, but if I don't have to do that anymore, that's when the problem can come into place. And that's a huge piece of why you're seeing a lot of people falling apart during COVID right? Because two reasons. One, people that are already in recovery, they can't get to their meetings or their support. It's not quite the same online. And two, whereas maybe it's like, I used to have to get up and go to work. Now I don't. So the drinking starts to sort of move back earlier in the day and earlier in the day and earlier in the day until eventually it just gets so close together. Now you move into alcohol dependence. When you're in alcohol dependence, you are probably struggling with some pretty serious depression, some pretty serious anxiety. And at the end stage of it, you may feel even passively suicidal or even actively suicidal. I see a lot of people get to the point where it's not so much that they're planning to harm themselves, but they're not. They don't really care if something bad happens to them. So it's kind of like if I don't wake up tomorrow, whatever. And when a person is to that point, they just start to live very recklessly because they just don't care anymore. And they're so stuck in this horrible cycle of alcoholism, and they just can't get out of it, and it is a terrible place to be now. The hardest part for me about all this is typically I see people that are in that Stage 3 or Stage 3.5 or something like that, and they don't see themselves as alcoholic, so they continue to try to want to manage it. And I'm telling you it doesn't work. Telling you that on this video, when you're my. Okay, you can try it. I let them all try it because kind of can't tell someone that. But never works. It never works. And it's painful because it's kind of going along the path. They, you know, burn more bridges and lose more important things. And it's painful for me to watch sometimes, even though I've seen it so many times. A lot of times know people don't like the word alcoholic and addict. And I get a lot of grief because I use those Words. But I think it's important for you to understand. If you think, oh, I'm just a problem drinker, you may want to wrap your head around, no, I'm alcoholic. I'm just stage three. If I don't do something about it, I'm going to be stage four. This is a problem that doesn't get better. It doesn't stabilize. It either stops or it progresses. There's no, okay, I'm at this point and just hang. It doesn't work like that. It's. It's a problem that constantly progresses because you build more tolerance and more monster mouths and more bad things happen. And then you hate yourself more and you feel more depressed and more anxious because the chemicals. It's just a never ending, terrible cycle. There's a million reasons for that. But it doesn't just hang. It's going in this direction or it's stopping. And I like to use the word alcoholic narc, because you know why people really resist it? People say I resist the word because it's got so much stigma. Okay, yeah, like there's probably a piece of that in the puzzle. But you know why people really resist the word? People really resist the word because they know if they're that, that means they have to stop completely. That's the truth of it. So it's like, I won't call myself alcoholic because if I'm alcoholic, that means I can't use alcohol successfully at all. If I call myself a problem drinker, I just need to do better. I just need to be on better behavior. But really, you are on the alcoholism continuum. You are a step away. You are five minutes away from being down here. And all it's going to take is burning one more bridge. You know all it's going to take, and you don't ever know what's going to happen. It's like Russian roulette. And it's. You know, I say this sometimes, people in my office, I'll say, lynn, if you came in to the doctor's office and a doctor told you you had stage three cancer, you wouldn't be like, I don't have cancer. I'm cool. It's all good. You'd be like, oh my gosh, I have cancer. What am I supposed to do? And you do single thing that doctor told you to do, whatever you had to do. But if you come in and you see me and I say, you have stage three alcoholism, you know what I'm telling you? I'm telling you you have stage three cancer because alcoholism is A cancer, it will ruin your life, it will destroy your relationships, and not only would it kill you, but it'll just take everything from you in the process. It's terrible. It's not a fun way to live. Anyone that thinks all these alcoholics, they're out there, they're just having fun, they don't care about anybody, that's not the case. It's miserable. It's horrible. You feel totally stuck, totally held hostage. You don't even have the ability to experience joy from other things in your life anymore. And you're just stuck. It's not fine. And so if you are struggling with problem drinking, the faster you can wrap your head around that you actually have alcoholism. And maybe you're not extreme down here. You actually, when you're in stage three, you can stop. You could stop if you want. It's just about getting yourself to realize that you need to stop. And you can spend years and years and years of bargaining, but as you do that, you're damaging your relationships, you're damaging your self esteem, you're damaging your finances, and yeah, your relationships and your self esteem, your finances, they can take some. Eventually you get to the end of the rope. And so that's why this channel is called Put the Shovel Down. The saying is, you hit your bottom when you put the shovel down. Because in my mind, you don't have to go all the way down here to stage four and lose everything. All you have to do is realize that you're going to. Now, if you are in stage four and you're watching this and you're really stuck and you're suffering and you're like, I want to stop, but I don't know if I can stop physically. Alcohol is one of those things that if, if you are really alcohol dependent and you try to stop, it can be a little bit dangerous. Not a little bit. It can be very dangerous because it can kill you. So if you're in stage four and you want to stop, the first thing you got to do is figure out, can I safely. And if you're wondering about that, you should definitely talk with your doctor about that. It's something that requires medical supervision. Now, if you want to know and you're. And you're just, you're like, I'm not gonna talk about it, but I want to know what's going on. I put a link in the description so you can download alcohol withdrawal assessment. It's. It's an alcohol withdrawal assessment. It's like a formal one that clinicians use. Like if you were to go into a hospital or something, they would use it. And I'm not giving that to you to take the place of seeing the doctor. I'm giving that to you so that you can take a look at it. And if you're scoring high on that, you can be like, okay, yeah, I really do need to see the doctor to help you understand when you might be in danger and when you really do need some help to medically come off alcohol. And what that means is they give you some medicine and they help you taper down every day so that it's not dangerous. Because with alcohol, when you stop, you're at risk for having a seizure. You're at risk for having hallucinations, delusions, blood pressure problems, all kind of bad things. It's no good. And so does anyone want to go to detox? No. I try to keep all my patients out of detox if at all possible, but sometimes it's necessary to do it safely. All of you out there, who are these stage three drinkers? Hear me when I say you are subject to getting down there. And no one ever thinks that that will be them. No one ever thinks that they're going to be that person that loses everything. But when you're in stage three, you are doing it. You know how you know you're doing it? Because bad things keep happening to you, and you keep playing with fire over and over and over again, and you keep bargaining with it, and you're just not being honest with yourself. The good news is this. Once you finally wrap your head around this, I promise you, it is much easier to not drink at all than to manage that drinking. So what you've been trying to do for so long is much more difficult than it is if you just say, okay, I'm done with this. Now, it may be more difficult to do that the first week or two, but ultimately that's a lot easier. You're making yourself miserable, constantly trying to contain it. I know, because you're waking up every day and you're saying, okay, today's a new day, or tomorrow. I'm not going to do that. And you make these little promises and you only buy so much alcohol at the store, and you say, okay, this is it. I'm not going to drink more than the six pack. I'm buying the six pack and bring it home. That's all I have. It's all I can drink. And then what happens? You drink it, you get back in your car and you go back to the store and buy some More, right, because you're already intoxicated. Now, not only did you break your rule, but now you're having to drive out of the store intoxicated or you're buying those little mini bottles and you're trying to control your drinking that way and you think to yourself, okay, I'm not going to drink more than this. But what happens, you do and you end up going back and getting more. If you can be honest with yourself, you can get recovery. That is really all that you need. If you're connecting to what I'm saying here, either for yourself or for a loved one, give this video a like and I'll know that I am at least headed in the right direction. And while you do that, I'm going to take a look at all the people who are here joining us live and take some of your questions and comments. If you're not live and you're watching on the replay, we're glad you're here too. And if you want to join us live, we are live every Thursday at 1pm Eastern. Illness is that alcoholic denial is different than other drug denial. Most people have a drug problem. They really know they have a drug problem. They'll deny it to you. Now, they may minimize themselves and say it's not as bad as it is a little bit, but they know people that are alcoholic when they're in that stage three, the denial is different. You know why? Because they don't remember the bad things that happen and all they see is they just frustrated because they feel like everyone around them is overreacting. Tony says. So when they continue with this way of living and they have no job, how could you get them to go to a meeting? That is a really good question, Tony. Any of the stuff that I teach on my videos about how to motivate someone to take steps towards recovery, any of that stuff kind of works. I have a whole playlist on it and I'll try to put it up here for you if anybody wants to look at it. But even if it's not, they don't want to go to a 12 step meeting. It's like, what can I get them to that they will connect to? You know, how do I get them to watch or how do I get them to listen to a good podcast? How do I get them to read a book that might help them? How do I get them to talk to a counselor, recovery coach? You know, think about first thing about what's the thing you think they're most likely to grab onto and aim for that first meetings is kind of the first thing everybody wants to take a person to. But to be honest with you, meetings are very intimidating place to start. So sometimes you kind of have to start in another place and work your way up to that. Sandy oh, interesting comment. Burning bridges in the rationalization of one's own behavior, yet blaming it on the other is alcoholic or a problem drinker? Yes, you are right. Jameson. What if you drink three to four glasses of wine several days a week but haven't ever had anything bad happen? I've always had a high tolerance, even when I first started drinking. That's a good question, and I get that one a lot. Alcohol use disorder doesn't have anything to do with how much or how frequently you drink. In fact, in the, in the criteria for it, it doesn't mention anything in there about how much what you drink, how much you drink, how many days a week you drink. It's not in there at all. And all the alone criteria, it's not listed. Alcohol use disorder is based on the problems that it's causing in your life. Now, some of those problems can be a little harder to see. Like if it's causing you blood pressure problems, you and your doctor might know it, but you might be telling yourself it's not coming from the drinking. If it's causing you to feel physically bad, if it's causing you to be malnourished, a lot of people who drink a lot don't eat because it interferes with the alcohol absorption. So they get pretty malnourished. Some of those problems are a little. Especially if you're not married or living with someone else and someone else isn't there, sort of seeing it and standing on your case, it may be harder to spot. But just because you're drinking four glasses of wine a night does not make it an alcohol use disorder. Great question. Forcing them for their health, maybe not always effective. Or waiting for a miracle that they decide to get help. Most difficult part, think that there's a middle ground in between the forcing and the waiting. I like to call it influencing. There's some things you can do to influence them along the way. Definitely check out the playlist on motivating someone to take steps toward recovery. How many of you are watching this? Either have experienced these stages for yourself or have watched someone, a friend, a family member, go through these stages. If you have let me know what stage that you think that they're in. Let me know what stage the thing that you were in at the time when you decided to do something Better or different? My boyfriend, once alcoholism took over, said I was an authoritarian, that I was controlling. But in almost seven years we were together, he never complained about this or said this. It was not until he was a full blown alcoholic. That's a really good point. I'm glad you said that one, Lisa. One of the things, one of the questions that I'll ask the people sitting in my office that are telling me this, I'll say, well, were they always like that? Sometimes they were. I'll say, when did that controlling behavior start? Do they try to control other areas of your life? Because I try to get someone to see that it's kind of true. Usually if you're married and you have an alcohol problem, the other person in your life is controlling. But what you don't realize is they're controlling because you are not controlling it. So they're trying to get it under control. It is their response is a symptom of the alcohol problem. Now, they could have been a controlling person to start with, even if they were already that way is going to amplify. But even people who aren't controlling at all, when you're married to, or your kid is or whatever, somebody has substance use disorder, you become controlling. It's a fear thing. You're trying to save them. You're trying to save the relationship is symptomatic. Jamie says, my boyfriend travels for work. He's stage three around me and stage four when left his own devices that. I'm glad you said that. Oh, let's see. A lot of the, A lot of the people I see are like business professionals. And so they do travel for work. And I think traveling for work in and of itself lends itself to alcoholism. You know why? Because you, you're by yourself a lot. You have to eat all your meals alone. And where do you want to eat your meals? You want to eat your meals at the bar. Because it just feels less awkward to sit at the bar and order drink and watch the game or whatever rather than to sit at a table by yourself. You're in the hotel rooms by yourself. You're really lonely, you're really disconnected. A lot of times if you travel, work, you have to meet other people, you have to socialize. Maybe you even have to take out customers and show them a good time or whatever. That whole lifestyle lends itself to the problem of alcoholism. And there's just so many reasons why. Alcoholics are controlling too. They are controlling whatever they can to calm their anxiety. That's a good point. I'm going to give you some point points for that one. A Next I'm going to put some videos up here for you. More information about signs and symptoms of a functional alcoholic. And don't forget those free downloads are in the description if you need them.