Do you have a drinking problem? Forum

[almostperfectt]

Is an 'alcohol problem' defined like mental illness where it has to negatively affect your life to be considered a problem?

Or is it more than X number of drinks a week?

[Anonymous User]

Depends on the month. Some months I'll consciously try to drink less, but if I'm not doing that, it'll be 5-7 drinks two or three times a week, and 1-2 most other days. It's a bit tricky to compare because I'll often have cocktails (which vary) or high ABV beers.

Is that a *problem*? I'm not sure. I haven't done things I regret while drinking (I am careful not to send texts or emails after 3-4 drinks, I never drive after drinking etc.), and it doesn't prevent me from accomplishing ordinary life tasks, so no? But on the other hand, it's fairly unhealthy and I don't think I could easily stop, so maybe?

Exactly same with me, word for word.

[Anonymous User]

This documentary by Adrian Chiles is fascinating. I like that he doesn't go with the all or nothing approach, and very clearly details the actual health issues (liver damage)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RX2opvj7WE8

[Anonymous User]

Depends on the month. Some months I'll consciously try to drink less, but if I'm not doing that, it'll be 5-7 drinks two or three times a week, and 1-2 most other days. It's a bit tricky to compare because I'll often have cocktails (which vary) or high ABV beers.

Is that a *problem*? I'm not sure. I haven't done things I regret while drinking (I am careful not to send texts or emails after 3-4 drinks, I never drive after drinking etc.), and it doesn't prevent me from accomplishing ordinary life tasks, so no? But on the other hand, it's fairly unhealthy and I don't think I could easily stop, so maybe?

Exactly same with me, word for word.

Also almost exactly the same. Especially on weekend days I tend to hit that 5-7 drinks consistently. It really isn't the best for your overall health, your waistline, or your bank account, but it's pretty much my only vice (I don't smoke or eat unhealthily, I don't buy a lot of stuff or have a lot of expensive hobbies, I exercise and am in pretty good shape), so I kind of give myself permission to indulge. I heard someone say once they were a "non-practicing vegetarian", i.e. they thought vegetarianism was great, and they wished they were vegetarian, but it was just too far to actually live that lifestyle. I feel the same way with alcohol.

[Anonymous User]

One of my life goals is to get an office where I can have a proper bar set up Mad Men style so that when clients come by we can have a scotch or three before getting onto the board call. Does that count?

[Anonymous User]

Yes, and my drinking has become worse since COVID began.

[Anonymous User]

I drink 5-7 days per week, but most days it is no more than a glass or two of bourbon or wine. If that is all I drink, I usually drink every night. If I go out and put back several, I usually don't drink anything for the next day or two.

Is that a lot? I don't know how much other people drink so have nothing to compare it to.

I am very similar to this, a glass or two or wine / scotch or a high abv beer most nights, and then about double that 2-3 nights per week. I was also getting high (edibles not smoking so marginally better for my body) 5-7 days a week but have been trying to scale that back recently, and haven't been high at all this week.

I have the nagging sense that this is a problem. Every article I've read about this suggests that this is either alcohol abuse or borderline behavior. I'm pretty sure I could stop. The thing is, I don't want to, and I really look forward to that drink at the end of a long day, both because of how it makes me feel and also because wine / beer / scotch is delicious and for the first time in my life I'm not a student and can enjoy the stuff I want to. It doesn't affect my work, my relationship has never been better, but I guess I'm vaguely worried that it's hurting my health in the long run, even if I feel fine now.

[Anonymous User]

just gonna leave this here, because it helped me:

I’m 37, married, childless, and work a white collar job. Before I got to this point, I went to college and developed drinking habits that a reasonable (though probably also WASP-y) person would consider acceptable and maybe even occasionally cool. As I’ve aged, I have devoted fewer days of the week to bar hopping and to house parties, but still chart out some social time each month to go to a weekday happy hour, spend a few weekend hours at a brewery/winery, or crush a sixer of tallboys on a friend’s back deck.

But no longer can my metabolism recover from my concerted attempts at self-poisoning on a few hours of rest, a shower, and a greasy meal. Rather, if I drink more than four in a night, I’m waking up to a workday with a foggy mind that coffee can’t fix and an inability to do work above 50% of my normal level. If I let loose on a weekend, I wake up with heartburn, an unwillingness to do the chores I promised I would do, and a low-level case of anxiety about the shit I have to do on Monday. I’ve done the nerd thing and researched vitamins that might tamp down tomorrow’s agony, but I should have just gone straight to the experts. That’s where you come in, Drew. Because you’ve experienced both sides of the drinking coin, tell me: When does age and circumstance begin to make drinking pathetic, or at least untenable?

I’m an outlier here because I quit drinking in the wake of a horrific injury that essentially forced me to do so. If that injury hadn’t happened, I’d still be drinking right now. I know it. Back in 2018, I had absolutely no desire to quit drinking at all. I figured I would one day retire to a comfortable existence of being pickled in brown liquor eight hours a day. Drinking was gonna be my retirement. Not every drinker quits drinking—most don’t—and I still believe that some of them don’t really need to. My wife drinks, like, two beers a week. I don’t think she’s in any danger of falling off the cliff anytime soon.

Despite drinking WAY more than her, I figured I was in similarly excepted company among those who didn’t ever have to quit alcohol. I stopped drinking for eight months after my DUI arrest in 2009, and I stopped drinking and driving entirely after it. I figured that was proof enough that I had a handle on my shit. As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t an alcoholic. I didn’t drink during the day. I didn’t rage out or turn into a serial groper when drunk. I wasn’t blacking out like I was back in my college days. No one staged an intervention for me. And I could power through any hangover so long as I had Advil and a shitload of water on me. I was drinking on my terms, baby.

But that wasn’t true at all. I still drank to excess every night I drank. I found reasons to drink around every corner, and I oriented my entire schedule around it. If I had to pick my kids up late from practice or a friend’s house late on a Friday night, I quietly bitched because it meant I couldn’t drink until, like, nine. Then I’d finish that errand and throw down two straight cocktails right when I got home, to make up for lost time. I took that preventive Advil every time I drank and my wife noticed. I wrote off entire Sundays if I’d been out the night before. I routinely lied to doctors about how much I drank because I didn’t want them to tell me to cut back. And I was getting fat again. These are not signs that you have control over your alcohol intake. Quite the contrary.

For a long time—in fact, until the moment I wrote this—I refused to brand myself as a recovering alcoholic. I had certain prerequisites in mind for the diagnosis, but those are all probably illusory. I just didn’t care to think of myself that way, even though there’s absolutely no shame in admitting it. Even though I got arrested, and went to AA, and centered my life around drinking, and may have suffered a near-fatal brain injury because of it. Whenever I told people I was an alkie, it was always in jest. But that was a defense mechanism. I was a legitimate alcoholic, which means that I still am. I’ve never said that before, but I think it’s time I stopped fucking around. I couldn’t imagine my life without drinking, which means I had no control over it. That’s an alcoholic.

Of course, now that I’ve quit booze, I very much CAN imagine life without it. If you want to point out that I’m in the green-and-sober crowd and that it harms my credibility here, by all means do so. But at least these days, I never have to take the preventive Advil, which my inner organs are likely grateful for. I never have to worry about feeling like shit when I wake up in the morning. Whatever yearning I had for booze when I first stopped has long since dissipated. I can hang out in bars without being self-conscious that I’m the only person there not boozing. When I was in New York a month ago, I ordered a virgin passion fruit cosmo at a bar and the bartender openly laughed at the order. I didn’t mind. It was a ludicrous order, but I still enjoyed my little mocktail all the same. Both my parents quit drinking after my accident and now they too feel a million times better. When you’re in the middle of drinking, it can be hard to envision a booze-free life being possible, and certainly not enjoyable. Then, once you’re in that future, it becomes both possible and all too obvious. Of course I feel better. Who the fuck wouldn’t?

This is long way of answering Adam’s question, because there’s nothing writers love writing about more than their own drinking habits. How will you know when you’ve reached the point where your boozing is no longer fun and it’s more sad and debilitating? You won’t. Not even when you reach that point where you feel like this isn’t fun anymore but you still drink anyway. You’ll need fresh eyes for a proper assessment, and those can be hard to come by since mankind is a drinking species. All I know is that I haven’t barfed in over three years and that’s a streak that I’m more than happy to maintain. You shouldn’t be spewing used beer at age 44.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, I definitely have one, and it got worse with COVID. I've resolved to cut back significantly this year, and we'll see how it goes. It's going fine for now, will be trickier once back in the office and (insufferable) events are happening again.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is eye-opening. I rarely drink (maybe one glass of wine every other week? Idk I can’t even remember the last time I drank alcohol, maybe New Year’s?), grew up with parents who rarely drank (only like a glass of wine at Christmas dinner, special occasion type stuff), and have only been with partners who rarely drink, around the same level as me. Reading about people drinking 5-7 days a week has me wondering if I’m the outlier? It’s not like I consciously choose to avoid alcohol, more just that I don’t really enjoy it/the way it makes me feel. Idk how I could hold down my biglaw job while being perpetually hungover…

[Anonymous User]

This thread is eye-opening. I rarely drink (maybe one glass of wine every other week? Idk I can’t even remember the last time I drank alcohol, maybe New Year’s?), grew up with parents who rarely drank (only like a glass of wine at Christmas dinner, special occasion type stuff), and have only been with partners who rarely drink, around the same level as me. Reading about people drinking 5-7 days a week has me wondering if I’m the outlier? It’s not like I consciously choose to avoid alcohol, more just that I don’t really enjoy it/the way it makes me feel. Idk how I could hold down my biglaw job while being perpetually hungover…

We could be twins. Before Covid, I’d get a cocktail (or maybe a glass of wine) when I ate out at decent restaurants, so 2-4x a month at most. My partner doesn’t drink and I can take it or leave it, so we never bother having it at home, and we’re still not really eating out so I’ve had like 3 drinks since the pandemic started. So honestly, everyone who drinks daily or 5-7 drinks in a sitting looks like a lush to me, but I also know that my drinking isn’t typical, so have no real perspective.

(The one difference is that my parents drank all the time, but they were older, it was a very 1960s Mad Men cocktail hour kind of thing.)

[Anonymous User]

One of my life goals is to get an office where I can have a proper bar set up Mad Men style so that when clients come by we can have a scotch or three before getting onto the board call. Does that count?

My firm’s office has one in the atrium, which is awesome. The Mad Men folks had it in each individual office, which is even cooler and I’m sorely lacking lol.

[Prudent_Jurist]

I swear to drunk I’m not God.

[Anonymous User]

I wonder how much the answers will vary by age. Lots of BigLaw associates are in their 20s, and many single or at least unmarried. I’m a married 30-something junior, having gone into law as career change later in life.

Right now, almost all of my drinking is at firm events or a casual beer with a friend, and on those occasions I usually only have 1-2. At my “worst” I’m having 1-2 drinks like two nights per week, with my spouse or at a social event. On New Year’s Eve I decided to go cold turkey for diet reasons and have had zero trouble having zero alcohol the past ~5 weeks.

Definitely not a problem in my life.

However, back in my 20s when I was the same age as a lot of first years, I drank all the time (and smoked a bunch of weed). I was going partying like 3-5 nights a week and would frequently have 4+ drinks each time. On really crazy nights out until 3am I might have 7-8+ drinks. Cracking a casual beer was the default socially or when I was trying to chill (separate from the party nights I described above), I would always order 1-2 drinks at restaurants, and would boozy brunch most weekends.

If I wasn’t drinking, I was often high.

I was totally functional and productive during this time, and has a successful first career. But it’s definitely a level of substance abuse that I look back on like whoaaaah. As I got older, engaged, etc. I started partying and drinking less and less, to the point that I’m now where I currently am.

So, I guess my point is that the answer for me would have been very different if I was an associate in my 20s vs 30s, without any sort of dramatic life event in between.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is eye-opening. I rarely drink (maybe one glass of wine every other week? Idk I can’t even remember the last time I drank alcohol, maybe New Year’s?), grew up with parents who rarely drank (only like a glass of wine at Christmas dinner, special occasion type stuff), and have only been with partners who rarely drink, around the same level as me. Reading about people drinking 5-7 days a week has me wondering if I’m the outlier? It’s not like I consciously choose to avoid alcohol, more just that I don’t really enjoy it/the way it makes me feel. Idk how I could hold down my biglaw job while being perpetually hungover…

We could be twins. Before Covid, I’d get a cocktail (or maybe a glass of wine) when I ate out at decent restaurants, so 2-4x a month at most. My partner doesn’t drink and I can take it or leave it, so we never bother having it at home, and we’re still not really eating out so I’ve had like 3 drinks since the pandemic started. So honestly, everyone who drinks daily or 5-7 drinks in a sitting looks like a lush to me, but I also know that my drinking isn’t typical, so have no real perspective.

(The one difference is that my parents drank all the time, but they were older, it was a very 1960s Mad Men cocktail hour kind of thing.)

For typicality, something like 30% of Americans consume no alcohol at all, and I think like 25% have never been drinkers at any point in their life? I didn't drink at all until I turned 21, and then suddenly, in college, it seemed like everyone was socializing semi-exclusively in bars. Then it was drinking in the dating culture, parties I'd attend, etc. I like consuming alcohol, so I don't think too much about it when it's served or available, but I've always kind of remembered that society sort of on-boarded me to alcohol consumption. If that hadn't happened, I'd probably never have become a drinker.

[Anonymous User]

Deleted.

[Wubbles]

I want to get into wine (both red and wine) prior to starting in big law. Can you guys give me a few recommendations? ($50-100 budget).

I don't think a thread on alcohol abuse in law is the place to ask for drink recommendations.

[Anonymous User]

I want to get into wine (both red and wine) prior to starting in big law. Can you guys give me a few recommendations? ($50-100 budget).

I don't think a thread on alcohol abuse in law is the place to ask for drink recommendations.

it's a thread that asks whether individual users have drinking problems and provides resources for those that do. If you look at the posts, most of them are from users that don't identify with having a drinking problem. I don't understand your issue. Are you worried that my question is going to harm an alcoholic because someone will respond with the name of a wine? Please. If your concern is off-topic posts, there are plenty of posts in other threads that you could be policing. Several of the posts in this thread alone mock the very idea of a drinking problem and you're here taking offense to my question lol.

[Anonymous User]

Double post

[Anonymous User]

I want to get into wine (both red and wine) prior to starting in big law. Can you guys give me a few recommendations? ($50-100 budget).

I don't think a thread on alcohol abuse in law is the place to ask for drink recommendations.

it's a thread that asks whether individual users have drinking problems and provides resources for those that do. If you look at the posts, most of them are from users that don't identify with having a drinking problem. I don't understand your issue. Are you worried that my question is going to harm an alcoholic because someone will respond with the name of a wine? Please. If your concern is off-topic posts, there are plenty of posts in other threads that you could be policing. Several of the posts in this thread alone mock the very idea of a drinking problem and you're here taking offense to my question lol.

whataboutism (n): this

Just start a new thread bro

[Anonymous User]

OP, you’ll probably find that very few people on here will admit to a drinking problem, even anonymously. The reason being, any loss of control on one’s part (especially in law) is considered a sign of weakness, and nobody at a law firm wants to be considered weak. It reminds me of when we had a psychologist come to a previous firm in which I worked to speak about depression and suicide, and a whole team of lawyers kept laughing through the presentation and ended up walking out halfway (ostensibly because the talk was wasting everyone’s time), with the team's partner being the ringleader. Again, not hard to see it was actually hitting a nerve, despite them trying to act cool. Your best bet is looking at the data and reading stories from alcoholic lawyers (of which there are plenty) who have been through treatment and come to terms with it. There’s plenty of stories out there. You can add weed, coke, Adderall, sex addiction and all manner of vices to that list too.

[Anonymous User]

I probably do have a drinking problem which was only exacerbated by the pandemic. I only think of myself as “drinking” the 1-2 nights a week that I actually go out and drink socially in the evenings, but there are frequently happy hours or other smaller events and my SO and I have 1-3 glasses of wine or liquor most other nights of the week at home. Come to think of it, Sundays and Tuesdays are typically the only days that I don’t drink at all.

[Anonymous User]

I myself don't drink, and haven't in over a year. I never liked the taste. Back in law school I definitely saw some kids developing alcoholism (it was shocking how many thought it was a "cool" thing to do, to post wine bottles on social media or to joke about how they were going to drink their sorrows away). For a good portion it really seemed their life was about studying law and then drinking to pass away the time. I even dated someone in law school who was basically a full-blown alcoholic. When I told them that maybe they should lay it off for a night, as they had OCI interviews the next day, that was of course responded to with tons of vitriol. Yes, they almost overslept for their interview. Yes, we broke up not too long after.

At my law firm, I don't see it as much, but that's mainly because I try to keep friends from law to a minimum. It is of course that every event needs copious amounts of alcohol and if you don't drink, you're lowkey ridiculed (every time an event was announced, a big point was made that there were non-alcoholic beverages available now, but this was done in such an exaggerated way that it was clearly just to satisfy whatever internal policy they had (recently, some sexual assault charges had been brought to a partner, who had gotten absolutely smashed with some juniors). So it's not so much that there is overt pressure to drink, it's just that drinking is the norm. It's like you're that one person who rolls up at the office in a henley while everyone else is in a button down.

[Anonymous User]

I found that just zapping hot caffeine-free herbal teas of various flavors in the microwave was a nice substitute for the oh-I-just-want-to-unwind-with-something feeling I sometimes get after a long day of work (or while still finishing something up kind of late). I still enjoy alcohol, but I'm over 30 now; I'm single, and I want my body to stay in reasonable shape. So I've been trying to cut back here and there.

Herbal tea satisfies my want to just kinda have something to sip. And I can have as much as I want with no consequences. Maybe worth trying to substitute if you think you're having just a few too many occasional drinks during the week.

[Anonymous User]

Its only a problem if you call it one.

Joking aside, yes, I almost certainly do have a drinking problem. I will credit it 95% to covid and 5% to big law. I drink immensely more now than in did in 2019. What began as a drink or two to unwind turned into a ritual. I don't drink "that" heavily, but I will have 2-3 a night on week nights to "unwind". Ironically, I usually drink less / no more on weekends. To me, I want to drink when I am bored/want to distance myself from a day (which has been most days over the last ~18-24 months).

Literally a week from my last day in big law and will have a few weeks before starting my new gig. Have committed to not drink during that ~2 week span and am not planning on keeping as much alcohol in the house going forward. We will see how it goes.