Social Drinking vs Binge Drinking

While alcohol does lower inhibitions, social drinking rarely results in you becoming too intoxicated to drive home or control your actions. Some people require the space away from triggers like parties and events and the intensive treatment experience that inpatient rehab provides. Others can begin their addiction recoveries with day treatment in outpatient rehab.

Despite the potentially lethal damage that heavy drinking inflicts on the body—including cancer, heart problems, and liver disease—the social consequences can be just as devastating. Alcoholics and alcohol abusers are much more likely to get divorced, have problems with domestic violence, struggle with unemployment, and live in poverty. It’s not always easy to tell when your alcohol intake has crossed the line from moderate or social drinking to problem drinking.

You Have Blackouts When Drinking.

Alcoholics tend to betray their secret by letting down their employers and co-workers, family and friends and those who are counting on them by not showing up for important obligations or failing to deliver on promises. Missing work and calling in sick are signs of growing addiction to alcohol. Knowing what behaviors are problematic can be tricky, but it is a critical part of understanding the differences between casual drinking and alcohol abuse or AUD. Alcohol abuse and AUD are quite similar and are often used interchangeably. However, there are some key differences between the two that may help to address social drinking vs problem drinking.

The mixed results among African Americans may relate more to SES than to discrimination. Past studies suggest that African Americans with higher levels of education were more likely to report experiencing discrimination, whereas the opposite was true among Whites (Borrell et al. 2007; Krieger et al. 1998). This social drinking problem may be because better educated African Americans find themselves in situations in which they may be exposed to discrimination, or they may be more acutely aware of how subtly it can be expressed. Whites of lower SES may be in the minority and therefore may be more likely to report experiencing discrimination.

Social Drinking vs. Problem Drinking

There is no defined pattern of use for people who identify as social drinkers. Their alcohol consumption patterns can range from drinking each weekend with friends to one time per month at a work conference. Sobriety after experiencing an alcohol use disorder is a delicate gift.

Immigrants who come at a younger age have alcohol consumption patterns similar to their U.S.-born counterparts. The study by Reingle and colleagues also shows that immigrants who arrive when they are younger than 14 and who live beyond the U.S.–Mexico border region have much higher rates of alcohol use than immigrants in the border region. This particular finding suggests that where immigrants live is another social context worth further investigation. Strobbe echoes that sentiment, adding that “physical symptoms of withdrawal, like shaking or sweating when it gets to be too long between drinks” typically arise in later stages of alcoholism.