Our Elastic Standards of Drinking
This is a guest post from The Discovering Alcoholic, who writes a top rated recovery blog, www.discoveringalcoholic.com, covering alcoholism, substance abuse, treatment and recovery issues.
Just one couldn’t hurt… but I’ve only had two… maybe one more please, to cap the night off. As an alcoholic, I always found a reason to have one more or why the last one didn’t count. Like a slinky at the top of the stairs, after taking that first step it was inevitable that I would keep going until I hit bottom. It’s the nature of the beast though; the intoxicating nature of alcohol can have even the most prudent of moderate drinkers rationalizing a way to drink just one more.
One of the most used excuses to imbibe, especially red wine, is that it is good for the heart. Now beyond the fact that new studies show that even moderate alcohol use has been linked with cancer , doctors are also pointing out that people need be careful about how they define moderate.
“Either consciously or subconsciously, some people omit the word ‘moderate’ and come away with the idea that drinking is good for you,” says Tim Naimi, M.D., M.P.H., an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “The concept of moderate drinking tends to be adjusted elastically at the level at which one already drinks.” ~ MSN Health
Personally I put more stock into the doctors’ advice about moderate drinking than I do that of the studies on both the positive or negative effects of alcohol. Moderation of all food and drink is generally considered a good idea- it’s just a lot harder with alcohol because of our elastic standards when it comes to drinking.
Lisa Frederiksen
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This website is a chat room for family and friends:
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?folderId=4&listMode=13&nav=messages&webtag=ab-alcoholism
From there, you’ll also find other chat rooms.
I’ll let TDA know of your comment, as well, as he may have some suggestions for you.
This website also has blogs from family and friends that are helpful to read…
http://www.thesecondroad.org/tsr/category/family-and-friends/
My husband is a alcoholic and need to know if there is web sites that I can go to chat with other that deal with this.
Sandy,
Obviously I am a big fan of recovery blogs and advocacy sites, but I am not sold on the effectiveness of large forums and boards where one-upmanship and hogging are common. If you are at the point where you would like to talk to someone about this, I suggest finding an Al-Anon meeting in your area where you can talk and personally connect with others that know what you are going through and care enough to show up.
Just talking about this with others that understand where you are coming from can be a tremndous relief- and it is an action step that is a stress buster within itself.
Gavin aka TDA