How do you get addicted to alcohol?

Answer 1

Daily drinking "can" be a sign/symptom of Alcoholism. However it is not the reason a person becomes addicted. Addiction is a type of disease with a long, descriptive name: It is a Biopsychosocial disease. [bio-psycho-social]

This means that the disease of addiction has a biological component, a psychological component and a social component. The frequency that one drinks can actually have very little do with whether or not a person becomes addicted to alcohol. It has a great deal to do with how the body reacts to the alcohol and then how the individual interprets those reactions.

For some people, very infrequent binge drinking can be a sign that there is an addiction. If a person starts drinking and generally doesn't stop until they are sick, passed out or blacked out... there is a high likelihood of an addiction.

Most become addicted because their brain gets used to needing the alcohol to feel good, or to even feel normal. People who have a genetic predisposition to addiction can become addicted fairly quickly. People who begin drinking at a young age (before the brain is finished developing) can become addicted fairly quickly. People who do not have the biological predisposition can drink large enough quantities over time to become addicted.

Answer 2

I don't think anybody really knows. I have heard all kinds of theories, but have met alcoholics from all kinds of different backgrounds.There are even people who had never drank until their thirties or forties and became alcoholics almost immediately They say,and I believe it to be true, alcohol is no respecter of persons.I guess if one never took a drink of alcohol they would not "get" alcoholism.

Answer 3

regularly drinking at risky levels and it does NOT!! take long. Do not try it with the idea that you will stop as soon as you get the first inkling because, unfortunately, it does NOT!! give warnings.

Every alcoholic's story is different, but for me, it just kind of sneaked up on me. I have always had an addictive personality. In high school, I only drank on weekends, but I always got much drunker than my friends did. In college, I developed a cocaine problem. After about a year or two of that, I switched to heroin.

It wasn't until after I quit heroin that I became a serious alcoholic. Throughout my other addictions, alcohol just remained in the background, like an old friend who would be there whenever I needed him. After I quit all the other drugs, I needed him a lot more.

I started noticing myself drinking more and more, very slowly. I also noticed myself lying about my drinking. I remember one day, I met up with my friends at Coney Island. When I got off the train, I had to pee really badly. So I went into a restaurant, but they wouldn't let me use the bathroom unless I bought something. So I bought 2 bottles of beer. I could've gotten soda, but I chose beer. When I finally met up with my friends on the beach, nobody wanted the beer but me, so I drank them both myself.

Later, I went to the bathroom at the beach by myself. On the way back, I sneaked into one of the bars on the Boardwalk and ordered a double shot of whiskey. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. That was when I first got the troubling feeling that my drinking was becoming a problem. But of course, I just ignored it.

Soon after that, I started buying pints of vodka and drinking them by myself at home. I had never done that before. I knew things were getting worse, but I just didn't want to think about it. Then I started buying pints of vodka every day, and I would start drinking earlier and earlier in the day. After just a couple of months, I was drinking as soon as I woke up in the morning.

Then the amount I drank kept getting larger and larger. First it was a pint a day. Then two pints. Then most of a liter bottle. It was around that time that I noticed I had become physically addicted to the alcohol. If I stopped drinking for more than 5 or 6 hours, my hands would start shaking uncontrollably. I knew this was a SERIOUS problem, but I didn't know what to do about it. I just couldn't STAND the idea of being a recovering alcoholic, going to bars and parties and drinking soda instead of liquor, while all my friends got hammered and had fun. So I just kept drinking.

About 7 months after that day at Coney Island, I was drinking over a liter of vodka a day. I would buy a 1.5 liter bottle (one of the gigantic bottles) of vodka, and it would be gone in less than 36 hours.

I was exhausted all the time, because the alcohol would not let me sleep a full night. I never SLEPT: rather, I would just pass out for about 4 or 5 hours at a time. And as soon as I woke up, I had to drink, or else my hands would shake. My stomach was very weak from all the drinking, so I practically never ate.

I also threw up constantly, since having nothing but vodka in your stomach all the time makes you sick all the time. I would wake up and drink 2 shots, and then I'd have to lay down on the couch and take deep breaths, to keep myself from vomiting. Often, I would vomit anyway. And then I had to drink 2 more shots. The alcohol made me throw up, but I HAD to choke it down, or else my hands would shake.

Then one night, I started throwing up blood. That really scared me. I knew I had to do something. So I called my parents, packed a bag, and we went to the hospital. I spent 5 days there detoxing.

The day after I got out of detox, I began drinking again. I relapsed SEVEN times before I was able to quit for good. They say every addict has to reach rock bottom before they can quit for good. My rock bottom was not very profound: I passed out, and when I woke up, there was broken glass all over the floor, and some of it was stuck in my feet. Apparently, in a drunken rage, I had thrown glasses and stuff around. Even worse, I have cats, and they could've gotten glass in their feet, too (luckily they didn't). Sort of a mundane rock bottom, I guess, but for me, it was the end (or, at least, I hope it was the end).

I've been sober over two and a half years now (since June 26, 2007). The longer you stay sober, the easier it is. I still get cravings to drink, but, it's much easier to ignore them now.

The human mind remembers pleasure much better than it remembers pain. They say that if a woman could remember the pain involved in having her first child, she would never have another. It's sort of the same being an alcoholic. When you get the craving to drink, all you think about is how great it would feel. You don't think about the negative part: drinking until you vomit, and then drinking again. Passing out on the bathroom floor. Making embarrassing drunken phone calls. Your hands shaking.

For some reason -- I really don't know why -- now I remember the bad parts of drinking, just as much as I remember the pleasure. When I think about drinking, I think about the way my life was when I was drinking 24/7, and I'm terrified of going back there.