The act of drinking alcohol does not make the drinker an alcoholic. When this fact is forgotten by well-meaning family or friends of a person who is drinking alcohol, problems often follow. Drinkers come in two varieties: alcoholics and non-alcoholics and these two varieties are hard to distinguish between when they have each had the same amount to drink.
The alcoholic person does not normally want to stop drinking alcohol has a very hard time saying no to alcohol while the non-alcoholic has control over when or how much they will drink. When well-meaning family or friends confuse these two roles and start to demand that a non-alcoholic go into treatment, the non-alcoholic adult will be offended.
Many popular treatment programs use guilt as a form of therapy to make the person quit drinking. Non-alcoholic drunks have chosen to drink, and if they are responsible while doing so, they do not see this legal act as something to be guilty about. When drunks are placed into a program demanding guilt, and they have none, the program does not work.
Alcohol abuse prevention programs are available to people who enjoy drinking that provide information on how to replace drinking with activities that will personally benefit the drinker. When individuals are allowed to make their own choices about lifestyles, they tend to go through with their plans to turn that new lifestyle option into a reality.
