Is Alcoholism a Disease?

A lot of people in the world, including health and medicine experts, call alcoholism a disease. Actually, it is wrong, alcoholism is more like a behaviour pattern - an unhealthy, immoral lifestyle which leads to a lot of problems in your social, economical, physical and mental condition.

Do this mean that you need to stop worrying about your drinking habits? No, definitely not. If you are a heavy drinker and probably an alcoholic, you surely need to work with yourself and try to find the way how to be sober. Actually, if you position this problem as a behaviour problem, it's a lot easier to work your way down to the freedom, because you understand now, that you are not having any physical or mental health problems. Most likely, you are a healthy person, just a lot of things have been screwed up due to this drinking habit.

So, you have to treat this condition calmly and need to work with your personality, daily routine, habits (not only the drinking habit), attitude and the way of thinking. Most likely, you will need to switch to a different social group, or, in other words, avoid going out with friends who involve you in drinking activities. Some people need to find other hobbies, other things to do in their leisure time. For example, I have switched between meeting my friends in the local pub on friday night to an actually more pleasant atmosphere with my female friends in a quiet, peaceful coffee shop and having some healthy food and a chat about interesting topics - it's a nice change without alcohol, without getting drunk and without a terrible hangover in the next morning.

5 Benefits You Get When You Stop Drinking

1. Health Condition Improvement

Actually this could probably not be the first thing you'll notice after quitting drinking, but it will bring you a lot of changes in your body. You'll start to look visually better, the color of skin will not be red-bluish anymore, your heart will have a brand new experience, and your hands will not be shaky anymore, not to mention the disappearance of all the health risks associated with drinking.

2. Saved Money

How much money do you usually spend for the ethanol poison, let's say, per month? It could be a few hundred bucks, but it could reach 4 or even 5 digit number per month, depending on your drinking and partying habits. When I was a heavy drinker, I spent around thousand dollars per month to buy alcohol - and that was the biggest part of my income at that moment... I couldn't afford new clothes, healthy and tasty food, any other activities except drinking, not to mention a car. Since my last drink things have changed a lot - four times bigger income and a 5th series BMW in my garage.

3. Special Status in Society

Most people who try to quit drinking worry about what their drinking friends, women in the clubs and other parts of society will think about them. Well, the truth is that these people in most cases will show their respect to your changed habits - it will not probably happen in the next day, week or month after quitting, but if people will see you sober, happy and successfull already for a quite long time, they will start paying attention to the ongoing and actually follow your example. People like to hate, and you will probably face difficulties to prove your drinking friends that you actually don't do that anymore, but, trust me - it's worth it.

4. More Time to Do Things

If you have ever been a moderate to heavy drinker, you most likely know how does your usual friday night impair your performance even in the next to days. And that's not all - just think about the time you spend in a party doing nothing useful, only holding your cup and probably a cigarette. You could better be making money or building social relationships in a different way during this time, not getting drunk and foolish with your friends. So, if you quit your drinking habit completely, you could use your friday and saturday nights to think up a business idea, spend more time with your family and do other things which you probably have not done for a long time because of drinking.

5. Better Relations With Relatives and Closest Friends

When you are in the process of quitting drinking, you'll probably lost some "friends". "Friends" in quotes, because at this moment you'll start to understand, that not all of the people who you are partying with, are your true friends - in most cases, most of them actually are more like your drinking partners. What's undeniable, after your last binge and on your way to an alcohol-free life, you'll start to think differently about your family and relatives. You will also realize, who are your true friends - those people will support you on your major decision and try to help you as much as possible, not invite you to another house party on next friday. Also, your parents, children and other relatives will start to respect you more, because after a long time being in a mental desert you'll start to appreciate the world you're actually living in.

Drinking and Smoking

A lot of people who struggle to stop drinking actually don't realize the influence of cigarettes in this process.

Let's start with my personal experience. I can tell, that if you drop smoking while trying to be sober, it helps a lot, but if you try to drop only one of those bad habits at a time, it will probably not give you the best results.

Alcoholics Who Smoke

Alcohol and nicotine, when used together, act a lot more powerful, and a person who is a heavy smoker and also uses alcohol on a daily basis can get addicted faster to both of these substances.

Between 80-95 percent of alcoholics smoke cigarettes, and 70 percent of them are heavy smokers.

Scientifical research have not proven the correlation between those habits, but its psychologically easier for a lot of people to drop both of them, starting a new, healthier period in their lives without those substances.

How not to lose Motivation to Quit Drinking

If you have decided to take such a big step like quitting drinking, one of the main things which will help you achieve your goal - long awaited freedom of the drug ethanol in this case - is motivation.

There is a lot of people who want to change something in their lives every day. But, let's be honest, most of the time they fail. One of the main reasons for this is that they actually have no motivation to change something.

Of course, if you have decided to quit drinking, that's a major positive step in a better future for you, your health, your family, friends, money etc. But if you have tried this before and failed, you possibly have lost your motivation in the process. For example, most of the people who want to stop using alcohol, come to this conclusion next morning after another heavy drinking. They wake up with a severe hangover, find out that a lot of money has been spent last night, and probably hear some horrific stories from their friends about what they did in the bar. Of course, all these things make serious motivation for quitting.

Though, as time passes, the motivation becomes a lot weaker, and eventually it goes away completely. It's because the hangover ends, a new week starts, money start to come to your pocket again, your friends and relatives forgive you etc. So, your subconscious again start to consider the idea to get some drink next friday at the bar, because apparently there are really no obstacles for doing that - you are feeling good again and all problems and unpleasent situations caused by your previous drinking have been leveled off. At this moment, if you have no extra motivation, you'll will start drinking again.

Therefore you need to find this extra motivation for yourself. From my experience, one of the best things you can do is reward yourself with something you have not had for a long time and which gives you positive emotions. You need to think about this before your craving for a drink gets uncontrollable, otherwise it will be too late. For example, if you have been a moderate or heavy drinker for some time and want to drop this destructive behaviour pattern, you can try to find something you have not done since childhood. Or, try to sell something, make some extra money just after your last drink and buy a car, even a cheap one - this worked for me! Just try to get some new, positive experience, and use it as your motivation when you fight with alcoholism.