I was wondering if you could consider someone a hypocrite who practices self control? If someone drinks occasionally and doesn't over do it, could they still be able to give advice to a alcoholic about overcoming his problem. One thing I believe is the drugs or any other addiction isn't the problem alone, but it's the effect it has on your mind and behavior. If you can master yourself and control impulses you can increase your chances of fighting and beating an addiction. Someone could be clean for years and face a stressful situation or be triggered to relapse. If you can find a way to develop the inner strength to control impulsive behavior any addiction could be reduced to nothing. What do you think?
Will is the most important weapon in this fight and I really do not see how someone who practices self control could be a hypocrite. If you drink occasionally you are not an alcoholic and you can give an advice. The best advice givers are those who managed to overcome this problem. With their experience they can only help. Those who just want to practice self control are half way to become alcoholics or anti alcoholics but still have more credentials to talk about this then those who never drank or had been drinking moderately without any reason to practice self control.
I reckon that it is not a bad thing if someone who is controlling themselves and also it can take time to see if the person is trustworthy and also hope that people learn about the person and it can take strong will to do this as giving advice to someone who is struggling, can be a good thing and from someone who is having free will can seem strange to many people. I hope that people who have changed themselves around can give good advice to the ones who are struggling and also this can make the person look at how they are acting with others, and see the bad sides which can make them change their life around. It is good to hear a message from someone who has done a nice thing with their life and also it can motivate a person to change around and try and make good choices in their life which can motivate them to move ahead in their life.
Sometimes you are more willing to take advice from someone who was once in your shoes. A person who drinks alcohol occasionally might reach out to am alcoholic more successfully than a person who has never had a sip a day before in their life. Being able to drink and have self control is a much better role than drinking out of control while telling others what to do or simply talking out of ignorance.
The whole definition of addiction is that the drug/activity takes over your own will and self control. I'm not sure exactly what you are asking in this post? Are you trying to help an addict or is this just hypothetical? Either way something about your post rubs me the wrong way - as if you are saying some people have self control and addicts do not. It's not so black and white and if I were confronted with this attitude from someone who was trying to help, I wouldn't necessarily think they were a hypocrite, just that they don't understand what an addict goes through.
I agree with GettingBetter. I don't claim to be an expert on the pathology of illnesses, but it isn't as simple as just having self control. By the time you get to a point at which your neurological pathways have been affected, I would think it takes a lot more than "self control" to overcome something like that. Furthermore, if you use a substance as a coping mechanism, then self control really has nothing to do with it. Overcoming addiction at that point has a lot more to do with dealing with the underlying issue of the trauma, etc. and then moving on from there.
While there is a technical definition for the term "hypocrite"... whether someone truly fits that that description or not is something decided on by an individual. Someone may view the person in question as a hypocrite while someone else may not. Anyone is able to give helpful advice even if they may not be able to follow the advice themselves; that could be an entirely different issue they are struggling with. There's a huge psychological aspect in any matter addressing addiction, as addiction itself is a psychological issue. If you improve your willpower enough and find healthy alternatives (if the addiction is used to cope) I believe almost anyone can recover. There may be other factors involved such as your health, environment/peers, and ability to deal with triggers... but the human mind is an incredibly powerful thing.
I wouldn't consider someone who drinks occasionally a hypocrite but I have to say that placing yourself in temptation's way can eventually work against you. People drink to get a buzz and you'll need more alcohol to get the same "buzz" the more you drink so there's a possibility even if someone wants to be in control their body will crave more alcohol and eventually they just might give in and drink just a little more.
I think as long as the person is not going overboard with his drinking then I think that he will be credible enough to give advice as long as he admits that he drinks occasionally. It takes one to know one, right? So I wouldn't classify it as being a hypocrite.
I don't consider a person who drinks once in a while a hypocrite. I think he/she can be called a social drinker, but not a hypocrite. That person didn't say he/she is going to quit alcohol for good in the first place, so hypocrite should never be a term for him/her.
I do have friends who occasionally drink and they can really drink just a glass or two and they can even say "NO' if being asked to drink and they need to stay sober. So I think that having self control is possible and not being hypocrite to give advice on those who are alcoholics.
Well, the best thing that person can do is to teach other people the secrets to self control, that way they have a way of controlling themselves. Addiction is hard, so learning a useful skill like self control might be a nice thing to do!
I don't believe in self control. I tried it many times. Sometimes I was successful, and sometimes I just behaved like the drunk I was. That's the reason I don't drink in public anymore. If I really get the urge to have a drink, I do it at home, where I'm safe and free from any embarrassing situation.
Most addictions are physiological and not physical. They are normally used as a coping mechanism. If the reason that makes you want to drink is solved the drinking stops, this isn't a golden rule but if you can fix the cause you can fix the problem.
Nope, not at all. If someone manages to actually overcome alcoholism and still drink a little bit during special occasions (not very often) I believe they are not hypocrites. Not every alcoholic can do this though, some can relapse really badly, others can actually control it and don't go hardcore. I'd consider it hypocrisy is an alcoholic were giving sobering up advises to another alcoholic... specially if the first alcoholic hasn't managed to to control his addiction.