• Wirrvogel@feddit.deEnglish
    35·
    10 months ago

    Not so funny when it actually happens to you:

    Because of really bad experiences with alcoholics as a child, I am afraid of people who drink. My psychologist and my doctor wrote that down.

    When I became seriously ill and could no longer work in my old job, I had to retrain. To do this, you have to go to the German employment office and get an assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, including what your doctor and therapist have to say.

    They read the paper from my doctor and my psychologist, but just skimmed over the words and decided that because the word “alcoholic” was there, I must be the alcoholic. They told me that I could get paid retraining and benefits, but only if I attended a therapy group for alcoholics once a week - me, who is afraid of alcoholics because of the abuse I suffered as a child. … I immediately started crying and swore that I had no problem with alcohol, only with alcoholics!

    It took 6 months to get someone at the job centre to actually read the papers word for word to find out that me saying “I’m not an alcoholic” was not me being an alcoholic in denial. I got a half-assed apology and my retraining 6 months after I could have started it because of this. Not to mention that every time I refused to go to AA meetings they threatened to take away my benefits and I was in such a bad mental state that I probably would have killed myself without the help of my family. Oh, and my family who tried to intervene were labelled as co-alcoholics, holding me back.

        • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
          1·
          10 months ago

          Others have mentioned it, but to elaborate, Alcoholics Anonymous is not merely sitting in a circle and sharing your problems, but a belief system which requires you to submit to a higher power to move forward.

          • ϻеƌųʂɑ@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            Knew a guy who insisted he wasn’t addicted, but he can’t go a day without attending an AA meeting. 40 years, non stop. Even when in other countries for work, he finds them. Left his own daughters wedding dinner to make it to one.

            He runs his own chapter where he lives. He’s had people follow the steps, sure, but some don’t. No matter how successful the latter are, he tears them apart for “not doing it right” and has turned his back on them for not following how he did it.

  • onoira [they/them]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    32·
    10 months ago

    I was diagnosed with anorexia because I was 5 kg ‘underweight’ and answered ‘no’ when asked if I had an eating disorder. Answering ‘no’ was apparently the justification for the diagnosis. It’s still on my file 10 years later, despite now being ‘over-weight’ and always having had nominal blood test results. Conveniently, denying you have anorexia is a symptom, and so is asking to have the diagnosis removed, I guess.

    This has completely blocked me from receiving medication and treatment, because any physical or pyschological ailment I seek help for gets blamed on ‘my anorexia’ and I’m referred to psychotherapy.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
      9·
      10 months ago

      That is so fucked up. I hate the lack of self awareness the medical field has with regard to the impossible situations it puts some patients in.

  • GoroAkechi@lemm.ee
    18·
    10 months ago

    It’s pretty easy, actually. I drink around twice a month. No one could credibly accuse me of alcoholism.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
        8·
        10 months ago

        Notice how they didn’t say how many drinks? I bet its the wildest bender each time, black out drunk, ends up in the drunk tank type situation, so they tell themselves, I need to stop, and they last a week or two and then it happens again, because theyre an alcoholic

  • frezik@midwest.social
    6·
    10 months ago

    I drink a lot less now that I have easy access to THC.

    This goes for a lot of other bad things, too. “Just to get it out of the way, I am not a child molester”.

  • Rosco@sh.itjust.works
    5·
    10 months ago

    I really should reduce my consumption, I’ve always hang around people that tend to get wasted on a weekly basis. Getting tipsy is enjoyable, but more than that is just fucking stupid. I also find it hard to talk about stuff with them, or to do meaningful activities, they just want to drink a lot and act like dumbasses in night clubs. So boring. I should try and find new friends, but I feel like most people act like this, honestly. It’s the same when I hang out with strangers. My hard limit is 3 drinks per night now.

    • Hagdos@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 months ago

      Find new friends. Not even most people are like this, unless you’re in college age. Even then they are others who don’t want to get wasted regularly

      • Rosco@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        10 months ago

        You’re right, I’m 27 in a new country, and I meet people at meetups events (they very often takes place in a bar), so I’m bound to find people that are only interested in getting wasted. I’ve been meaning to pick some hobbies and find friends this way, I should get to it.

    • MonkRome@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      10 months ago

      I should try and find new friends, but I feel like most people act like this, honestly.

      I don’t know anyone like this. All, my friends, and my friends friends, do normal things like go out to eat, do something outdoors, play games, just talk, sit around a fire pit, etc. On a rare occasion a few will get drunk or high, but it is not a regular thing for any of us, sounds like you just surround yourself with 1 dimensional people with little to offer.

      • Rosco@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        10 months ago

        I wouldn’t call them “1-dimensional”, and they do have things to offer, but they go out to lose themselves, and drink like crazy. When we do have discussions they’re very interesting, and we sometimes do activities unrelated to drinking, but they’re not willing to go there often. Again, I meet these people at events in bars, so it’s very likely that they’re into drinking. My friends back home have mellowed quite a bit and we do normal stuff now. It’s just hard to meet new people outside school/workplace if you don’t have hobbies and you don’t want to go to bars or nightclubs.

        • MonkRome@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Yeah meeting new people isn’t easy once you’re out of school. If you are outgoing there are definitely avenues though. There are meetup groups for everything. You might not have hobbies, but you still do things. You bike? Go to the local riding meetup. You like boardgames? Sign up for your local open play at a boardgame store. You cook? Take a cooking class at a kitchen store or co-op. Anything you do, there is probably already a local group meeting up to do it.

  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
    51·
    10 months ago

    “I have literally not had alcoholic beverages even once in my life, how would it be possible to become an alcoholic given that?”

    • Spaghetti_Hitchens@kbin.social
      1·
      10 months ago

      Well clearly given your decision, your mother drank with you in the womb and you had fetal alcohol syndrome. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

      Checkmate, atheists.

  • DaGeek247@kbin.social
    3·
    10 months ago

    Only acoholics actually need to try to convince others that they aren’t alcoholics. Nobody goes up to a person on the street to start aggressively asking if they have a drinking problem.

    Any serious questions about how alcohol is affecting your life will quickly demonstrate whether it is is or isn’t a problem, without you ever saying that you don’t have a drinking problem.

  • Wahots@pawb.social
    2·
    10 months ago

    I have a drink once a month (or sometimes not for a few months) and it makes me feel exhausted. We do a big party once a year and that’s more than enough for me.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 months ago

    “My psychiatrist prefers to say that I have a ‘substance use disorder’ and cautions that the old ‘alcoholism’ model isn’t very scientific.”

    • jak@sopuli.xyz
      01·
      10 months ago

      Can I try to gently press that a little?

      I would feel awful if I found out I had been enabling someone’s alcoholism, especially if they only allowed it because they trusted me and I offered them drinks. I have ADHD and autism, so I understand making yourself hard and fast rules to avoid having to make your own self control (I’m not saying that’s definitely what you’re doing).

      Could you perhaps try gradually increasing the rules one by one so that in the end there’s basically no scenario in which you drink? I’m talking: a trusted person offers it to you; it’s a weekend; it’s nice weather out; your whole house is clean; you’ve got extra cash; you ate healthy that day; you are already in a good mood; your beloved (hopefully incapable, for this situation) sports team has won; you talked to two relatives that day, etc. I’m not a therapist, but that works for me. The problem is when I mess up- my rules are great for keeping me out of trouble, but they make me spiral if/when I do break them. You might have to figure out a combination of zero tolerance for “mistakes” and allowing yourself to make actual mistakes without spiraling.