It is interesting to that that as you put Nicole - if you drink a little on the weekend with friends then it is a social relaxant, a necessary to run your troubles from the week away but once you need regular drinks to keep going or getting up in the morning then you become an "alcoholic" and everyones perception of you changes.
For our 3rd year OSCE, we had a detailed list of alcohol related questions that we asked that could indicate if someone was dependant on alcohol and included:
- do you need a drink to get you up in the morning?
- have you sometimes never remembered how you've got home the night before?
If you ask many medical students these type of questions, you'll get the likely answer of 'yes'... which means that does for example, continued answers every sunday morning (post sat night binges) constitute an alcoholic?...and thus, the social stigma or is it just being a "typical student"?
