Never walk into a bar thirsty. Those drinks and cocktails are not meant to quench thirst. Drink lots of liquids beforehand, and have some food in your stomach.
My tip for maintaining some control when going out drinking:
I would tend to agree, but even if health effects are not huge, they probably still exist to some extent in someone who is 'dependent' on alcohol. Having a few drinks each, or most, nights isn't in itself a sure sign of dependency and wouldn't be meaningful to label someone as alcoholic, whereas having one in the morning to get you going for the day most certainly is, for example, and would almost certainly also be carrying some additional health risks.
And who would these people act if for one night, they didn't get their "few" drinks?
Could the way they act be a problem?
I am hypoglycemic so I was searching various sites when I read this and thought of this thread:
Alcoholism is connected with low blood sugar condition in almost all of the cases, and with exhausted adrenal glands, too. This might be the physical basis of alcoholism, though in most of the cases alcoholism has an emotional factor, also, and needs both physical and emotional treatment, and even spiritual help, as the A.A. practice eminently proves. Members of A.A. are becoming more conscious of their low blood sugar condition, and their need for its treatment. Coffee drinking, sweets, and heavy smoking, generally "enjoyed" at A. A. meetings make abstinence more difficult for them and are bad substitutes for the even worse alcohol. A sweet binge can cause perfect hangover symptoms, because these are connected with hypoglycemia. (Blaine: Goodbye Allergies 67.) Alcoholics are much better helped by the proper diet prescribed for hypoglycemics and by additional vitamin and mineral supplements. (Williams: Alcoholism – the Nutritional Approach)
http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/blood-s.htm#6
Maybe it will help someone.
Key words
That line is VERY fine, very...
I believe it can be "cured" but not always. I base this on someone very close to me who was a drug addict and alcoholic. Today, she never craves either of the two and has no thoughts of using at all, even in times of extreme stress. The topic is something totally removed from her today. Sometimes she says she must not have been that bad when people talk about alcoholism only being controlled rather than cured. Yet I'd say that given her state at the time and the fact she required many attempts at in-patient treatment before success, she was....pretty bad.
I'd simplistically conclude that for some people, it's a lifelong challenge to control it and for others, it's not.
Glasgow may well stop the ridiculous breakfast drinking.
I would bring back the old English drinking laws with pubs opening at certain times during the day and closing at midnight until the disgusting drinking culture in the UK is brought under control.
My first husband was an alcoholic, his father having died of alcoholism. My husband was 'diagnosed' at the age of 28 and was admitted to Farm Place, in Surrey, for nine weeks.
He held down a very good job, never drank in the mornings and, to all intents and purposes, was a normal hard-working man. However, the form of his alcohol addiction was that when he started to drink, he could not stop.
Whilst he was at Farm Place, I attended weekly family sessions and also had one-to-ones with various councillors, the latter being encouraged in order to ascertain if I was also an alcoholic, since they will often associate with others (partly to validate their own addiction and behaviour).
There is a very fine line between a heavy drinker and an alocoholic; when I asked the councillors what their actual definition of an alcoholic was, they replied that 'It was not how often or how much you drink, but what happens to you when you drink'. In the case of my husband, once he had a drink he could not stop until, basically, he passed out and, crucially, his mood and behaviour changed. It was these factors, coupled with the family history of alcholism (given that there is a strong hereditary predilection), that were key in his diagnosis.
The practitioners at Farm Place followed the twelve step programme which, of course, encourages total abstinence from one's drug of choice and encourages regular attendance at an 'Anyonmous' group thereafter.
This is the typical UK binge drinking culture. It is a disgusting culture that is a magnet to the younger generation like your husband who get sucked in due to the peer pressure of the culture.
It is also a culture that is 'socially accepted' and the government refuse to do anything about it.
Good point- so many people that have alcohol dependency issues may not necessarily be psychologically addicted to the mental feeling of 'escape' or 'relief' or whatever it may be, but physically addicted to the alcohol because their bodies are so used to being flooded with simple sugars.