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Comment by bluefirebrand | Hacker News Reader

OP explicitly calls his friends (and himself) an alcoholic. That implies a different dynamic than simply a group of friends who goes out and has a couple of drinks.

Finding a new group of friends in that sort of situation is absolutely the correct move. Addicts do not let other addicts quit.

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OP said "all my friends are alcoholic" not "all my friends are alcoholics".

I read that as: all of my friends drink alcohol, not all of my friends are addicted to alcohol.

If OP and all of his friends are alcohol addicted, then yeah: that's a medical problem and my advice doesn't apply, which I already said.

Among primary English speakers, “alcoholic” almost always refers to abusive drinking.

I can’t imagine using “alcoholic” to describe people who consume alcohol in moderation. And I am around a lot of teetotalers.

Yes, but using the singular signals a non-native speaker, and this is reinforced by using "couldn't" rather than "haven't [been able to]" in the third sentence. I think GP is on to something.

I think you're reading too much into it there. Plenty of native speakers have far worse grammar and more questionable usage choices, especially the ones that are young and drunk.

The sentence sounded weird to me too and I interpreted it as a non-native english speaker simply saying their friends drank alcohol but where not alcoholics. OP should probably clarify.

In the context of 23 year-olds, I think it's safe to say that none of them are actual alcoholics, just that they drink A LOT, as many people at that age do.

How is that safe to say? There are plenty of 23-year-old alcoholics, having lost control over their alcohol consumption, in full-blown physical and/or psychological addiction. You don't have to age into it, or take a test, or carry a card. It just happens to you.

Someone who can’t have fun without drinking is an alcoholic.

It's probably more likely that OP is throwing around the term without a true appreciation for its meaning. Me and my friends get stupid drunk when were together on the weekend and I want to do other activities is very different than me and my friends all have 10+ drinks a day (top 10% of adult consumption).

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