Not so funny when it actually happens to you:

Because of really bad experiences with alcoholics as a child, I am afraid of people who drink. My psychologist and my doctor wrote that down.

When I became seriously ill and could no longer work in my old job, I had to retrain. To do this, you have to go to the German employment office and get an assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, including what your doctor and therapist have to say.

They read the paper from my doctor and my psychologist, but just skimmed over the words and decided that because the word "alcoholic" was there, I must be the alcoholic. They told me that I could get paid retraining and benefits, but only if I attended a therapy group for alcoholics once a week - me, who is afraid of alcoholics because of the abuse I suffered as a child. .... I immediately started crying and swore that I had no problem with alcohol, only with alcoholics!

It took 6 months to get someone at the job centre to actually read the papers word for word to find out that me saying "I'm not an alcoholic" was not me being an alcoholic in denial. I got a half-assed apology and my retraining 6 months after I could have started it because of this. Not to mention that every time I refused to go to AA meetings they threatened to take away my benefits and I was in such a bad mental state that I probably would have killed myself without the help of my family. Oh, and my family who tried to intervene were labelled as co-alcoholics, holding me back.

I was diagnosed with anorexia because I was 5 kg 'underweight' and answered 'no' when asked if I had an eating disorder. Answering 'no' was apparently the justification for the diagnosis. It's still on my file 10 years later, despite now being 'over-weight' and always having had nominal blood test results. Conveniently, denying you have anorexia is a symptom, and so is asking to have the diagnosis removed, I guess.

This has completely blocked me from receiving medication and treatment, because any physical or pyschological ailment I seek help for gets blamed on 'my anorexia' and I'm referred to psychotherapy.

I don’t drink

“I don’t have time for alcoholism—I’m too busy shooting heroin.”

"My psychiatrist prefers to say that I have a 'substance use disorder' and cautions that the old 'alcoholism' model isn't very scientific."

"I have literally not had alcoholic beverages even once in my life, how would it be possible to become an alcoholic given that?"

I drink a lot less now that I have easy access to THC.

This goes for a lot of other bad things, too. "Just to get it out of the way, I am not a child molester".

Only acoholics actually need to try to convince others that they aren't alcoholics. Nobody goes up to a person on the street to start aggressively asking if they have a drinking problem.

Any serious questions about how alcohol is affecting your life will quickly demonstrate whether it is is or isn't a problem, without you ever saying that you don't have a drinking problem.

It's because denial is part of being an alcoholic. The same goes with being called a liar.

It’s pretty easy, actually. I drink around twice a month. No one could credibly accuse me of alcoholism.

I mean, I am an alcoholic, so. I'm doing better though. I'm trying to only drink when offered one (from a trusted source) and that's been going ok so far. And since all of you are so very concerned, I have received over 300 hours of formal, licensed therapy which I have used to inform my selection of supporters and the mechanisms they use to support me. If you are licensed in one of the forms of therapy that have been invented in the past year and therefore one of the only ones I haven't tried yet, please PM me your number because I am very interested.

I dodged it as a youth, no point starting it now.

I literally just threw up. I feel better now though.

That's exactly what a fuckin boozer would say, also.

Although... I've been drinking since about October o'clock.. so, what the fuck would I know about it, anyways.

(I say: they can stop anytime you want me to.)

Cheers!

"I have about three drinks a week and get drunk maybe once or twice a year. I'd say I'm the picture of moderation, but I'm not really concerned with how you feel about my drinking habits."