What’s The Difference Between Alcohol Addiction Abuse And Normal Drinking?

There is a difference between alcohol addiction abuse and normal drinking. Let’s find out how you can stop abusing alcohol and when and how to get help for alcohol detoxification from the moment you start seeing signs of alcoholism.

If you are a female and you usually have more than three drinks at one drinking session or seven drinks in a week, you’re in danger of alcohol addiction, abuse, and dependence. Men who have more than four drinks per drinking session or more than 14 drinks within seven days are also at risk of drinking too much. For example:

William drinks six beers a day. He works every day, runs errands, takes care of his children, and he can go on for days without alcohol if he wants to. He mostly drinks as much as his friends while they are at parties, depending on work the next day. But, when he drinks, he repeatedly neglects responsibilities at work and at home. He can’t drive his kids to school the next day because of the hangover, goes to his office late, or sometimes skips out on work or social commitments. He also drives when he is drunk and gets into fights with neighbors and his wife because of his drinking. He usually drinks after having an argument with his workmates or after a bad day. William is into alcohol abuse.

The main difference between alcohol abuse and alcoholism is the presence of tolerance and withdrawal symptoms. Not everyone who abuses alcohol develops alcoholism. Alcohol abuse is a risk factor for developing alcoholism. Some people are more prone to alcoholism than the rest because of genetic predisposition, stressful situations, physical conditions, and other factors.

To know if you are crossing the line, let’s say you have drunk alcohol for years, but you have never considered you might have a problem with it because it is usually between 3 to 5 beers and between 2 to 4 times per week. You drink depending on your work; you think your family and your commitments don’t suffer and that you’ll usually take a break from drinking every now and then. But you realized that you have been drinking lately. It’s becoming pretty hard to stop, and you can’t get your mind off that drink even if you are at work, taking a shower, playing with friends, or even doing your grocery. And to make things worse, you feel like you are suffering from depression when you are not drinking.

If you are slowly losing your control over drinking, meaning you can’t stop even if you want to, and your mind is preoccupied with that glass of beer or wine, you are heading to alcoholism. Alcoholism is an addiction to alcohol. Your body already built a tolerance to alcohol when you need a few more glasses instead of a glass to get drunk, and you lose control of your drinking. It started to control you already when you can’t say no when someone offers you a drink, or you end up drinking alone even if you have other things to do or even if you are already having problems at home or at work because of it. When someone keeps on complaining about your drinking, but you cannot stop doing so, you are already an alcoholic.