Old movies like Casablanca glamorize the heavy-drinking, wild-partying expat stereotype. While inhibitions are easier to ignore when the cultural mores of home are removed, the reality of expat living may be painted a little differently. For many, expat life centers around the bar but excessive alcohol use is not as elegant as Hollywood portrays.
Drinking is a personal choice and not necessarily a bad thing unless it becomes the focus of someone's life. In some expat communities boredom and a lack of leisure activities – or the resourcefulness to create some – has devolved into a tradition of working or studying during the week, then drinking through the weekends. This pattern is typical of the binge drinking researchers have observed in both underage and college drinkers.
Binge Drinking: Alcohol Abuse Not Alcoholism
In a College Bulletin published in November, 2007, The National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) defined binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 gram-percent or above. For a typical adult, this pattern corresponds to consuming 5 or more drinks (male), or 4 or more drinks (female), in about 2 hours.”
According to the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) website, binge drinking is excessive alcohol use or abuse, but most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent. What that means is that young people – or binge drinkers of any age – are drinking not because they feel a compulsion to do so but rather because they want to experience the feeling of being drunk.
Seeking euphoria, dulling the pain, relaxing, unwinding – the words used to explain the reason for drinking are varied but the patterns are similar. Work hard, party hard. . .with a little help from alcohol or other mood-altering substances. It's not just an expat problem, but when far from home, it's often easier to hang out with other people from "back-home" than to explore the unknown. After a week of hard work, easy is important.
Choosing to Change Using Self-help or a Twelve Step Program
Yet daily choices end up being lifestyle choices that determine one's future. An expat has many opportunities just waiting to be grabbed. The expat life provides:
- an optimum setting for language learning
- unique chances to study a different culture
- friendships with others who are truly "different"
- a convenient base for economical foreign travel
External forces are relatively impotent for motivating someone to change. Long term behavior modification must be a personal desire. Then, the easiest way to change a behavior is to find some other activity to act as a substitute. Build a fire of passion for doing something like exercise, photography, or a new sport. Find others who are doing the same thing and become active in the group. Look online for a twelve-step program. Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon, and many other twelve-step programs have online meetings and chat rooms where an expat can form a social bridge and get support for changing behavior patterns.
Expats have many choices while away from home. Some of them are easier than others. Focusing on alcohol – especially when drinking becomes a habit – may lead to many problems. For those who live or work abroad and want help to change, support is as close as the Internet. There are many online programs from counseling to AA meetings.
Mistie Shaw - Writing for nearly half a century, Shaw's interests and education meander from music to the military, and from faith to fun.
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