Quote Originally Posted by Sweetchuck View Post
Thank you.

I always considered my dad to be an alcoholic. I remember when he was younger, he would drink a lot. Whiskey, beer - daily. He slowed down over time and he's stopped drinking all together. I'm not sure why.

It's a very complicated issue and I don't claim to know the correct definition, but I get skeptical when people start using 'alcoholic' as a label.
Yeah, that sounds more like a drunk, and not an alcoholic, but the only way to tell the difference, honestly, is to look at what happens when the alcohol goes away.

For those that don't know what we're discussing, it breaks down like this: a drunk may be drunk quite a bit of the time, but if it comes to it, he can just stop. For an alcoholic, they really can't, mentally they are simply completely hooked, and their bodies end up going through actual withdrawal if they do stop.