Mild craving for booze on a monday and tuesday. Road to alcoholism?!
Question:
Mild craving for booze on a monday and tuesday. Road to alcoholism?
I normally enjoy 3-4 pints of Stella on a Friday night, and 2 pints on a Saturday night. Nothing on Sunday. By monday and tuesday evenings I am feeling a mild craving for booze, but I choose to drink nothing. The feeling is gone by Wednesday/thursday.
Is this an early sign of addiction?
Answers:
The road to addiction goes through several stages: First comes recreational use: It comes with no cravings and no consequences for useing and complete control of the use of the substance. Next comes heavy use: Lots more use, still in control, but subtle changes begin to occur in thinking and social circles. The comes abuse: With abuse you are not yet into full addiction and you can maintain control but you begin to experience consequences to your use and both you and other people start noticing your use with concern. It is a short ride to addiction. Once that line is crossed you basic neruobiology is changed FOR GOOD. Loss of control occures and possibly withdrawal. There are three stages to addiction each more serious than the last. The first is an emotional drive to drink (early stage). The next stage one finds changes in behavior and conflicts between behavior and values (middle stage). The final stage is just plain body rot.
Where are you in all of this. Well based on the brief amount you wrote you said a lot. You have developed tolerance as evidenced by consumption of 3-4 pints of Stella (a good beer by the way. I saw the brewary in Leuven Belgium). You still have control as evicenced by the fact that you do not give in on your craving.
However, there is that nasty report of a mild craving. That craving is there because neurobiological changes have already started to occur and your feeling the results.
The short answer to your question is that you do not seem to have crossed the line to addiction yet. AND, you are only a short distance away from it. Make changes now. I would suggest going to a few open AA meetings or a treatment facility specializing in addiction for some information. Make an informed decision.
You sound like a smart insightful fella. I guess that wasn't such a short answer either was it.
Good luck