Melissa Kite tries to conflate drinking too much with alcoholism. She peddles the same tired rhetoric we have come to expect from the new puritans.
And yet despite (or indeed because of) the fact that alcoholism is so widespread, we avoid confronting it. We still shrink from the idea that some human beings cannot drink safely, and that this is an illness. It sometimes appears we are getting less, not more, enlightened about alcohol abuse.
Yes, it is an illness. It is not, however that widespread. There are lots of people who drink more than they should, but they are not alcoholics. The alcoholic is chronically dependent on drink, the heavy drinker is not. This article is the same nonsense these people peddle when they talk of obesity and conflate “overweight” with “obese”. And, of course those made-up recommended limits are used to demonstrate that people who do not comply with them have a problem. they do not.
It was infuriating to witness an intellectually brilliant man like Hitchens insisting that addiction is not an illness when our streets are full of men and women who have drunk so much they can no longer walk. If that is not the definition of “dis-order” I don’t know what is.
Certainly that’s drunk and disorderly – however, whether they are alcoholics is less certain. Unless you look at each individual’s drinking patterns, you cannot tell – merely that on this occasion, they had drunk enough to become inebriated and someone who is inebriated is not necessarily an alcoholic. An alcoholic is dependant and when they are ready to do so, have to give up entirely. The heavy drinker can take it or leave it at will. And the example Melissa gives in her opening paragraph is clearly not an alcoholic – for if he can go dry for the purpose of a dry January (oh, please…) and return to it for as much or as little as he chooses in February, then he is not an alcoholic.
If someone who drinks until they fall down is not suffering from any kind of “dis-ease” then is Hitchens suggesting that drunks are in a state of total ease, or partial ease? When people are agonising about giving their vital organs a break because they have so battered themselves over Christmas, does that not suggest there is something very wrong with our attitude to alcohol?
If they do it every day, maybe. If they do it on special occasions, then no. Getting blotto at Christmas or on a birthday or other special occasion is not the sign of an alcoholic. Nor, for that matter, does it mean they are an alcoholic if they do it regularly on a Friday night. the alcoholic is a chronic drinker who cannot control his intake – the clue is in the word “dependency”. If you can get blotto and not touch the sauce for a week or two at will because you don’t have any need to, you ain’t an alcoholic. If you get smashed because you enjoy it you are not an alcoholic. If you are constantly pickled because you cannot face life without the haze of alcohol distorting reality for you, then you are. There’s a huge difference between the two and it is highly disingenuous to conflate them to propagate yet another puritanical prohibitionist agenda.
In a morbid way, I’m fascinated by Hitchens’s point of view for what it tells us about our refusal as a society to tackle the truth about booze. Society suffers from a sort of mass denial on the subject. Many people don’t want to admit that a real compulsion exists, I suspect for fear that this will have implications for their own drinking habits.
There’s nothing to tackle. The majority of drinkers do so responsibly. There is nothing to deny. The alcoholic is a minority on the very extremes. Normal social drinkers – even those who do it to excess from time to time are not alcoholics. Therefore, there is no problem for society to deny, and there are no implications for the drinking habits of the normal, rational majority who like a tipple much to the chagrin of the prohibitionists.
It’s almost enough to drive me to drink.
XX full of men and women who have drunk so much they can no longer walk. If that is not the definition of “dis-order” I don’t know what is.
Certainly that’s drunk and disorderly XX
“they can no longer walk.”
No. THAT is drunk and incapable.
D&D is something TOTALY different.
I am a recovering alcoholic – it is sometimes said that the only ‘cured’ alc is the one who dies ‘dry’. I have been off the drink for more than twenty years and was never all that heavy a drinker – and I never remember being drunk and disorderly; it was just that, without a drink, I was unable to face the day or to stop my hands shaking enough to do my job properly.
It is, most definitely, an illness, or insufficiency such as diabetes, but it is nowhere near as common or widespread as Ms Kite would have us believe. Of course, the incidence of any alcoholism plays into the hands of the bansturbators, which is why such ridiculous conflations exist in the first place.
I’m not an alcoholic, but I’ve had dealings with it up close and personal and your description is the one I recognise. The Groan article is disingenuous in conflating alcoholism with drinking a lot.
Responsible Drinking …
means: DON’T SPILL IT!
Cheers.
Of course, anyone who exceeds the governments absurd and arbitrary guidelines can be classified as a problem drinker. This means that an imaginary problem can be created, just like the obesity crisis. I used to drink beer on a very regular basis, rarely to excess but probably more than was good for me. Since being diagnosed with type one diabetes last May I have not touched alcohol at all. Giving up was not difficult for me at all, I imagine that for an alcoholic it must take an enormous amount of will power.
I have never drunk too much I hardly drink at all, I was married to a man with “serious alcohol issues” a phrase also bandied about by those who look down their nose at drinkers though this group are are not quite an alcoholic and don’t want to admit there is a problem.
My ex was in denial for 25 years (and as far as I know he still is), I had no issue with the drinking, what I had issue with is what it made him as a human being, or rather subhuman being, he would drink to excess get vile , violent and nasty.
The issue is not alcohol it’s the individual’s ability to deal with the effects the drinking has and that individuals denial of the issue.
Alcoholism is subjective and every person is different, therefore even doctors have trouble classifying serious alcoholism from just excessive drinking.
Of course with the shift to the little small minded puritanical left what used to be called Binge drinking has been upgraded to alcoholism.
They are not the same thing, but it’s just another step down the road to greyville.
Remember that your ex didn’t have to deal with an arsehole.
It is very difficult to explain to someone who cannot hold their drink that they exhibit character faults that weren’t there before. When in drink, of course one changes – otherwise you’re not doing it properly – but if it’s not the recreational drug that suits your personality, what alternative is there?
I did not know that Kite had gone to the Grauniad – she’s hard enough to take in the Spectator. Just an older, less attractive Bryony Gordon.
As a very rare drinker – and thus one with a very low tolerance for alcohol – I find I am much more susceptible to its intoxicating effects than most of my friends who drink considerably more, and certainly more so than a hardened alcoholic. Which would lead me to think therefore, that those who go out and find themselves overly-drunk of a weekend or evening, are actually more likely to be rare or irregular drinkers, rather than regular heavy drinkers – or indeed alcoholics – most of whom I would imagine would appear to be more sober on leaving a pub or club after an evening out that a lightweight like myself. So might the increase in obviously-drunk people (always assuming that there is an increase, rather than just an increase in reporting), be an indication that in fact people are actually drinking less these days, and so can’t handle it as well when they do? Just a thought.
“An alcoholic is someone who drinks more than I do” – is the attitude of these confounded interfering, nannying, nosey-perked busybodies.
May they all suffer from some dire ailment which:-
a) renders them dumb literally (figuratively they’re already there)
b) prevents the hand co-ordination necessary to use a keyboard
Perhaps despite the current set of political disasters in Parliament, the overall quality of our lives would improve greatly if these generally hypocritical nannying arseholes were removed from the equation…