Work was starting to be too hectic for a young police officer named Gary. Even though he had only been on the police force for two-and-a-half years, he was already known as a hard worker who rarely turned down working overtime. If truth be told, he was now working fifteen to twenty hours of overtime each week and, consequently, he felt like he was losing his grip on his personal life. What made the situation more complex, however, was the fact that Gary began going out drinking with a bunch of his fellow officers after his shift was over.
What Began as Fun With The Guys Soon Turned Into Abusive Drinking
What began as fun with the guys soon turned into hazardous and abusive drinking and then into a negative cycle of feeling tired each morning when he awakened for work, working more long hours, and then going drinking with his pals after work.
Clearly Gary was in a rut and experiencing some negative alcohol effects on the body. Where Gary really experienced drinking related difficulties and alcohol short term effects, conversely, was in his family life and in his marriage. His wife wasn’t really a nag, but she frequently begged him to stay at home more with the family instead of going out and wasting money while drinking with his buddies.
Gary’s Excessive and Abusive Drinking Negatively Affects His Personality
In a similar manner, Gary’s careless and abusive drinking also adversely affected his personality. Stated briefly, the more heavily he drank, the less patience he had with any issues or problems that emerged concerning his wife or his children.
It Was Clear to Gary That His Unhealthy and Excessive Drinking Was Negatively Affecting His Work, Pocketbook, Relationship With His Family, and His Health
In his heart of hearts, it was obvious to Gary that his careless drinking was adversely affecting his pocketbook, relationship with his family, work, and his health. So one Monday morning Gary arrived at a decision to talk to Jerry, a trusted old police officer friend that he greatly respected.
Gary mentioned to Jerry how careless and abusive drinking was adversely affecting his work, health, relationship with his family, and his pocketbook. Jerry told Gary that he totally understood because just around ten years ago, he too involved himself with abusive and excessive drinking. If truth be known, Jerry told Gary that irresponsible and excessive drinking can create so many issues in a person’s life that almost everything of importance can be destroyed. And lastly, Jerry suggested that Gary make an appointment with an alcohol psychologist at the work-affiliated drug and alcohol abuse rehab center.
Since his employee’s assistance program was affiliated with this treatment clinic, it was not only quite affordable but also very convenient to get some quality counseling about his excessive and irresponsible drinking. And since the staff at the substance abuse rehabilitation facility was non-judgmental, competent, and supportive, Gary would be able to get alcohol rehab that made sense to him and something he could accomplish.
After talking to his therapist about how his drinking was negatively affecting his pocketbook, health, work, and his relationship with his family, Gary grasped the fact that he was burning the candle at both ends with his hectic work hours and his irresponsible and unhealthy drinking. Once he realized that he was digging himself into a rut, with the assistance his counselor, and after fifteen weeks in counseling, he was at long last able to quit drinking and stop working overtime.
Due to His Alcohol Rehab Gary Felt More Healthy and Had Much More Energy
The result was that Gary saw life another way now that he was in alcohol recovery. More precisely, due to his alcohol rehab he not only felt better and more healthy, but he had more quality time to spend with his family, he was more patient when interacting with his wife and his children, and he noticed that he actually had more money now even though he was working far fewer hours each week. As luck would have it, now that he stopped drinking, Gary and his wife were not only starting to save some money for a new house but he also felt more alert and more energized than anytime since he and his wife got married.
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November 13, 2009
When Drinking Becomes a Problem That Requires Attention
How do you identify the fact that you have a drinking problem? When is it clear that you are involving yourself in hazardous drinking?
If you have unsuccessfully attempted to quit drinking or if you have given your word to yourself that your drinking days are gone and then you were made aware that you were drinking in an abusive manner just a few days later, the odds are exceedingly good that you have drinking problems. The fundamental idea is that if you have made an effort to quit drinking and cannot get this accomplished, then your drinking is controlling you, rather than the other way around.
Likewise, if it takes greater amounts of alcohol to get the same “high,” more likely than not you need to become aware that you have a problem with your drinking.
You may be telling yourself that the justification for your drinking is so that you can reduce your nervousness or get rid of the sorrow or depression that you feel. Similarly, you may be trying to stay away from a harmful circumstance and may be looking for something more useful, more favorable, or less sorrowful.
As you maintain your drinking, on the other hand, you will realize that drinking does not elicit the same high and you will also understand that drinking doesn’t help eradicate whatever led to your discomfort in the first place. You may also become aware that the more frequently you drink, the more depressed you feel.
As you continue to drink in a hazardous way, regrettably, you may become an alcoholic and, as a result, you may add another essential difficulty to manage rather than finding out about more successful and healthy ways of dealing with your alcohol-related predicament.
When an Alcohol Assessment is Necessary
If you have decided that you have a problem with your drinking, perhaps the most expedient thing you can do for yourself is to call your physician or healthcare professional and schedule an appointment for a physical and for an assessment of your drinking activities.
If you actually believe that you have a critical drinking problem, it might be a good idea to get prepared to find out that you need to get alcohol rehab.
At this juncture, what are your choices? You can surely refuse to see your general practitioner and continue your pattern of out-of-control drinking.
It certainly doesn’t take a genius, conversely, to understand that repeated, hazardous drinking, if left untreated, will get worse over time and quite possibly lead to an early death. Thus, your best alternative is to address your drinking circumstance and obtain the alcohol treatment you require.
The Facade of the Functioning Alcoholic
It is somewhat odd to note the fact that several alcoholics lead busy and active lives and have families, jobs, houses, vehicles, pets, and any number of material possessions similar to non-alcoholics.
Many of these “functional” alcohol addicted people may have never been apprehended for a DUI and may have been fortunate enough to avoid all alcohol-related legal predicaments. Despite this fortunate circumstance, nevertheless, these alcohol dependent people need to drink in order to deal with life on a daily basis while continuing their facade as they associate with the outside world.
Ask anyone who has seen them when they are engaging in one of their drinking binges or in a drunken stupor or ask a family member about the problem drinker’s alcohol addiction, conversely, and they will be quick to articulate the truth of the drinker’s situation and the particulars about the alcoholic’s drinking circumstances and about his or her alcohol-related issues.
Why Do Alcohol Addicted People Fail to See Their Drinking Problems?
As alcoholism research and statistics on alcohol abuse have underlined, no matter how observable the alcohol-related predicaments seem to those who interact with the alcohol dependent person, alcohol dependent people normally deny that drinking is the cause of their alcohol-related difficulties. Not only this, but alcohol addicted people regularly blame their alcohol induced predicaments on other individuals or upon other circumstances around them instead of seeing their part in the issue.
The source of the issue is that alcoholism is a disease of the brain. Once the person has become an alcoholic, he or she often resorts to denial, manipulation, and lying as a way of dealing with the fact that his or her drinking is out of control. And to make matters more complex, the experience of alcohol withdrawal symptoms commonly counteracts the alcohol addicted person’s rare attempts to abruptly stop drinking. As cheerless as the alcohol addicted individual’s existence is, then again, the good news is that professional assistance is extensively obtainable – if the alcoholic reaches out and gets alcoholism therapy.
Conclusion
Coming to grips with the fact that drinking is producing difficulties in your day to day functioning is conceivably the simplest way to determine if you have a problem with your drinking. Stated another way, if your drinking is leading to difficulties with your health, at work, in your relationships, with your finances, at school, or with the legal system, then you have a drinking problem that needs to be addressed.
If you have a drinking problem, furthermore, this means that you are involving yourself in irresponsible drinking.
While some drinkers may be able to detect their “alcohol signs,” pinpoint their problems, and substantially reduce the amount and rate of their drinking, other drinkers, conversely, need to address their drinking difficulties by getting professional alcoholism rehab. What’s more, due to their penchant to deny the facts and warp the truth, alcohol dependent individuals undeniably require quality alcoholism counseling for their abusive drinking.
And finally, if you feel more depressed the more you drink, it is likely that you will need to get therapy for your problem drinking and for your depression.
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Rochelle finally determined that she needed to go and see her family doctor about her unhealthy drinking. At first, Rochelle thought she would be able to essentially go on the Internet, look for some straightforward alcohol abuse and alcoholism information and establish whether or not she was dependent on alcohol. Not surprisingly, she found numerous websites that listed some of the typical symptoms of alcoholism. That’s the encouraging news. The bad news, sadly, was that Rochelle showed evidence of a host of these alcoholism symptoms.
Alcohol Addiction Symptoms: Some Examples
For instance, Rochelle was drinking increasingly more than usual and she was starting to have more passionate spats with her boyfriend. What is more, for the first time in her life she was encountering sleeping issues. Similarly, Rochelle habitually felt depressed and on an ever increasing basis she had been demonstrating poor attention to detail at her place of work.
Furthermore, she felt stressed out and more nervous on a regular basis and for the past four or five months she had shown evidence of murky thinking at her place of employment. Due to the fact that Rochelle manifested all of these symptoms, she was understandably uneasy about her drinking problems.
So Rochelle decided to call her doctor and ask for an appointment. In actual fact, this was problematic for Rochelle because her family physician was also her parents’ doctor. The source of her uneasiness was this: at the risk of embarrassing her family, she had to go and divulge her reckless and abusive drinking behavior to her family healthcare practitioner.
When Rochelle arrived at the doctor’s office, she frankly told the doctor about the consternation she had about her abusive drinking behavior. When the family physician asked what was bringing about this apprehension, Rochelle said that she had gone on the Internet and read about alcoholism and especially about alcoholism symptoms. She then stated all of the alcoholism symptoms that she undoubtedly thought she possessed.
A Thorough Physical Examination and Outpatient Alcohol Treatment
The family healthcare practitioner told Rochelle that it was prudent of her to address her drinking difficulties, he gave Rochelle an inclusive physical examination, and suggested that she register in an out-patient alcohol rehabilitation center that was supervised by Doctor Rossi, one of his doctor co-workers.
What is more, when Rochelle said that she had been feeling depressed more habitually, the physician notified Rochelle that alcoholism and depression routinely crop up in the same individual. Hence, the family physician also suggested that Rochelle obtain therapy to focus on her melancholy.
The Value of Addressing Your Drinking Problems and Getting Enthused About Making Positive, Healthy, and Successful Changes in Your Life
The healthcare practitioner made it a point to tell Rochelle that she might not necessarily be addicted to alcohol, but that she was undoubtedly drinking in an abusive manner. That is, Rochelle was manifesting alcohol abuse signs.
The healthcare practitioner then informed Rochelle that the reason he suggested alcohol rehab in the first place was because he wanted her to come to terms with her drinking issues, make sure that she prevented them from proliferating, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that she had to totally stop drinking.
To put it briefly, by effectively treating her problem drinking, Rochelle would be able to get her drinking problems under control and abstain from the negative cycle of events that could most likely result in alcoholism.
Unmistakably, Rochelle did not want to face the thought of enrolling in an alcohol rehabilitation facility. Nor was she thrilled about going to a counselor about her gloom. Irrespective of these fears, conversely, Rochelle in reality experienced some emotional relief for the first time in numerous months because she eventually gave up making excuses for herself and finally made up her mind that she needed to do something affirmative about her drinking activities.
With such a positive attitude, it was highly probable that Rochelle would be successful in her alcohol treatment as well as in her therapy for her depression.
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November 8, 2009
Alcohol Relapse, Alcohol Dependency, and Enabling
It is interesting to articulate something that family members who have been unfavorably affected by the alcohol addiction of another family member evidently do not know. It appears that by protecting the alcoholic with lies and dishonesty to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have in essence created a situation that makes it easier for the alcoholic to persist and press forward with his or her damaging, destructive way of living.
Undeniably, rather than helping the alcohol addicted individual and themselves, these family members have essentially become enablers who have inadvertently helped deteriorate the alcoholic’s drinking problem even further.
Perhaps the real downside of this is that the alcohol dependent person will continue drinking in an excessive and abusive manner and experience a variety of “alcohol side effects.” Some of these side effects include poor health, deteriorating relationships, considerable financial problems, employment difficulties, legal issues (such as getting arrested for one or more DUIs), and diminished mental functioning.
The Chances of a Relapse are Real
According to the research literature and statistics on alcohol dependency, another key alcohol addiction issue involves alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol addicted person has successfully undergone alcohol addiction treatment and then resorts to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first thought, this predicament flies in the face of rational thinking and appears to be so unbelievable that it forces one to speculate why anyone who has experienced the misery of alcohol addiction can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol counseling and in turn after reaching recovery. There are, to be sure, numerous conceivable reasons for this.
It should be noted, nevertheless that alcoholism research that has centered on the long-term outcomes of alcoholism has shown that long after the alcohol addicted person has halted his or her drinking, fundamental modifications in the way in which the alcoholic’s brain works are still present. As a result, all a recovering alcohol dependent individual has to do to involve himself or herself in actions that correspond with the modifications that have occurred in the brain is to begin drinking again.
A Requirement for A Radical Lifestyle Modification
There are additional reasons why many recovering alcoholics return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after reaching sobriety. According to the alcohol dependency research literature, to make a successful recovery, the alcoholic needs new ways of reacting and thinking in order to deal more successfully with taxing alcohol-related situations that will take place.
Conditions such as returning to the same alcohol addictive atmosphere or to the same geographic location; interacting once again with friends from the days when the alcohol addicted person was drinking abusively; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these situations can elicit memories that can prompt psychological anxiety or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol addicted person to engage in irresponsible drinking once again. Unfortunately, all of these situations may not only negate lasting sobriety for the alcohol dependent person but they can also lead to relapse and consequently short-circuit one’s sobriety.
The Good News: There’s Light at the End of the Tunnel
In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol dependent person, family members can actually cause unintentional damage by enabling the unhealthy drinking behavior of the alcohol dependent person.
The substance abuse research literature demonstrates the fact that most individuals who effectively complete alcohol counseling go through at least one relapse. Alcohol dependent persons and their family members need to know this so that they do not get crestfallen or stressed out when a relapse occurs.
Fortunately, involvement in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up therapy and education have resulted in more effective, enduring alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction therapeutic outcomes, have helped diminish alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol dependent persons accomplish long lasting alcohol recovery.
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November 7, 2009
A Married Couple Becomes Troubled About Their Excessive and Abusive Drinking and Ponders Whether They Manifest Any Signs of Alcohol Addiction
Jerry and Sarah have been married for eight years. They wanted to experience some excitement and fun before they decided to have a family and so they with forethought fashioned an incredibly vigorous social life.
The chief problem, it needs to be highlighted, is that very nearly everything they do with their family and friends is associated with drinking. For example, all of the family get-togethers, parties with friends, dinner engagements, happy hours, and sporting events they patronize somehow include drinking.
Jerry and Sarah Begin to Observe Some Clearly Identifiable Alcohol Related Difficulties That are Related to Their Excessive Drinking
If they were moderate drinkers, this wouldn’t be a big issue. Since they drink in a hazardous manner, however, they are starting to become aware of some noticeable alcohol-related issues in their lives.
As an illustration, just a week ago Jerry was placed under arrest for his first DUI and has been taking time off from work due to alcohol-related health problems. Moreover, Jerry’s last two or three performance assessments at work have been less than laudable and he has started to forget what he does or says when he drinks. Finally, Jerry has been having sleep-related problems and his family has begun to display some disquiet about his drinking activities.
Similar to Jerry’s situation, Sarah has been feeling disheartened with life and to come to grips with these feelings, she has been drinking more regularly than any time in the past two years. What is more, Sarah has been getting more than a few throbbing headaches and having painful hangovers due to her drinking. Finally, Sarah has been feeling significantly less active when she gets up in the morning, she has been getting to work late virtually every Monday, and she has been getting some unhelpful criticism from her family members, coworkers, relatives, and friends about her hazardous drinking.
Watching the Television and Accidently Discovering A Fascinating Documentary About the Signs of Alcohol Addiction
One Thursday evening while watching TV, Jerry and Sarah inadvertently found an attention-grabbing documentary about the signs of alcoholism.
This television program was a real source of discovery to Jerry and Sarah because some of the alcoholism signs that were discussed appeared as if they were unwaveringly correlated with some of the alcohol-related drinking problems Jerry and Sarah had been experiencing.
An Honest Talk About Drinking Behavior Unearths Alcohol Related Financial, Legal, Relationship, Health, and Employment Problems
After watching the TV documentary, Sarah and Jerry arrived at a decision to have a frank dialogue about their drinking situation. They both agreed that most, if not all, of their social functions were associated with drinking, that they were drinking in an excessive manner, and that as a couple, they were beginning to see alcohol related legal, relationship, employment, financial, and health problems for the first time since they were married.
With thoughts of the TV documentary still etched in her mind, Sarah asked Jerry if some of the alcohol addiction signs they have been exhibiting could be a warning that they are alcohol dependent or possibly becoming dependent on alcohol. Jerry didn’t know the answer to Sarah’s question and so he recommended that they make an appointment with one of the healthcare practitioners at the nearby drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic to find out more about the severity of their drinking circumstances.
Dealing With Your Drinking Problems Just Might Lower Your Fear and Give You A Degree of Peacefulness
Paradoxically, even though their drinking behavior hadn’t yet changed, it was obvious that Jerry and Sarah were at the very least dealing with their drinking difficulties, they were excited about finding out more about their drinking behavior, and they were interested in discovering how they could appreciably cut back on or do away with the drinking-related issues that had begun to go from bad to worse.
When Jerry and Sarah went to bed that evening, they came to a decision that the next day, Jerry would call and make an appointment for both of them at the substance abuse treatment center located just North of the State Capital. After they promised one another that they would do whatever it takes to triumph over the drinking difficulties that had cropped up in their lives, they actually had the best night’s sleep they could remember in the last four weeks.
Just before he fell asleep, Jerry turned to Sarah and observed how painless it is to lessen one’s fear and in point of fact experience a sense of calm by addressing one’s problems with conviction and deciding to do something affirmative about them.
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