Alcohol Treatment Help Weblog

In the first article in this series we started discussing the consequences of parental drinking to the family members. The secondary article focused on physical stress alcohol consumption by parents causes to their children.

Now it’s time to discuss how emotions from an environment where alcohol abuse takes place affect the children of alcoholics for their entire life.

Alcohol abuse in the family causes intense emotional abuse to the children. Usually the fact that a child cannot remember what happened to him at very early ages it is associated with lack of sensibility at those ages. This is a mistake. A child lives threats and fears at a much higher intensity at early ages than the adults. He is subject to emotional stress much more than an adult is. Only that the child will not remember later the facts that caused the stress. But the feelings lived in infancy are very well recorded.

A Clinical case-

An acquaintance of mine admitted that he had beaten his wife when he was drunk before the divorce and that he had a 3 years old child at that time. I asked him if his son was the witness of those violent scenes. He answered: “Yes, he was the witness but that was no problem because the child was little and he didn’t understand anything”. However, when clinically investigating his boy who now is a 19 years old young man, he was exhibiting obvious signs of emotional abuses he was submitted to as a child.

Let’s see what is happening in such situations: first of all, the breast-feeding baby is tightly close to his mother. He feels all the threats his mother is exposed at, as if these threats were addressed to his own life. He understands not only when his mother was threatened and aggressed but he even perceives them with such high intensity, an adult isn’t able to imagine.

Another clinical case:

A clerk, an alcoholic, was frequently provoking violence in the family. His wife says that one day when her husband was sober he told her: “Look how the little one is reacting!” …and then the man simulated that he was moving towards his wife with his hands raised up threatening her. The baby who was only a few months old, and who was swaddled in his bed and was looking to them, immediately started to cry.

The baby’s painful memories are not disappearing over the ages. Although as he was growing up he won’t be able to evoke what happened at that time. But in an associative way, the emotions related to this trauma in infancy will invade the person’s mind on various occasions. The person will occasionally notice that he is invaded by intense, unusual emotions or that he reacts in a much more intense way, loosing his temper in situations in which the others would be indifferent. For instance when someone is talking to him in a loud and angry voice, the ancient quarrels in the family he was a witness of, are unconsciously appearing in his memory.

Before we move on with explanations in the next article, I want to hear from you… what are your experiences in this area ?

A “crash” course-type of reading on alcoholism and alcohol related problems designed to help you understand this disease and help yourself or your beloved ones. It is intended for a large range of readers - both licensed professionals and lay persons - all heavy, moderate, mild or NON- alcohol drinkers. A must-read text derived from decades of treating alcoholism by the author and from teaching alcoholism to undergraduate students. Click here for more information.

Alcohol is one of the most insidious drugs on earth. It builds the addiction without us even knowing it. Every glass of alcoholic beverage, be it a beer with the friends, or a cup of champagne at a festive occasion, modifies the nervous cells step by step, bit by bit, gradually increasing the appetite for the next glass.

From the first beer which most of the people do not like because of the taste and all the way to important daily quantities of alcohol, we cannot see the appetite increasing. And one day, when in the end we are forced to admit it, we are already ill of alcoholism, and by ourselves and without important help we are unable to stop drinking.

One thing, most campaigns against alcohol abuse fail to tell people:
It does not matter how long you have stopped from drinking. It does not matter if between two beers, for instance there have been months passing. The demand for alcohol by the nervous cells does not diminish in time!
If you take your next glass after three, or six, or twelve months, it will add to the existing appetite for alcohol. The physical demand counter does not reset like in nicotine for instance.

This is why, without proper knowledge and strong education since childhood about how alcohol really works and builds addiction, you cannot be held responsible for the fact that at some point you cannot quit. That point in time is - in most cases - too late to stop drinking without proper help.

This is why, only by developing and maintaining a strong and permanent desire to give up drinking alcohol, alongside with other medical and psychological methods - and not only by ourselves - but with help from others and from specialists, we are able to abstain and regain control over our lives.

Admitting that we might have an alcohol related problem is the first step to recovery. Because alcohol acts so undetected on us, it is good that from time to time we ask ourselves if we have not already developed addiction to it. It’s best to stay alert! Alcohol has tricked many great people into abuse, destroying many lives. Be curious and sincere to ask yourself! Try this self-administered test on alcohol addiction.

…it is a tragic truth we’ve seen too many times and so many times overlooked by parents when prepare their teenage children for the first party to attend.

The joyful days of youth when we started going to parties. Places and people we enjoyed and love to remember. If only at that moment someone would’ve told us that drinking and laughing together could be the start of loneliness…

We’ve all seen too many times youngsters drinking alcohol to get the courage to approach a girl or just to warm up and bring more life to the party. Can you count how many of them have become alcohol addicts ? I guess you all know some. And once they did, have the majority of people around them continued to treat them like nothing happened and stayed around them?
The loneliness part comes once the drinker starts making excesses and misbehave. The others will gradually start pushing him away, avoid inviting him to group gatherings, and eventually he or she will be completely rejected. The sad thing is that he or she will not realize that alcohol is to blame and will instead blame the others for the isolation and his problems.

Take other stories, like a drinker who once had a family, a job and work colleagues which are now all gone. Why? Because nobody told him before he started drinking that alcohol will take away all the persons around him and leave him alone.

Is alcohol a shameful guilty vice ? Can an alcoholic be held responsible for having become an alcoholic ? Is there hope ? …these are questions to be answered further in our discussion. Meantime, feel free to comment, add your own experience, examples or simply contradict what it is said above. We want to hear from you.

Welcome to AlcoholHelp.

This page tries to bring into discussion alcohol, alcoholism, drinking related problems, addiction, and most important: help directions and solutions, alcoholism treatment methods, what works and what not.

There are numerous popular beliefs about alcohol abuse and its effects. Some are true, some are just myths, and some are so obvious that we overlook them even if they are important when dealing with drinking problems.

When dealing with alcohol addiction, the medical profession is divided by various concepts, philosophical approaches, and - because we are error-prone - why not, numerous missconceptions. Different doctors will give you different explanations and different solutions.

One thing should be kept in mind: there is no final and omnipotent treatment method for alcohol addiction.

The truth is out there and has to be searched with an open mind and the best approaches come with experience in dealing day by day with alcohol related problems for many years.

Like in drugs addiction, dealing with alcohol addiction has some important characteristics to take into account when starting a treatment. We will try to outline and discuss them in this blog.

Do you think you might have a drinking problem? Try this alcoholism self-test in an attempt to find out.

Do you think you might have a drinking problem? Do you have someone dear who drinks too much ? Want to help someone quit drinking ? Are you a student willing to find out more ? Looking for alcoholism treatment methods ? …let’s talk.