Many of us keep asking whether our drinking has crossed some invisible line. We look at how much we drink, how often we drink and whether we still get everything done. Then we compare ourselves with someone who drinks more or whose life looks worse.
We’re not really looking at how our own drinking is affecting us. We’re asking whether we qualify as someone who should stop. And because we can nearly always find someone who looks worse, we keep telling ourselves we don’t need to stop yet.
The question keeps moving
Maybe we don’t drink every day. Maybe we never drink in the morning. We still work, pay the bills, run the business and do what needs to be done.
So we use those things as proof that our drinking can’t be serious enough yet.
But then the amount rises and the rules change. We’re drinking more than we used to, but we’re still telling ourselves we’re not as bad as someone else.
This can go on for years. There’s always another reason why now isn’t the time to take our own drinking seriously.
A label doesn’t make the decision for us
Words like alcoholic, dependent drinker, heavy drinker or problem drinker can mean different things to different people.
A diagnosis can be useful if we’re talking to a doctor or getting professional help. But we don’t need to diagnose ourselves before deciding we don’t want alcohol in our life anymore.
The label doesn’t change the poor sleep, the anxiety, the wasted evenings or the promises we keep breaking. And avoiding a label doesn’t make any of those things disappear.
The label can stay out of it. What’s happening in our own life tells us enough.
Comparison gives us the wrong answer
What someone else drinks doesn’t really tell us anything about our own drinking.
Someone else might drink more than we do. But that doesn’t tell us whether our drinking is causing a problem. Their job, health, family, history and consequences aren’t ours.
The useful comparison is with ourselves.
Do we drink more than we used to? Has our tolerance risen? Are the gaps between drinks getting shorter? What happens to us between one drinking session and the next?
Those things tell us much more than comparing ourselves with someone who drinks more.
Still functioning doesn’t mean everything is fine
We could stay highly functional while drinking heavily. We could speak normally, meet deadlines and make sure no one saw how much effort was going into holding everything together.
We may still be able to keep everything going. But that doesn’t tell us what alcohol is costing us or where our drinking is heading.
We might already be dealing with withdrawal, rising tolerance or a constant argument about when and how much we’ll drink. None of that is okay just because we still turn up for work.
We can act before the cost becomes impossible to hide.
What it costs us is enough
Things get much clearer when we stop asking whether we’re bad enough and start asking what alcohol is actually giving us.
We look at the whole exchange: the brief change in feeling, then the sleep, mood, health, time, money and mental space alcohol takes up. That’s the real trade.
Maybe alcohol hasn’t taken everything. It doesn’t have to. If it keeps taking more than it gives, we already have a reason to change.
Wanting a clearer morning, a calmer mind or an end to the argument about drinking every night is enough. Someone else having a more dramatic reason doesn’t mean we need one.
We don’t have to qualify
Once we stop trying to prove that our drinking fits one of those labels, we have much less to argue about. There’s no need to work out whether we were a real alcoholic, whether our rock bottom was low enough or whether someone else would think we had a problem.
We can admit that alcohol has become more than a simple habit and that we don’t want to keep doing the same thing. That’s just being honest about our own drinking.
We can decide before a crisis
Alcohol doesn’t need to take our job, health or relationships before we’re allowed to stop.
Life can still look fine from the outside when we make the decision. In fact, that’s a very good time to make it.
The question isn’t, “Am I bad enough?” It’s, “Do I want alcohol to keep being part of my life?”
If the answer is no, we don’t need a label, a comparison or anyone else’s permission.
— Brent