The other day I found myself with a rare afternoon of nothing much to do. I grabbed some snacks, lay on the couch, and got ready for some mindless TV. Then it hit me out of nowhere. My mind skipped back to the countless times I had done exactly the same thing, but instead of snacks, it was a bottle of wine.
I remembered the process in striking detail. Earlier in the day I would make sure the wine was in the fridge. Once I was ready to relax I would pour a modest glass with every intention of sipping slowly and having just one. About twenty minutes later the inner struggle would begin. I would resist at first, trying to focus on whatever was on screen, but soon enough I would be up again with a justification that I had only had one and could surely allow myself just one more.
Not long before I was midway through the show I would amble back to the fridge, resigned to my fate. The excuses no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered was that there was cold white wine in the vicinity and I could not resist it.
Five years later I still scroll through my watch history and wonder whether I actually saw something. I have probably gotten more value from my streaming account than most people, simply because I end up watching everything twice.
The reality is that after around two drinks, and my glasses were never a standard measure so let us call it four, the part of my brain capable of deciding to stop had gone completely offline. One warmed me up, two shut me down, and after that I was at the mercy of the part that simply wanted more regardless of the consequences.
Why Some People Can Stop and Others Cannot
This is why so many people cannot stop at one. Because one warms you up, two shuts you down, and from there the part of you making decisions is no longer fully present.
So why do some people seem to have no trouble with this? Some days they do not drink at all, sometimes they drink more, and in between they have one or two without any apparent struggle. It is not a simple answer, but I am clear on one thing. It has nothing to do with willpower.
I know this because so many people I work with, and myself included, have willpower in abundance when it comes to everything else in their lives. Alcohol is the one thing they cannot seem to control.
Knowing what I know now, it makes complete sense. Once you have consumed a meaningful amount of an addictive substance regularly, the brain adapts. And that adaptation comes in many different shades. A combination of genetics, psychology, upbringing, and environment determines how quickly you move from the shallow end of grey area drinking into deeper and more difficult waters. But anyone who drinks regularly will eventually develop some level of dependence. What varies is how much pain each person is willing to tolerate before they stop justifying the behaviour.
A hangover here, an argument there, a missed day at work. Rarely enough on their own to motivate change. But everyone’s threshold is different.
Understanding what a grey area drinker actually is can help you see more clearly where you sit and why the comparison to normal drinkers never quite resolves anything.
What Living With This Actually Feels Like
I struggled to control my drinking for so many years that it became the central focus of my life. If I was not drinking I was thinking about it. If I was drinking I was not thinking much at all. And afterwards my thoughts would race with self-criticism, frustration, and judgment.
What a way to live.
Eventually the pain of that disappointment and the anger at myself for not being in control became more than I could tolerate. And more than that, I became afraid that if I did not take back control I would never reach the potential I knew I had. I would play small my whole life and keep justifying it, the same way I justified just one more.
In the end I accepted that for me, alcohol plus me equalled short-term escape and long-term misery. It did not matter what anyone else was doing or what they thought. I had to decide when enough was enough for me.
There Is No Such Thing as a Normal Drinker
Clients often tell me they wish they could drink like a normal person. Addiction expert Gabor Maté has written about how the idea of normal itself becomes a kind of torture for grey area drinkers. We believe in a mythical normal drinker and compare ourselves to them endlessly. But there is no such thing as a normal drinker, just as there is no such thing as a normal person.
I can say with absolute certainty that I know perhaps two or three people who genuinely drink moderately. And by moderately I mean they do not binge, and when they do drink once or twice a week at most, they have one drink, feel sleepy, and sometimes cannot even finish it.
Maybe they simply have different brain chemistry. Maybe alcohol just does not do much for them. Whatever the case, if you cannot stop at one, you are not drinking for the taste or a tiny buzz. You are drinking because you want to feel less pain or more excitement. You want to feel something different from what you are feeling. And alcohol works for that, briefly. But one is never enough because the real feelings keep coming back.
The Only Equation That Matters
So there is a choice. Do the maths honestly.
Do you want to keep running from these feelings? Does alcohol offer more than it takes away from your life? Does trying to drink like a normal person feel like trying to make two plus two equal five?
This equation is unique to every person. Until you focus solely on your own experience and stop measuring yourself against an imaginary standard, you will keep trying to solve a problem that does not have a moderation-based solution.
If the negative consequences of your drinking feel like too much for you, that is not evidence that something is wrong with you. It is evidence that you are paying attention. The intelligence is in recognising when a pattern is costing you more than it is giving you.
Normal, when it comes to drinking, is whatever you decide is right for your own life. Not what you imagine everyone else is doing.
If you are ready to stop comparing and start changing, find out more about working with Sarah Connelly.
Love, Sarah
