I had a realization about how I’ve been thinking about alcohol recently while I was listening to an insightful discussion on the Alcohol “Problem” Podcast that Chelsey Flood shared on her blog (thanks Chelsey!). While my mind easily gravitated to the concept of autism being a spectrum, and I intuitively held the spectrum concept in my head when thinking about something like anxiety, with alcoholism I defaulted to the binary “you are or you are not” mode of thinking. I was surprised at the realization that I did this despite the fact that, since exploring my relationship with drinking and learning about Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve consistently felt that my narrative didn’t match the stories I hear from AA. “I’m not that kind of alcoholic” is a concept there doesn’t seem to be any room for in recovery discussions. Saying you aren’t an alcoholic means you just aren’t ready to admit it yet, or you just haven’t come to terms with it yet, or you just haven’t hit “rock bottom” yet, because there are only two kinds of people - those who can drink “normally” and those who can not. Fully stepping into recovery implies acknowledging this truth - there is no middle ground, there is no moderation, there is only sobriety or drunkenness.
While it’s true that the Alcoholics Anonymous literature, and many of the AA stories that I’ve read and listened to, carry this message (either explicitly or implicity), it’s also true that I’ve met a lot of people who have found life changing results with AA who never identified with a lot of these narratives. There are many in AA who never lost a job, never had their family fall apart, never ended up in the hospital, never hit “rock bottom”, but who still had a desire to stop drinking, for whatever reason. And this is the fascinating nuance of AA. The tone, or culture, or experience of the meetings and the people in them varies vastly from room to room, and overall I believe the people of AA predominantly carry an accepting and inclusive mindset that has room for much more variability than is implied by the literature.
The current medical term for alcoholism is alcohol use disorder (AUD), which actually is defined on a kind of spectrum and classified as either mild, moderate, or severe. According to the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “heavy drinking” is defined as “more than 4 drinks on any day or more than 14 drinks per week”.1 Some treatment groups do illustrate alcohol use as a continuum or spectrum, such as this example from CeDAR (which uses the NIAAA’s threshold as its definition of “safe” drinking):
But even in this kind of conceptualization, there is a clear line drawn (literally in this case). On one side of the line you are an alcoholic and on the other side you are not (though you may still have a “problem”). It seems insufficiently nuanced to me, though I do find this illustration more helpful conceptually than a simple binary.
All that said, even after consciously realizing this and thinking about it, I do feel that an “all or nothing” binary with alcohol is the best way of thinking about it for me, at least for now. The picture above is a helpful example. When I was drinking, I’d look at something like this to justify why I didn’t have a “problem”. I’d count up the number of drinks I had over the past week, and think, “I hardly ever have four drinks in a day!” Nevermind that 14 drinks in a week is only two drinks per day, and I drank every day, and I only stuck to my minimums when I was drinking alone or with my wife. A single other person present was always a reason to stop counting. For the last 18 months or so of my drinking I did successfully limit myself to 5-7 drinks per week (and I actually measured it on a scale), but it took an enormous amount of discipline on a daily basis and was made possible primarily by the complete lack of social events due to the pandemic. What I found was that for me to stay in the “safe” zone of drinking, I needed to devote a large amount of energy to the task, exerting significant willpower. I was constantly thinking about drinking - when could I next drink? How many more ounces of wine can I have tonight? What am I going to do when this bottle runs out and I have to resist opening another one? Can I cut myself some slack tonight because it was a long week at work? Am I drinking more than anyone else here? Or less? Throughout the day I’d be counting down until 4:00 PM, which was my standard happy hour time, eagerly looking forward to being able to have a glass of wine. It felt like the goal, or the destination, for the day.
Not drinking for the past three months has been a wonderful revelation for me. It has allowed me to honestly examine my use of alcohol and think about why I would want to drink on any given occasion. This comment from James Morris in a recent podcast episode helped me think about it (edited for clarity), “...when you drink alcohol you are drug taking. And [I] don't mean that in any kind of judgmental way, because as I said, it's a normal part of human behaviour… I think because of the degree of normalisation and cultural expectations around drinking… many people just do not consider it as an act of, you know, taking a drug, which it is”.
So, whether it’s normal human behavior or not, why would I want to take a drug that alters my state of mind? Am I unhappy with my unaltered state of mind? Do I feel unable to tolerate the time ahead of me without the distraction of altering my mind? Am I feeling pain that alcohol helps relieve? This is where my autism comes in. I do feel pain that alcohol helps relieve, when I’m in many different kinds of social situations (whether it’s a larger family gathering, a work event, or even just a dinner with friends). In order to participate in that kind of event, I need to overcome a large emotional hurdle that is trying to convince me to stay home. Sometimes this pain is a mild discomfort - an awkwardness that I suspect many non-autistic people feel as well - and sometimes it is something more severe. A panic, a feeling of being overwhelmed and unable to understand what is happening, a feeling of shame and helplessness, a sense of total inadequacy. All of these feelings are helped by alcohol and the anxiety of approaching the event is eased by the anticipation of alcohol.
But, it’s not just social situations. If the pain was only around social occasions, if I was really a “social drinker”, then why did I drink so often when I was alone or just at home with my wife? It wasn’t just the pain of socialization that alcohol relieved, but also the pain of getting through the day. Whether it’s because I’m an autistic person, or just because I’m a person, getting through the day feels really hard. On a work day, perhaps it's the stress of continual meetings, deadlines, feelings of pressure, of judgment and measurement. On a weekend perhaps it’s the absence of structure, the stress of social events, the self imposed pressure to do chores, or anticipation of family gatherings, or the extended time spent caregiving. The stress of any given day was enough for me to want alcohol to ease the tension, distract me, give me a relief valve, or allow me to breathe more easily.
So, what’s wrong with that? Is that a “problem”? Or is that just, as Dr. Morris says “a normal part of human behavior”? Well, it might be a normal part of human behavior, and it might be that for many people it’s not a problem at all. For me, it’s a problem because it feels like a problem. Maybe it’s because of my struggles with self acceptance, or because I’m not very good at having fun without feeling guilty about it, or some other reason that I can’t articulate but just know deep down. What I do know is that since I’ve stopped drinking, I spend much less time thinking about it (except when I’m writing a post like this!), and that has brought a big sense of relief and liberation overall.
The experience of deciding to stop drinking felt very much to me like crossing a line (the line in the picture above that separates alcoholic from non-alcoholic). It felt like a big, monumental decision that changed the way I’m thinking about life. I know I am just beginning this new phase of life, and that I have not fully realized (or even begun to imagine) the potential I have for the space that the absence of alcohol creates. But it does feel like a “before and after” kind of situation. At least for now. Who knows how I’ll feel in another three months, or six months, or six years. If there’s anything I’ve learned about myself, it’s that no matter how intensely I may feel something, I know that it could completely change at any moment.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Alcohol Facts and Statistics. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Retrieved January 22, 2022, from https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/alcohol-facts-and-statistics
I relate to so much of this, Sam. Thank you for sharing all of this. (I am enjoying the podcast you recommended The Alcohol 'Problem' - really interesting conversations.) I know what you mean about "crossing a line" in terms of how I think about my life as before I identified as an alcoholic, and after. I guess in some ways it "helped" (?) that I was more toward the severe end of the AUD spectrum. For me it makes it crystal clear which "side" I was on. Also, when I hear about non-abstinence recovery, I immediately think to myself "Hell, no. Not for me" Moderation feels like a miserable and exhausting proposition. Of course, as you said too, I have been through enough now to realize I might change my mind in the future. In some ways, being okay with that makes it easier to recognize where I am now. The future - or what I'll think then - isn't my concern today. Anyway, thank you. Hope you are doing well. :)
Just finishing Dry January. At most, I might have 7 in a week. I never drink socially, only to knock myself out at night. As an Autistic person, sleep disturbances are common, and there is a hamster wheel in my head that will run all night without chemical assistance. (Yes. I needed klonopin for Dry January. But, no. I didn’t miss the alcohol.)