The Easy Way to Control Alcohol by Carr Allen

Author:Carr, Allen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
Published: 2009-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

DRUG ADDICTION

16 Drug Addiction

For most of my adult life I was a chain-smoker. I would often refer to myself as a nicotine addict. But I never thought of myself as a drug addict. It was just an expression I used. I would also refer to myself as a golf addict. They were just expressions I used. I knew that tobacco contained nicotine but I didn’t perceive it as an addictive drug. Nicotine was just something that left an unpleasant brown stain on my fingers and teeth: just a rather distasteful side effect to the pleasure of smoking. Likewise, I couldn’t think of alcohol as an addictive drug, in the same way that heroin is an addictive drug. This was in spite of the fact that I had been rendered paralytic by it more times than I care to remember, and a social function without alcohol would have been a contradiction in terms. Like the rest of the population, I just accepted the brainwashing.

But what does addiction actually mean? In relation to drugs, my Oxford dictionary defines it as:

‘Doing or using something as a habit or compulsively.’

Now I find that definition rather confusing and misleading. People who take drugs often refer to themselves as ‘users’. To me this implies that they are not addicted, but are in complete control of their intake. Such people refer to their ‘habit’ rather than to their ‘addiction’.

At what stage do they start referring to themselves as addicts rather than users? I would suggest that it is at exactly the same stage that heavy drinkers refer to themselves as alcoholics: i.e. when they realize that they have lost control.

I would suggest that a more realistic definition of addiction is:

‘Doing something repeatedly, which you wish you didn’t do at all but can’t stop doing, or that you wish you did less, but cannot.’

So how do you tell whether you are addicted to something? There are useful indicators. I made a positive decision to take up golf rather than drifting into it. The pleasure was immediate and I didn’t have to struggle to acquire it. That was because I genuinely enjoyed it and it caused me no problems. From the very start I always wished I had the opportunity to play more. Now you could argue that a drinker always wants to consume more. He doesn’t! Our definition of an addict is the complete opposite. He wishes he could quit or cut down, but is compelled to drink more.

Cast your mind back to the learning stage, when you smoked five cigarettes and drank three pints over the weekend. Can you ever remember thinking: “I really envy these people who can smoke a whole pack and drink ten pints in an evening”? Isn’t it always the other way around? Isn’t it the heavy smokers and drinkers who envy the people who only need to smoke and drink on social occasions? I bet there’s not a golfer in the world who doesn’t envy Lee Westwood! But can you imagine a

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