In response to an article on The Huffington Post, “Rush People Who Have 1-2 Drinks to AA?” one person wrote: “I’ve been in recovery for seven years. Zero alcohol intake. I thought complete abstinence was the point. Have I been wrong all this time?”

The author, addiction expert Stanton Peele replied:

“You need to be a critical consumer of information for your own life. But, if your decision to abstain for life was based solely, or largely, on the idea that human beings with problems that qualify them as alcoholics never reduce their drinking – you probably should consider the scientific information that this idea is false.”

Peele was referring to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s (NIAAA) detailed study of 43,000 drinkers nationally , which found that three-quarters of alcoholics recover without treatment, and more than half drink safely.

It seems there’s some discrepancy over the use of the word alcoholic.

I’ve always thought (and many of my friends have fought me on this) that if someone was diagnosed as an alcoholic, the only “cure” or solution was to never drink again. I also felt, based largely on my mother’s experience, that it would be nearly impossible for alcoholics to quit drinking on their own, and that they need some combination of therapy, detox, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

But I missed an important distinction. According to NIAAA, there are two forms of alcohol dependence: time-limited, and recurrent or chronic. As the writers at NIAAA put it, “In most persons affected, alcohol dependence (commonly known as alcoholism) looks less like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas than it does your party-hardy college roommate or that hard-driving colleague in the next cubicle.”

Your party-hardy college roommate? Most likely, her drinking will ebb and flow as she goes through different ages and stages. Just because someone has a heavy-drinking stage of life does not necessarily mean they are a candidate for AA.

In my opinion, it’s confusing to label time-limited alcohol dependence as alcoholism.  I think that there should be a distinction made between heavy drinkers and alcoholics.

What do you think, readers?

We Want to Know…What Is Your Definition of An Alcoholic? Do you think alcoholics can safely drink again and/or recover without treatment? Should there be a distinction between problem drinkers and alcoholics?

I’m always on the lookout for a good nonalcoholic beverage; one that I can sip at a party instead of gulp in one or two slugs. I don’t know how it is for extroverts, but introverts like me can use a good cocktail “comfort object” to clutch as we navigate the crowds.

Seltzer is a good choice, but after I add the cranberry, it becomes gulp-able. Sparkling juices? Too sweet. Gingerale? It disappears too quickly.

What I really crave is a bracing nonalcoholic beverage, one that will simulate a vodka drink, which demands sipping because of its slightly medicinal edge. This is why I was intrigued when I heard about a new beverage, 12 Noon to Midnight, a fizzy, tea-based drink marketed as the “intelligent alternative for every occasion.”

Developed by chefs David Burke and Alfred Portale, 12 Noon to Midnight is created in a base of organic white, green and black teas with a mix of herbs, spice and citrus essence.

I decided to do a taste test, and bought two bottles at my local Mrs. Greens–one original, peachy apricot flavor, which looks a lot like champagne, and one Rouge, a pomegranate and red grape flavor. The bottle is beautiful, which is a plus–frosted glass instead of the usual workaday clear plastic or glass. Why should pretty bottles be reserved for alcoholic beverages? The festive bottle and packaging enhanced its special-occasion feel, and when I opened it, bubbles shot up to the top, just like when you open champagne.

And the taste? Pretty good, especially since there was only a hint of sweetness. I preferred the Rouge, but I liked the original, too. Both taste slightly spicy, almost like nonalcoholic Jagermeister, and demand to be sipped instead of gulped. The calorie content—60 calories per 8 oz. serving—is less than half that of a glass of red wine (which has 150 calories per 8 oz.). So you can avoid the hangover and drink up.

Not ready to give up your buzz? You can always add booze, and make a creative cocktail out of it, but that’s another story.

We want to know…what’s your favorite nonalcoholic drink to sip at parties? Why?

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Recently, New York magazine posed the question to comedian Jim Carrey, “Any relatives you dread seeing over the holidays?” His answer seemed tailor-made to spark discussion here on Drinking Diaries:

Well, my grandfather was a major drunk. And my grandmother, too! It was hilarious on a certain level, but then they would corner my parents and make them feel like crap for about three hours, and when my father was red-faced and ready to leave, I would start doing impressions of them. And that’s how I turned to comedy, as relief.

We want to know: Have you ever been cornered by a drunken relative (or anyone else) over the holidays? Have you witnessed another family member or friend being cornered? How have you coped?

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Here’s a quiz for you: Say you’re sharing a bottle of wine with a friend, or your spouse, after dinner. A glass and a half later, you feel you’ve had enough—you’re pleasantly buzzed, and any more might leave you sleepy or fuzzy in the morning. Still, there’s more wine in the bottle. Do you A) finish what’s left—what the hey, it’s not that much, plus you hate to waste, B) re-cork it and put it in the fridge for tomorrow, or C) forget it about it altogether, leave it uncorked on the counter and dump it down the drain the next morning.

A supermarket in the U.K., Morrisons, seeks to end the drink-it-or-dump-it dilemma by introducing smaller bottles of wine, in the hope that people will actually drink less. During a recession, particularly, people are hesitant to waste, and will tend to drink all the wine in a bottle rather than dump it.

Sainsbury’s introduced the smaller bottles last year, but Morrisons is the first retailer to use the smaller-size bottles to promote responsible drinking.

The new bottles will hold 50cl—or 6 units of alcohol–as opposed to 75 cls,–which contain nine units–making it easier for people to keep to the government’s recommended limit of 14 units a week for women and 21 units a week for men.

Professor Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK says, “People grossly underestimate what they drink at home, particularly during holidays…On holiday, most people drink more in two weeks than they usually do in three months and this seems a good way to start tackling that consumption.”

We want to know…do you think smaller wine bottles can actually reduce alcohol consumption?

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Here in the U.S., it’s getting easier to buy alcohol on Sundays, with more states allowing Sunday liquor sales and more communities starting to sell booze as early as 6 a.m.

Thirty-six states now allow Sunday sales of distilled spirits, up by 14 from 2002.

Why the change? Economists cite the downturn. In an article in USA Today, Lisa Hawkins of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said “blue laws…simply don’t make sense in today’s economy. They inconvenience consumers and deprive states of much-needed tax revenue.”

Some communities have opted to compromise—agreeing to allow the sale of liquor on Sundays, but voting for later opening times for the stores—say, noon, instead of first thing in the morning.

When it comes to the blue laws, I’m of two minds. On one hand, it’s a little depressing for people to buy liquor at six in the morning. Can’t one day be sacred? On the other hand, Sunday seems a bit arbitrary, and tied to religion. Not everyone holds Sunday as a day of rest, and some religions include wine or other liquor as part of their rituals and meals.

We want to know: what do you think of liquor stores being open on Sundays?

“Red red wine, go to my head, make me forget…”

There are drinking songs—songs that make you want to drink—and then there are songs that remind you of certain nights, certain drinks.

Every time I hear UB40’s song, “Red Red Wine,” I’m transported back to a night, freshman year of college, when the guy who lived across the hall from me and I decided to play “drinking” Trivial Pursuit (yes, this was back in the 80s).  Our drink of choice: a gallon jug of Ernest & Julio Gallo red.

I was pretty good at Trivial Pursuit, but there were still lots of stumpers like: Name the dancers on the Jackie Gleason show (Answer: The June Taylor dancers).

By the end of a few hours or so, my roommate walked in and found four legs, twined together. Turns out we were under the bed, making out while “Red Red Wine” looped over and over on the record player (yes, that’s how old I am).

We want to know…what’s your favorite drinking song? A literal drinking song, or a song that makes you think about drinking.

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On “All the Lonely People,” Roger Ebert’s blog column for the Chicago Sun-Times, the film critic writes about drinking and loneliness:

For many years I was an alcoholic, and I never felt lonely then. I could feel sick, I could feel despair, but I could never feel lonely. A drink would lift me up. I was never a morose drunk. Alcohol makes you feel better and then makes you feel worse and then remorselessly very bad indeed, but then alcohol will make you feel better again. It is the cure for the dog that bit you, and how easily you forget it is also the dog. Good Doctor Schlichter told me, “It is the one relationship you have learned to count on, with the bottle.”

Thank God I found sobriety. I could sustain myself with my work, my reading, the movies, my friends. And walking, walking, walking. Of all the purposes of education, I think the most useful is this: It prepares you to keep yourself entertained. It gives you a better chance of an interesting job. Those who stare at the TV for hours might as well be sitting on a stone under a tree in a primeval village; indeed, that might offer more interest and variety. I can’t remember the last time I felt bored. I can’t eat, drink or talk, and yet I have so many other resources to keep myself entertained. I think I must be a case study.”

We want to know: Does (or did) drinking making you feel more or less lonely? Feel free to elaborate, as this is a complicated question.

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An article in Working Mother, “Everybody Knows Somebody,” touched on the fact that women are more likely to hide addictions (or addictive behavior) than men. Here’s an excerpt:

“Cindy never went to bars. With friends, she never allowed herself more than two drinks. “I had a career and kids, a reputation in our community I had to maintain,” she says. But while her kids slept, she drank and did housework. Even when you’re bleary, you can vacuum, fold laundry, clean the bathroom. Sometimes she’d bake cookies and cupcakes for the kids’ lunches. Doing mom things made her feel less guilty about drinking. Drinking made her less resentful of having to do mom things.

When Cindy remarried three years ago, she didn’t want her husband to know how much she drank. She’d have a glass of wine at dinner and wait until he fell asleep to go back to her bottle. He traveled a lot, so she still had many nights alone.”

This got me thinking how women don’t have to be alcoholics or addicts to have an occasional impulse to hide their drinking. Maybe it’s because I’m the daughter of an alcoholic and drinking will always be loaded for me, but I can remember feeling self-conscious having a glass of wine at lunch with a friend, wondering if the other mothers would smell the liquor on my breath at school pickup. A few times, when I indulged in a glass or two of wine after the kids were in bed, I felt embarrassed that my husband would think I was an alcoholic. For some of us, drinking alone feels taboo. For others, it’s a non-issue.

Maybe, like me, you had a glass of wine with lunch and felt self-conscious showing up at school pickup with alcohol on your breath, so you popped a mint, or used mouthwash. Perhaps you didn’t feel like sharing the fact that you had a late afternoon glass of wine with your husband, your boyfriend, or the acquaintance who came to pick up her kid, so you kept your distance. You weren’t keeping your drinking a secret, per se, but you weren’t broadcasting it or celebrating it, either.

Whether you’re addicted or not, we want to know….have you ever hid your drinking from your spouse, a friend, an acquaintance? Why or why not?

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing, but I can certainly remember a time or twenty when I was at a bar or a party, and got so deep in discussion with a friend that tears began to flow. The next time I’d see that friend, we’d embrace tightly, our friendship strengthened by that intoxicated night when we spilled our guts to one another.

After a few glasses of wine or cups of beer, my emotions tend to heighten and my inhibitions diminsh. So the words just pour out. I’ve seen the opposite happen too, when close friends drink and become belligerent, and suddenly aren’t friends anymore.

So we want to know: Has drinking ever brought you closer to a friend, or torn you apart?

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Today, I read yet another article about parents arrested for letting their underage teens drink in (or this case, outside) their house. This time, it was two moms, who admittedly, were intoxicated themselves when the police came and found 15 teenagers drinking in their yard and making noise. In her defense, one of the moms said something to the effect of, “I can’t control my kid. Can you control yours?” When the officer asked her why she didn’t call the police, she said that it was Homecoming, and drinking is what kids do on Homecoming.

When we did a poll here at Drinking Diaries, asking “Would You Let Your Underage Teen Drink In Your House?” the answers were evenly split between: “Yes, but only sips of wine or beer at the dinner table” and “Yes, I’d rather have my kids drink under my supervision than out of sight. At least I’ll know what my kids are doing, then.” Fewer people said they would not allow their kids to drink in the house.

Here’s the real question: If you’d be willing to let your kids drink in your house, would you be willing to let them share a few beers with friends? What if they had 5 friends over, and they wanted to drink? What if it were 10? When does letting your teen drink in your house morph into hosting an underage drinking party–for which you can get arrested.

We want to know: What are your thoughts about this controversial issue? Are you willing to risk breaking the law, or do you (or will you) follow it to the letter?

What you drink has to do with many factors, depending on your age and stage of life. Teens often drink whatever they can sneak or buy cheaply–whatever goes down the easiest. College students? Beer–or maybe drinks that make a person look sophisticated. Twenty-somethings on up: Depends on who you are and what life path you’ve chosen.

We want to know: How has your drink of choice changed over time? But first, we’ll share our own drink histories:

Leah: High school: I had a sip of beer and some sips of wine coolers. College: Kamikaze shots, lined up at the campus pub. The drinking age was 18. Vodka in the shower before parties. Piss beer at frat parties, grain alcohol-spiked punch or mixed drinks, such as Long Island Iced Teas. In short, whatever got us drunkest fastest, or whatever was around. I don’t remember drinking wine. Year abroad in Paris, then all over Europe: Carlsberg Blonde beer, red wine–from a box, from a baby bottle, however I could get it. Sometimes that licoricey French aperitif. On the Greek Island Ios, tequila slammers. Post-college years: Traveling cross country with my boyfriend, we drank Miller Hi Life from the bottle. Then, later in Manhattan, I stopped drinking almost anything else but wine–white wine, red wine, Sangria, rose, port wine–a trend that continues to this day.

Caren: My drinking experiences as a teen involved sneaking whiskey sours at family events if there was a bartender on the scene. Age really didn’t seem to matter to anyone back then. In high school, I remember being on the beach in Florida during a vacation with some friends and making facial contortions as I sipped a Miller Lite–so disgusting to me then. In college, while I did stupidly go for whatever was in the grain-alcohol-infused punch bowl (didn’t everyone?), it was always too sweet and never tasted good. That’s when I started actually acquiring a taste for beer. After college and once in the work force, frozen margaritas were the greatest happy hour treat, until I drank too many and woke up with the worst tequila hangover–stayed away from it for a couple of years thereafter. From that time on, I’ve really developed such a love for the taste of wine (and slightly heavier beers like Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada) that it’s almost not worth drinking any other type of alcohol. An occasional bloody mary over brunch (though I could take or leave the vodka), but it’s really wine for me these days…

To offer your thoughts, please add a comment below.

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We Want to Know: How have your parents’ drinking habits affected your own?

We Want to Know: Has Anyone Ever Embarrassed You With Their Drinking?

We Want to Know: How has your faith/religion/culture affected or influenced your drinking (or not drinking) throughout your life?

We’d love to hear from you about your guiltiest drinking pleasure–past and/or present.

So…what was it?