I have always thought this - and maybe it's part of the reason why I've made it this far, well I think it surely is: I am allergic to alcohol. If I am allergic to strawberries - I don't eat them. Why would I risk it with alcohol only? Nothing else if I know I"m allergic. And then I get to see plainly what my disease is - and it's no different than a bone sticking out of my arm that needs attention immediately! It has been proven to me that I have an allergy. I have harmed the ones I love most. I would never ever do this otherwise - so I have a disease, and I believe I do. That's key - believing it. It will be wonderful when doctors can just take a little scan of the brain - let people know they have this disease and then people just believe it without having to drink forEVER first. I hope my kids will be able to just go to the doctor, get a routine check to find out just like finding out if they have any other disease, and then people - all people - treat them accordingly, including themselves, no different than if they had a cold, they would get some rest and get better.
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Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Interesting read...I think this one paragraph from the Doctor's opinion made more sense to me....And still does...Than anything I've ever heard or read about alcoholism. When he says "Men and women drink..." he's talking about alcoholic men and women by the way.
Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.
Especially this....
while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.
She mentions in that piece the two things needed for successful results....
**A note to my 12-step friends: There are two caveats to the success of 12-step work 1) It works when you work it. and 2) You have to be honest, and some people are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There is no doubt that over the last 70+ years the 12-step community has the highest success rate among alcoholics of any other treatment modality. This community is also incredibly successful in the support of sobriety among drug addicts of all kinds.
The problem lies in the millions of people who cannot meet the two criteria for success in a 12-step program due to other types of brain disorders. Their suffering demands that health professionals continue to seek out effective treatment strategies for them. I am certain that you have compassion for their plight and support these more unfortunate folks in their recovery.
I often wonder why the success rate for AA is as low as it is....I think fear and ego are just as much a stumbling block as anything else.....Why people won't simply work the steps.....Rather than dance around them for years. Maybe that's where the constitutionally incapable comes in? It's hard for me to imagine that the countless people that AA doesn't work for have other types of brain disorders.....I'm scratching my head on that one. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
I mean...It may be the highest success rate...But you still hear numbers like 4 and 5 per cent that actually succeed thrown around.....That baffles me.
-- Edited by Stepchild on Thursday 6th of February 2014 06:03:10 PM
