Everything We Were Told About Alcohol Addiction Is A Lie

Addiction is a spectrum. The same way autism is a spectrum and sexuality is a spectrum. There’s no black and white recipe to who is and isn’t addicted to alcohol. And alcohol addiction cannot be addressed as one bucket of people who have a problem and another bucket for those who don’t.

This is why alcohol consumption is so confusing. Because societally we are told one thing even as our bodies are screaming something entirely different.

𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑔𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑒 — 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡.
𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑚𝑦 𝑘𝑖𝑑𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑒.
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑐𝑜ℎ𝑜𝑙 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑒. 

I ate these sayings up with gusto, even as my hangovers became progressively worse. Even as I started to get regular panic attacks. Even as a normal visit to the doctor would come back to surprise results on my blood pressure. “Is your blood pressure normally so high?” It might have to do with the six glasses of wine I had yesterday… then we both laugh and move on.

When does it stop becoming a funny story and become a real danger? Just because I never got a DUI or experienced a stroke doesn’t make my drinking any less of a problem than someone who is drinking the exact same amount as me and suffers severe consequences. 

For every raging alcoholic there are countless people who are drinking problematically. I think about all my drinking buddies who are still active drinkers but who do not define themselves as having a drinking problem.

When will they see it as a problem? Maybe never. Or maybe they have a health scare or get an ultimatum from a family member. Or maybe they get no warning at all and their body finally gives up.

My point is we need to stop thinking about addiction in black-and-white. It’s a convenient narrative for the alcohol industry but it serves no one else. Alcohol is a neurotoxin that is potentially addictive to anyone. It is not this unicorn drug that only hooks a few unfortunate souls. 

And when we start communicating that anyone who drinks is putting themselves at risk, then people can choose to drink alcohol with informed consent. 

But as long as we keep up the societal narrative that alcohol is all fun and games unless you’re one of “those” people, we are only doing ourselves a disservice.