LAS VEGAS – Ray Milland, 45, a self-proclaimed “heavy drinker” is very sure that he’s not an alcoholic.

Mr. Milland, an executive for the United Beverage Company was recently interviewed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), after Milland had Tweeted that: “Drinking is fine. It’s even healthy. Wine drinking is part of the Mediterranean diet, after all.”

AA responded by sending Dean Martin of the Council of International Alcoholics Anonymous (CIAA), based in Washington, DC, an unofficial umbrella group of AA affiliates. Dean Martin interviewed Milland after his inflammatory anti-AA Tweet Storm. The CIAA published their interview with Milland in the June 2018 edition of Call of the Bottle magazine, their house newsletter (funded by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation).

During his Call of the Bottle interview, Milland repeatedly denied that he was himself was an alcoholic. He described himself as “a man who likes a few drinks.”

“My Father always told me that an alcoholic is somebody who thinks of having a drink the moment they wake up in the morning. That’s totally not me. In the morning, I’m often hungover, and so I’m really not looking to drink any more alcohol then. Sometimes I even vow to quit drinking in the morning if I wake up with a really bad hangover.”

“Sure, I like to binge drink once in a while, but at least I’m not an alcoholic. Not like my buddies. They’re great guys!”

“I’m moderate. Some nights, I have no problem just having two or three drinks. I don’t even drink whiskey. And I almost never drink before five o’clock in the afternoon. I’m not a day drinker. At least not usually.”

“I was at a party last night, and the birthday girl–well she just turned 40–drank three glasses of wine, and she said she couldn’t even remember the last time she had drank three glasses of wine! And I thought: ‘I can’t remember the last time I didn’t drink three glasses of wine.’”

“Yeah, OK, some nights I have more than that. Four or five, or I lose count sometimes. Or black out. Whatever. But that’s pretty normal. I still go to work every day! Or only call in sick to work because I have a hangover like five times per year at most. Or ten. That’s pretty reasonable, really. There’s 365 days in a year, except for leap year when there’s 666—I mean 366 days.”

“I’m sure I could quit drinking anytime I wanted. But drinking is fun. I don’t want to stop. An alcoholic is someone who couldn’t stop if they wanted to, but that’s not me. I could stop if I wanted to. I just don’t want to.”

“An alcoholic is like that Nicholas Cage character in Leaving Las Vegas, pushing around a whole shopping cart full of whiskey bottles before drinking himself to death. That’s not me at all.”

When confronted by the statistic that the American Alcoholics Association defines an alcoholic as someone who regularly imbibes more than 14 alcoholic drinks per week, Milland replied: “Oh! That’s ridiculous. Everybody drinks at least 14 drinks per week. I can hit that mark in 2 or 3 nights easy. Maybe even 1 night if it’s a really great party. Huh huh huh.”

Dean Martin asked Milland: “Do you know what denial is?”

Milland: “Sure. The Nile is the longest river in Africa.”

”I may be a heavy drinker, but there’s no way I’m an alcoholic.”