What Is A Grey Area Drinker?

In a brief interview on Studio 10 last year I was asked to define my ‘problem’ with alcohol.  I explained that I was not suffering from serious addiction when I decided to quit alcohol, but that I was a grey area drinker. Most, if not all, of my clients fall into this category but I didn’t have the time to expand in the interview which led to many people reaching out for what it meant.  In this email I’ll tell you what it means for me, and more broadly how the experts define it. 

My story and definition 

I knew alcohol was bad for me for many, many years.  In 2002 I wrote in my diary that I HAD to stop drinking. It caused me anxiety and depression, and created a sense of apathy in my life. In short, it made me feel like crap, often. 

I wrote ‘I have to stop drinking’ in my diary on and off for nearly 20 years. The language was harsh, sometimes hateful, always judgemental. 

I did stop, on and off, during those years. Sometimes because I had to (pregnancy), other times because I chose to. But every time there were a few common threads in my thinking. 

• I saw it as a sacrifice 
• I felt I was missing out on something 
• I was angry and judgemental about my lack of discipline when I thought about drinking. 
• I couldn’t wait to drink again, and this time, I would tell myself, I would moderate. 

Despite experiencing all the benefits of not drinking I would look forward to my first drink at the end of a quit period. I would moderate for a while, and then I’d end up drinking as much as I did before I quit, and sometimes more. And every time the judgements would get harsher. 

When I finally decided to quit once and for all, I had pushed myself to the edge. During my dad’s illness, I allowed myself to free-fall. After a while of letting myself drink whenever I wanted, I noticed a dramatic increase in my self-loathing and fear that I had lost control. It had to stop. 

During my drinking career I had done years of personal and professional development work, trained and worked as a life and mindset coach, counsellor, yoga teacher & mindfulness instructor. I’d launched and run a 7-figure business, got married, had two kids, chanted 'OM' a million times, done a mini-triathlon, sat in hours of meditation, and so on.  There was just one problem. Despite all this I simply couldn’t like who I was if I drank.  So finally I decided it was time to like myself enough to stop.  I didn’t enjoy being on this merry- go-round of seeking, and sometimes finding, love for myself, only to mess it up with a drink or twelve. I felt incongruent. I was destroying the chance of a great life, a life that the person I was trying to love deserved. 

My decision to stop drinking eventually came down to a commitment I made towards trying to learn to like myself, and my life, enough so that I didn’t default back into the resignation and apathy of regular drinking. 

I was not an ‘alcoholic’ and honestly I don’t even like using the word because I don't know exactly what it means, but I believe I was within the definition of addiction,  which is doing something repeatedly and with compulsion, regardless of negative consequence. 

As I mentioned, my clients, like me, fall into the grey area drinking category.  

Here is my definition of a grey area drinker. 

• Alcohol, when, where and how much you can drink, is a preoccupation. 
• You know alcohol is holding you back from the person you want to be and are capable of being. 
• You can’t work out why you do it, even though you feel terrible afterwards and know it’s so bad for you 
• You tell yourself you’re not that bad, but your heart is telling you there’s a problem here. 
• You don’t like yourself because you feel you’re not living in alignment with your goals and values 
• Whilst others around you seem to drink similar amounts, you feel it’s too much for you. 
• You’ve quit, multiple times, and keep going back. 
• And sadly, very often you don’t know who and what can help 

For me there is no benchmark of alcohol intake for when you become a grey area drinker, it’s simply a question of is it too much for you? 

Here is Grey Area Drinking expert Jolene Park’s definition. 

“This is grey area drinking, the space between the extremes of “rock bottom” and every-now-and-again drinking: a grey area that many, many people find an impossible space to occupy.” 

It’s the ‘impossible space to occupy’ that I feel is so important here. 

I have taken the below from an article written by Jolene Park. 

‘Gray area drinkers usually don’t need to go into an alcohol detox program to stop drinking, and AA doesn’t resonate with many of us. But that doesn’t mean we don’t question or spend a lot of time—often years—thinking about our drinking and wrestling with the internal dilemmas and concerns surrounding our habits.’ 

My grey area drinking days ended five years ago, and the time I don't spend on consuming, recovering, regretting, and ruminating about alcohol, is time I am grateful for every day.