How to judge whether you are really an alcoholic?
Only you can judge this question. Many people who joined AA have heard that he is not an alcoholic. If you want to quit drinking, you just need more perseverance, a change of environment, more rest, or more hobbies. But these people finally joined the mutual abstinence association, because deep down, they felt that they had been conquered by alcohol and were ready to get rid of their irresistible desire to drink at any cost.
There is a saying circulating in the mutual abstinence association: it is impossible to get a little addicted to alcohol. A person is either an alcoholic or not. Only people who drink know whether they have reached the point where drinking is out of control.
Self-rated alcohol dependence
If you really want to quit drinking but find that you can't completely quit; In other words, if you can't control the amount when drinking, you will always be drunk; Or, you don't like the taste of alcohol, and you drink too much to pursue the feeling of drunkenness and drifting caused by alcohol. Then you may have alcohol dependence.
Alcohol dependence is not necessarily drinking every day.
Mild dependence:
1) The cumulative consumption of liquor per day is less than 250ml or less than 4 bottles of beer.
2) The official drinking history is within 4 years, and the aggravating history is within 1 year.
3) The frequency of daily drinking increases and the amount of drinking increases.
4) Emotional excitement, irritability, behavior out of control, fighting, picking fights, throwing things, etc.
5) Increased tolerance to alcohol.
6) Arguing with family because of drinking.
7) Delaying normal work because of drinking.
8) Every time I drink it, I feel uncomfortable, regret, blame myself and feel depressed. It doesn't matter.
9) Sometimes you don't need to drink it at ordinary times, but once you do, you can drink it in large doses for a few days until your body can't stand it, and then drink it every half month, January or longer.
Second, moderate dependence:
1) The cumulative daily drinking amount is 250ml.
2) The official drinking history is between 4 and 8 years, and the aggravating history is between 1-2 years.
3) Drinking is out of control, and the number of drinking alone increases.
4) Drinking every day has become the most important thing in life.
5) Stealing wine.
6) Once you don't drink, you will feel unwell, flustered, flustered, sweaty and restless, and the symptoms will be alleviated after drinking.
7) The body is thin, and there are reactions such as gastrointestinal discomfort.
8) Work and family life are greatly influenced by drinking.
9) I have a desire to give up drinking, but I can't quit.
10) Sometimes you don't need to drink it at ordinary times, but once you drink it, you can drink it in large doses for several days until your body can't stand it, and then drink it at intervals of half a month, one month or more.
Triple dependence:
1) The cumulative consumption of liquor per day is >: 500ml. Or more than 8 bottles of light beer.
2) Official drinking history of more than 8 years, aggravated by more than 2 years.
3) Get up every morning and drink on an empty stomach.
4) drink every day, get drunk every time you drink, don't eat after drinking, and feel weak.
5) Hand shaking and sweating, insomnia, diagonal or S-shaped.
6) Compulsory abstinence is invalid or many hospitalizations are caused by drinking.
7) Gastrorrhagia, hypertension, cerebellar atrophy, fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, femoral head necrosis and other complications due to drinking.
8) There have been personality changes, paranoia, temper changes, no sense of responsibility for the family, and indifference to the family (wife and children).
9) Losing interest in everything, refusing to associate with people and drinking are the most important things in life. .
10) memory loss, tinnitus and hypertension.
1 1) has mental disorders such as hallucinations, auditory hallucinations and hallucinations.
12) Sometimes you don't have to drink it at ordinary times, but once you drink it, you can drink it in large doses for several days until your body can't stand it, and then drink it at intervals of half a month, one month or more.
13) because of long-term heavy drinking, mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and mania have appeared.
14) alcohol withdrawal syndrome is obvious: once you don't drink alcohol, you will have vomiting, convulsions, tremors (hands, face, tongue), delirium, epilepsy and other symptoms. It will ease after drinking.
We think we are addicted to alcohol and are determined to give it up at all costs. But we can't get rid of repeated alcohol control (even hospitalization is ineffective), and we are very painful. Do we really have to die? How can I stay awake for a long time?
Here are some methods that will help you avoid drinking again as long as they are carefully implemented.
1, remember: alcoholism is an incurable, progressive and fatal disease.
Alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease. This disease is caused by human sensitivity to alcohol and psychological impulse to drink. At present, there is no medicine or psychotherapy that can be "cured"-we can't simply change our characteristics by hospitalization or taking medicine, so as to return to the normal and moderate social drinking state in the early stage of drinking.
Thousands of alcoholics can't stop drinking. Not only do we see many alcoholics die of drinking-from "D.T." or convulsions, or cirrhosis caused by drinking, but we also see many deaths caused by drinking that are not caused by alcoholism. Moreover, when car accidents, drowning, suicide, homicide, heart disease, fire, pneumonia or stroke are listed as the direct factors of death, the fact is that the serious drinking behavior of alcoholics leads to the conditions and direct causes of death.
Most of us haven't reached the final stage of terrible alcoholism, so now we feel far from that fate when drinking. But if we keep drinking, there is no doubt that we will only die.
Many alcoholics who can't give up drinking will blame themselves for their weak moral values, or think it's because of their unbalanced mentality. However, drinking is not morally wrong, because it is a disease. At this stage, it can't be overcome by one's own will, because alcoholics have lost the ability to choose freely in the face of alcohol.
So we don't have to be embarrassed about our illness. There's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not our fault. We don't want to be alcoholics. We don't want to get this disease, just like no one wants to get pneumonia. Experience shows that as long as you have a strong desire to quit drinking, fully realize the seriousness of the problem, and take care of yourself in an alcohol-free and happy way, you can still live a happy, healthy and valuable life like a normal person.
Step 2 stay away from the first glass of wine
"If you don't drink the first glass of wine, you won't get drunk." "More than one cup is not enough."
When we change from ordinary drinking to drinking, frequent drunkenness seriously interferes with our life and work, so we reduce the number of drinking, or try to control the amount of alcohol to one or two glasses, or switch from high drinking to beer or wine to avoid getting too drunk. Maybe we can stay awake for a while, and then we will start drinking again when there is an opportunity (some special celebration, personal confusion or nothing special at all). At first, we just wanted a drink. As one glass of wine has not caused any serious consequences, we think it is safe to drink another glass. But it turns out that this is just a trap-when we drink two or three cups, we feel good, and then we feel that it will be okay to drink one or two cups according to our ability. As a result, we couldn't help drinking too much and returned to the original drunken state.
Doctors who specialize in alcohol dependence told us that it was the first glass of wine that triggered the potential desire to drink, which made us out of control. This repeated experience leads us to the conclusion that it is impossible to try to control the drinking plan without getting drunk, and avoiding the key glass of wine-"Never do anything wrong with the first glass" can keep us awake for a long time.
Alcohol dependence is an addiction to alcohol. As a soft drug, alcohol is just like any other addictive substance. If we want to stay in a state of recovery, we must stay away from the first anesthetic that causes our addiction.
Step 3 Use the "24-hour" plan
In the days of alcoholism, we often solemnly swear "never to drink again" when we are very uncomfortable. "I swear not to drink for a year." From the bottom of my heart, we really don't want to get drunk again. Of course, some people will have reservations: saying that this oath is only for "spirits", not for beer. In fact, beer and wine can also make us drunk, but we just need to drink more to achieve the same effect as white wine. Drinking beer and wine is no less harmful to us than drinking spirits.
However, after a while, vows and painful memories will be forgotten. I don't know when we started drinking again. Our forever will never last.
Of course, some of them did keep their promises and quit for a long time, two months, six months, or a year. Until the time came, we felt that we should be able to drink freely and control it ... We resumed drinking and soon got into the original trouble with new guilt and regret.
Alcohol dependence is a permanent and irreversible disease. Our experience tells us not to swear to stay awake for a long time. A more practical and effective statement is: "I just don't drink today."
Maybe we drank it yesterday, but we can decide not to drink it today. No matter what kind of temptation and anger we encounter, we try to avoid drinking the first glass of wine today.
If the desire to drink is too strong, then divide the 24 hours into smaller units-at least one hour-and we can tolerate the discomfort caused by this temporary abstinence, then one more hour! Another hour! Go ahead. If we succeed today, we have reason to believe that we can succeed tomorrow.
The "24-hour" plan is very casual. We can start over at any time, no matter where we are. At home, at work, in the hospital ward, at 4 pm or 3 am, we can always decide not to touch alcohol for the next 24 hours or 5 minutes.
We are just trying to live today (now), just to stay awake-it really works. Once this way of thinking becomes a part of our thinking, we find that a 24-hour life is equally effective and satisfying for dealing with other things.
Step 4 take action
The more we want to stay away from alcohol, the more we want to drink. So simply staying away from alcohol (or not thinking about drinking) is not enough.
Once you stop drinking, how do you spend your free time? Most of us have formal work to do, but we still have a lot of free time to kill. Therefore, we must cultivate new hobbies, arrange colorful activities to fill these hours, and at the same time find a suitable outlet for the energy once addicted to alcohol.
There are many meaningful things that are suitable for us to do.
1. When you start abstinence, you can take a walk or take a brisk walk. Especially to new places you've never been before. Go for a leisurely stroll in the park or country road, but it's not a tiring March.
2. read. Although some of us can't settle down to study, we really should read some books, which can broaden our horizons, increase our life experience and concentrate more.
Visiting museums or galleries, some people choose photography is also good.
4. Swimming, running, cycling, yoga or other exercises recommended by doctors.
5. Deal with long-neglected housework. Tidy up the wardrobe, dresser, file documents in different categories, or deal with things that we have put off for a long time. But when we do these things, we should not be greedy and do what we can. Don't clean the whole kitchen or all the files at once, but clean one drawer or one folder at a time and do other work another day.
6. Try to cultivate new hobbies. Choose activities that are not too expensive or demanding, purely entertaining, without competitive pressure and refreshing. Such as singing, writing, tropical fish, carpentry, basketball, cooking, bird watching, amateur performances, wood carving, gardening, guitar, movies, dancing, stone carving, potted plants, collection and so on. Many people find that the activities they really like now are actually hobbies that they never considered trying in the past.
7. regain the fun of the past. A watercolor painting, table tennis or go, reading notes, etc. The one you haven't polished for years, continue these hobbies. But if you think it's no longer suitable for you, give it up.
8. Go to class. Learn Japanese or English? Love history or math? Want to know about archaeology or anthropology? Or cooking, computer operation, and then go to correspondence, TV University or adult education (just interest, not necessarily credit certificate). There are many places where you can take classes only once a week. Why not try it? Taking classes can not only broaden your horizons, but also broaden your life. In case you are tired of the content of the class, don't hesitate to quit immediately and learn to give up activities that are not beneficial to you or have no positive, positive and healthy significance. Let us summon up courage to face it again and have the opportunity to appreciate a new side of life besides drinking.
9. Volunteer to do some useful services. Many hospitals, children's service institutions and social welfare organizations are in great need of volunteers to provide various services. We can have many choices. When we can contribute to others, even if it is only a trivial service, we will find it particularly useful. Even when we talk about the process of participating in these activities and related information, we will feel very interested and particularly involved.
10. As most of us know, there are many ways to get a new hairstyle, wear new clothes, change glasses, or even update teeth, which will have unexpected pleasant effects.
1 1. Relax. Not everything we do in our daily life must be positive and innovative. We also need to do some activities purely for fun, such as kites, zoos, comedy movies, soul music, detective stories and so on. If you don't like them, then find other fun activities that have nothing to do with drinking, just treat yourself.
Step 5 change old habits
In the process of drinking, we have fixed time periods, familiar places and habitual activities. Especially when we are tired, hungry, lonely, angry or particularly happy, these seemingly ordinary and repetitive scenes are dangerous traps for our sober life.
When we first quit drinking, it is very helpful to look back on our past drinking habits to find ways to overcome our addiction. The place where we are often used to buying wine may be the supermarket we pass by when we go to work. Each of us always has our own favorite place to drink. Whether drinking with friends or drinking at a fixed time every day, we can find out when and which days we are used to drinking from the past drinking trajectory.
We can adjust all the details of life related to drinking problems.
have a good rest
Alcoholics generally don't know why they are tired. In fact, there are at least three reasons from the characteristics of alcohol: ① alcohol is a high-calorie beverage, which can provide energy quickly; ② Alcohol paralyzes the central nervous system, making alcoholics unaware of the symptoms of physical discomfort; (3) When the paralysis of drunkenness gradually disappeared, the anxiety that followed caused another kind of tension.
After we stop drinking, the feeling of anxiety will last for a while, which will lead to depression and insomnia. Meanwhile, we often feel very tired and sleepy. These two situations often appear alternately. As the process of abstinence continues, these two problems will gradually improve, so don't worry.
This reminds us that in the initial stage of abstinence, we must have a full rest. Because when we are tired, we often have the idea of picking up the first glass of wine again.
Many of us are anxious to know why sometimes we suddenly want to drink for no reason. If we carefully analyze the situation at that time, we will find that this kind of situation often happens when we feel particularly tired, but we didn't understand the connection at that time. We often spend too much energy and don't get enough rest. Generally speaking, eating a fast food, a snack or taking a nap at this time can immediately recover, and the idea of wanting to drink will disappear. Even if you don't fall asleep right away, just lie down for a while or take a nap in the chair, you can relax and eliminate fatigue. Of course, if you can arrange enough rest time for yourself in your daily plan, the effect will be better.
Insomnia often occurs after abstinence. And "insomnia" is too often used as an excuse to have a drink or two, so we must take some measures to help ourselves avoid drinking again.
Sometimes, instead of tossing and turning in bed, it is better to do something you like. Even at one or two in the morning, you might as well get up and read or write until your body needs a rest.
Re-examine your living habits and see if some bad habits have caused your sleep disorder. For example, did you drink too much tea or coffee in the evening? Is the diet moderate? Do you have moderate exercise? Is the digestive system functioning normally?
In addition, many traditional folk remedies are also very effective in solving insomnia. For example, drink a cup of hot milk, take a deep breath, take a hot bath, read a boring book or enjoy light music.
If the situation does not improve or even worsen, we suggest seeking a doctor who knows better about the problem of alcohol addiction.
We must remember that sleeping pills can't solve the insomnia problem of our alcoholics. Experience shows that dependence on drugs will inevitably lead to relapse! Moreover, sleeping on drugs requires great risks. Therefore, we would rather endure short-term discomfort than risk taking drugs until the body returns to healthy sleep habits.
After getting rid of the shackles of alcohol, many of us were horrified to find that we had a vivid nightmare, dreaming that we were drinking again in the dead of night or at dawn. We are so shocked and miserable about drinking again, but this phenomenon is not a bad thing. It shows that we have really repented and realized that we can't continue to drink too much, so we also agree with our choice to stay awake in dreams and subconsciously.
When we can sleep peacefully without drinking, it feels so beautiful, a pure physical and mental pleasure, and we don't have to suffer from hangovers anymore, and we don't have to worry about embarrassing situations such as drunken gaffes and blank memories. This means that we have been able to greet a new day with gratitude and hope!
Abandon old ideas
In the past, during drinking, we accumulated some deep-rooted ideas from life. Even after we stop drinking, they can't disappear like magic.
Although we are far away from the days of leading a drunken life, the disease of alcohol addiction still lingers. Therefore, we find that if we can try to get rid of many old ideas that are budding again, it will help us to recover.
And these old ideas do happen again and again. The goal we strive to achieve is to regain a sense of relaxation and freedom from the shackles of old ideas in the past. Many of our past thoughts and habits.
The concept it forms limits our autonomy.
When we look at it carefully with brand-new eyes, it turns out that they will only crush us and are useless. We don't need to stick to it any longer, unless it is proved to be useful by clear tests and it really works.
We can now use very specific standards to measure the current practicality and authenticity of an idea. We can say to ourselves, "I often think so when I drink." Does this mode of thinking help me stay awake now? Is this kind of thinking good for me today? " Many of our old ideas-especially those about alcohol, drinking, drunkenness and alcohol dependence (or alcoholism, if you agree with this wording)-are either worthless or actually self-destructive, and it will be a great relief to get rid of those ideas.
Perhaps a few examples are enough to illustrate the benefits of abandoning these old and useless ideas. When we are teenagers, for many people, drinking is an oath, indicating that we are no longer children, or that we have grown up. We are smart, mature, experienced or strong enough to disobey our parents and other authorities.
In many people's minds, drinking is always inseparable from romance, sex, music, success, superiority and luxury. If the school teaches anything about drinking, it's usually just the danger to health and the possibility of losing your driver's license-not much else.
At the same time, many people are still quite convinced that any drinking behavior is completely immoral and directly leads to crime, pain, humiliation and death. No matter what we used to feel about drinking, positive or negative, it is usually strong, emotional and far more than rational. Maybe our attitude towards drinking is just an unconscious and unthinking acceptance of other people's opinions.
For many people, drinking is a necessary and harmless part of social occasions, and it is a pleasant leisure activity between friends at a certain time and place.
Others may think that drinking is necessary for eating. But now we ask ourselves: If we don't drink, can't we actually enjoy friendship or food? It's the way we drink
Help improve your social relations? Can this improve our ability to enjoy food? Whether for or against the idea of getting drunk, the resulting reaction is even more extreme. A heavy drinker may be regarded as just having fun or just losing face.
For various reasons, the idea of getting drunk often makes many people feel disgusted. But for some of us, this is a state of longing. Getting drunk is not only to meet other people's expectations, but we also like this feeling. But at the same time, there is another influencing factor, which is the public's neglect of social celebrities.
Some people can't tolerate people who have never been drunk, and some people look down on people who are too drunk. As far as the conclusions found in health care today are concerned, the impact of changing these attitudes is still quite limited. When we first hear the word "alcoholic", most of us associate it with people who are old, ragged, shivering or begging, or people who get drunk in slums.
Anyone who has a full understanding of this problem now knows that this is all nonsense. However, despite this, when we first tried to stay awake, the vague concepts left over from our past still bothered us.
It blinds our eyes and makes it difficult for us to perceive the truth. But in the end, we finally become willing to accept that changing our past ideas-only possible-may be a bit wrong, or at least it can't fully reflect our personal experience. When we can convince ourselves to look at the past experience honestly and listen to other ideas different from ourselves carefully, we can face a long list of information that has not been examined in detail in the past with an open mind.
For example, we can look at the narrative of science majors: alcohol is not only a delicious drink to quench thirst, but also a drug that can change ideology. We know that drugs exist not only in drinks, but also in food and various drugs. And now almost every day, I can read or hear the multiple harms caused by some specific drugs to the human body.
Harm (including heart, blood vessels, stomach, lungs, mouth, brain, etc.). This is a situation that we have never doubted before. Pharmacologists and other addiction treatment experts now believe that alcohol, whether used as a drink, stimulant, sedative, tonic or sedative, can not be completely regarded as safe. But in each case, it may not directly lead to physical injury or mental fatigue.
Obviously, most people can use it gracefully, without causing harm to themselves or others. We found that drinking can be regarded as taking medicine in medicine, and getting drunk is like taking too much medicine. Drug abuse can directly or indirectly lead to various health, mental, family, social, economic and work problems.
We can start to see the consequences of alcohol for some people, instead of most people just thinking about what drinking brings us. We also found that anyone who has a drinking problem may be in what we call a "drinking" state.