Do they ever know they are addicted?

[robaday]

My Dad has always drunk a lot. But it seems to have increased the older he gets. From when I was little I remember him having a small glass of wine or a beer around eleven am. Then a couple of glasses with lunch. Then a whiskey then a sleep. Then he would get up and drink straight through to bed. But he drank slow and never seemed to get drunk.

 

He's seventy now. Probably far too late to change. But when he's sober he's a different guy. Warm, charismatic and charming. But when he drinks he becomes self absorbed and sometimes downright disrespectful. And hes starting to really get drunk. As in legless drunk not able to get home from the pub.

 

When I was a kid we were close. In my early teens we drifted apart and by the time I was eighteen I wanted very little to do with him. Im not sure if it was due to the drinking or whether he just isn't a good guy, but his drinking did increase during that period. He is highly successful business man and it has never affected his professional life in terms of building a very large company.

 

His mother is still alive. I once remarked off handedly he was an alcoholic and she was furious with me even though watches him drink half a bottle of whiskey every time he goes round. His friends have never said anything to him either and nor have I. Basically he is not able to drink after 11.30 am AT ALL because he is already over the limit.

 

Will he ever admit he has a problem? are alcoholics aware that they are addicts?

[Shanex]

I know someone like that but well beyond half a bottle of whiskey a day and still around past 75. I do wonder how he is still alive and rather doing well after having downed entire pools of booze in his lifetime. If memory serves, the doc told his wife: "If he quits cold turkey, he dies"... Hence can only taper off, on his own.

 

Are they aware? Im sure they are. But rarely talk about it. Yes, they dont even come off as wasted anymore. Its how they are everyday from the moment they pour a drink. Some are mean drunks, other are more kind when intoxicated, but lifelong and hardcore alcoholics tend to be mean instead.

[ChatroomHero]

I think the tough part is that they feel "functioning properly" is the feeling they get when they are high or drunk.

 

 

The way I've figured it is like a time I remember in college when I had the flu really bad, could barely function, felt awful for weeks. Everyone was going out and I could barely get out of bed. One day a roommate convinced me to go out, I felt worse than awful, drank a few beers and shots (just illustrating a story as I'm not an addict, my ex gf was) and suddenly I felt good for the first time in weeks. Next day I was worse than before, but it was Saturday so despite feeling worse than before all day, I knew if I went out and got a few drinks in me that night I would feel normal and have a good time.

 

 

I always assumed with my gf it was something like that. I had a hard time knowing when she was high because that is usually when she was "normal". If she used too much or too little she was carving or else passed out. I'm not sure if she really rationalized it as her being addicted but more as her normal functioning self needed x amount of drugs to "maintain".

 

 

I doubt your dad knows or even tries to rationalize he has a problem. He just knows the person he thinks he is, is the person after x amount of drinks and if it takes x amount of alcohol to become normal, x amount of alcohol is normal.

 

 

If that makes any sense.

[Tayla]

The valid answer is... He knows.

 

The disease answer is... Let's stay in denial.

 

- 25 yrs I've been sober, and not once did I not "know". I can sincerely say that it's only too late for recovery when the doctor signs the death certificate. Up until then..,sobriety is a viable option.

 

Be angry with the disease... And its effects... Yet your father is as much a hostage of this condition as you are on how it affected your life.

[basil67]

I drink too much wine My share of the wine we drink would probably average about 4 bottles per week. And yes, I know I'm addicted to wine just the same as I know I'm addicted to tea.

 

I do my best to have a few alcohol free days during weeknights.

[robaday]

Thanks for the replies. Guess it's how accepted it is that bothers me. People see an older guy in the bar drinking a few whiskeys and think nothing of it. But they don't see the six beers and four glasses of wine he has at home. They expect to see a guy with a hard luck story, drinking straight from a bottle of whiskey when they think of an alcoholic.

 

But this is different. Because it is not socially unacceptable to drink none of his friends or family have ever called him out on it apart from me once. So if everyone tells him its ok thats his rationalisation.

 

I myself was a binge drinker in my twenties and would often go three days without sleep, blacking out etc. I could go weeks without but when I did drink I had no control over it. Back then I would have never questioned his drinking, but I notice it more and more now I'm sober and wonder how anyone could go through every day of their life under the influence.

[Tayla]

Even if I call a duck a duck... It's not going to stop quacking.

 

So to with this disease.

 

My family thru generations has carried this disease. Each generation has been educated ... Each generation has endured the dysfunction. Each generation also found sobriety...there in laid the key. How is it found? Thru living the life of sobriety. My brother was knocking on heavens door the day he made the decision to embrace the sober life. He was 34... Five years later I'd follow suit.

It took a sober person to show the way... And that sober person was a former alcoholic... Go figure...