There are no criteria or diagnostics for drinking because THERE IS NO SAFE OR HEALTHY INTAKE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL. So, if you drink, you will have to self-select a term or description that you’re most comfortable with to describe where you believe you fall on the drinking spectrum.
The drinking spectrum is long and varied. There are no black and white two-category options. But there are many shades of gray, hence the term, Gray Area Drinking.
Example #1
Person A may drink (or they used to drink) a certain amount of alcohol and self-identify as an alcoholic.
Person B may drink the exact same amount of alcohol as Person A but they self-identify as a social drinker.
Which drinker is using the “correct” term and description for their drinking?
Example #2
Person C, drinks 1-2 glasses of wine on most nights but not every night. They might answer ‘Yes’ to an online quiz that asks if they’ve ever engaged in risky behavior while drinking.
Person D drinks a bottle of wine on most nights but not every night. They also might answer ‘Yes’ to an online quiz that asks if they’ve ever engaged in risky behavior while drinking.
Or, both might truthfully answer ‘No’ to the question about engaging in risky behavior when drinking.
So which drinking label and description would you place on Person C and Person D?
Which drinking label do you think these two people would self-select for themselves?
There’s so much nuance, aka lots of gray! It’s not back or white, it’s not one category or another. Every person and every situation is different. But the thing that remains the same is there is no safe or recommended healthy intake level of alcohol.
So, “social drinkers”, “moderate drinkers”, “problem drinkers”, “dependent drinkers”, “addicted drinkers”, or any other diagnostic term that you or anyone else wants to use; such as “alcohol use disorder”, is subjective, vague and at best interesting because there is no safe intake level of alcohol.
Here’s my bottom line on this conversation:
—A gray area drinker is NOT someone who needs medical intervention in order to stop drinking. A person who is at risk for seizures and other complications while withdrawing from alcohol and requires a medically supervised detox is not a gray area drinker.
—A gray area drinker is someone who can and DOES stop drinking on their own. They or others around them may define their drinking as social drinking, moderate drinking, problem drinking, dependent drinking, or addicted drinking — it’s all gray area drinking!
—Spending an inordinate amount of time debating and trying to differentiate these subjective, self-identified, highly nuanced, and ambiguous terms is a distraction from the issue at hand and delays focusing on the solution.
—Gray area drinking is real. It’s a huge spectrum and a huge problem. It’s the true epidemic of our day. It’s the space and place where the majority of people drink. If you need the scientific evidence on gray area drinking, search PubMed the research is there!
So, go ahead and self-select the term you’re most comfortable using to describe your drinking. Many people feel empowered and liberated using the most accurate (scientifically and otherwise) term which is gray area drinking. But, you can use whatever term and description you want. Just remember, THERE IS NO SAFE OR HEALTHY INTAKE LEVEL OF ALCOHOL!
