How many 'problem drinkers' are actually undiagnosed autistic?

Getting a diagnosis helped me understand my drinking in a way identifying as 'alcoholic' never had

Apr 05, 2023

trees under blue sky and stars during nighttime photo — Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash

When I attend AA meetings, I get the impression that a lot of people are undiagnosed autistic. They talk about not understanding (or caring about) the ‘rules’ of society, and feeling like outsiders in a way that caused them pain, ever since childhood. They talk about ‘overthinking’ and a self-consciousness and social discomfort that is miraculously cured by alcohol. They describe these as their ‘alcoholism’.

[Cough.] Autism.

I’ve never particularly believed in an ‘alcoholic personality’. I’m still not entirely sure I believe in autism. This is just how my brain works, I think. But there are such clear parallels between these categories, and research is emerging to ~~prove my theory~~ draw the dots.

Learning about autism helped me better understand my drinking. How it was as much a method of invoking a more social personality as it was an addiction and as much a form of self-soothing as of self-medicating. My autism diagnosis helped me find peace with my drunken past in a way that the ‘alcoholic’ label never quite managed to, and I suspect this could be the same for many other people.

It’s important to remember that autistic traits are human traits and that autism is a spectrum. Also, people only bother to get a diagnosis when these traits are interfering with their quality of life. And, of course, every autistic person is different.

But which are the traits I am talking about? And were any of these behind your drinking?

1. Social anxiety

As I’ve said many times, it was only after I got sober that I came to better understand WHY I had developed the habit of drinking too much.

Looking back, I can see that I tended to drink in order to feel confident and sociable enough to walk into a pub, meet a group of friends and hang out. It helped with my intense self-consciousness, which I thought of as social awkwardness, and it gave me something to do with my hands. As a result, I drank pretty fast. Every time I felt awkward, essentially. Which was… a lot.

Back then, when I drank, I didn’t have such a clear sense of myself and my preferences, and I often met lots of different people in the pub. Friends and friends of friends. Strangers and acquaintances. I would be in the middle of large groups, sometimes. Something that does not at all appeal to the me I know now, and I can easily see why I needed a drink to gear myself up for this.

2. Tendency to existential angst/crisis

Big questions circled my head in primary school, and they only got more intensive and distracting. I recall looking out the window, during assembly, at the pavements and pylons, and the cars whizzing by, and wondering, How did we get here?

How did ANY OF THIS come to be?

The more I learned, the more confused I became.

Existence made no sense. And yet, I was supposed to just not worry about it, and get on with my life.

But what was my life?

And what should I do with it?

How did I even know I was really alive?

By my mid-teens, my head was entirely battered.

I was far too sensitive and neurotic to take drugs, and yet I found myself irresistibly drawn to them. Weed made me so paranoid that I believed I was in my own version of the Truman Show every time I got high.

“I know what you’re doing,” I said to my equally stoned friends, who looked on at me, amused and bewildered.

Still, I didn’t stop smoking.

A bad acid trip at sixteen tipped me further into the land of the mad, and by my 18th birthday, I had come full circle and quit drugs entirely.

My new friends at university experimented with ecstasy for the first time, while I sat on the sidelines, making sure they drank enough water, like an aged-out drug matriarch.

I think I liked to get out of my mind with alcohol or other substances because it gave me a break from The Mystery and my obsession with trying to understand it.

And because I found that when other people were on drugs, they were more open to discussing the mind-boggling trip I seemed to be experiencing most of the time, just being alive.

3. Tendency to ruminate

After socialising I have a lot of regrets over things I did or didn’t say. (Generally the things I said, if I was drinking.) I often realise (or fear) that I said something obnoxious, tone-deaf or downright offensive to someone I admire and respect, and then struggle to move on from beating myself up over this real or perceived error for, I don’t know, fifteen years.

This can happen while I am socialising, too, which makes hangouts less relaxing. Booze quiets this part of my brain, and spending time with people becomes more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, booze lowers my inhibitions so much that I make more of the social mistakes I live in fear of, thus leading to terrifying bouts of hangxiety. Sometimes lasting for days.

4. Sensory sensitivity

Pubs are busy and smelly, without enough places to sit. Bars are purposefully too loud, and I find it hard to drown out the background noise to hear what my friends have to say. Lighting is ok, until they turn it all up in order to help you to leave their establishment. Since alcohol turns my face a striking purply-red, this is always a shock, and so I feel compelled to rush out before anyone notices the plum I’ve become.

When I’m drinking, I don’t worry so much about any of this stuff. I also don’t worry about the things that do deserve and need my attention.

5. Reluctance to leave my nest

Without drink as a tool, I rarely get the urge to socialize. And hardly ever with more than one person. I like to see my friends individually, and I push myself to make the effort to spend time with them because I have finally come to understand the nature of true friendship and it is very meaningful to me. This is a work-in-progress as my default setting is super-glued to Stay Home. Very occasionally I get the urge to Do Something, but usually as it approaches, I hope it will be cancelled.

My favourite thing in the world is to stay home with my partner and our pets. Though, I am learning that this is partly due to the executive functioning challenges that arise with Doing Anything. Combined with what I have come to understand as autistic inertia. But that is another post, entirely…

Anyhow, before I quit drinking, no place was more sacred to me than the sunny beer garden. I was astonished to discover, relatively soon after I quit, that I didn't particularly miss them.

Don’t misunderstand me, I still love to sit and have a drink in the sun, but the noisy, bustling beer garden no longer holds the same allure since I lost my obsession with beer.

Why am I so keen to draw this connection? Because alcohol is so effective as a social tool that many autistic people (diagnosed and not) rely on it, in lieu of a better option. Including teenagers. And if we understood this connection better, we might be able to intervene more quickly when we notice our teens/friends/family/peers getting into trouble with drinking.

Over-reliance on booze wreaks havoc in people’s lives and relationships long before they might qualify as addicted. And for some people, this over-reliance is due to some undiagnosed or unacknowledged part of them that beer is hiding.

With hindsight, I can see that I drank to counter my innate preference for quiet, peaceful times. I wanted to be sociable as it seemed to be more highly valued by The Humans, and I found alcohol facilitated that. But it got me into a lot of trouble over the years, too.

The problem with drinking is that it is such an effective strategy that we can lose touch with our natural states.

I’m not saying all drinkers are autistic. But I think there are reasons why people drink to excess, beyond being ‘alcoholic’. I’d love to hear what you think.

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