Posts Tagged ‘alcoholic’

10
Mar

Help Guide for Alcoholism

   Posted by: author1    in Self Improvement: Addictions

If you or someone you know needs help with alcoholism then you might want to consider taking action. So what is the best route to go? In my opinion the ideal siutation is for the struggling alcoholic to find a rehab center that has a professional detox area and get checked in. This is the best course of action for a number of reasons:

1) Safety – it is actually very dangerous to stop drinking alcohol and in fact the withdrawal from alcohol can kill a person. This might sound counter-intuitive but it is actually safer to continue drinking alcohol than it is to go through detox unsupervised. So the best course of action is to find a full medical detox in a treatment center where they can safely bring you down off the alcohol and prevent any seizures.

2) Support – there is a ton of support to be had in a residential treatment center and this will come from the other people who are there trying to accomplish the same feat as you are. Having peer support in recovery is huge because we help each other to stay sober through sharing our experience and strength with each other.

3) Aftercare – most drug rehab centers don’t just let you go without some sort of follow up plan in place. This plan might include long term treatment, counseling, or meeting attendance. Either way you’re bound to receive some extra help and knowledge about how to overcome alcoholism when you check out of treatment.

What if someone is not willing to go to treatment? If this is true then there’s not much to be done about it. In some states there is the option to commit someone to treatment but this is usually a mistake because there will be a huge resentment created which typically acts as fuel for more drinking. What works better in this situation is to simply to let someone know that rehab is available to them if and when they decide to quit drinking.

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23
Feb

Helping an Alcoholic to Recover

   Posted by: author1    in Self Improvement: Addictions

In what way can we reach out to the alcoholic and help them? Traditional recovery programs have tried to answer this question for decades now, and typically without much success. You may have pushed someone in your life towards recovery without much success. If you are at this point then you are probably want to know how best to help an alcoholic.

Part of the issue here is that most treatment paths do not really tailor to the individual – they are set up to treat anyone and everyone. They are generic programs that are intended to help everyone but turn out to not really benefit anyone because they are not customized at all. For example, 12 step programs, which typically dominate the recovery scene, have remained unchanged for decades.

When someone needs help with addiction or alcoholism, we typically send them to a traditional recovery program such as AA or NA. When that fails to produce decent results, instead of blaming the program we always blame the individual, saying that “they just didn’t want it enough,” or that “they just did not get into the spiritual side of the program.” These types of excuses point to a failing in our quest for better recovery and we can do better then just blaming the failed alcoholic. I would suggest:

1) Push alcoholics to use treatment for early recovery. This is crucial because early in an alcoholic’s recovery is an especially vulnerable time when it can be hard just to get a few days clean.” In a controlled environment it is much safer and easier to get started on sobriety.

2) Push alcoholics to create a new life for themselves. This is crucial because simply drying out from alcohol is not the answer. When a true alcoholic consumes booze they do it with enthusiasm and so it turns into a driving force in their life. In their recovery journey, an alcoholic must find new meaning and depth in their life or they risk sliding back into a relapse of destruction and despair.

3) Push alcoholics to grow holistically. If you can get someone to grow in one area of their life, that is good. But if you can encourage an alcoholic to make progress in multiple areas of their life, then this is really good. Holistic growth is indicating that the person is treating their disease as a whole, not simply as a spiritual problem (as some treatments deal with it).

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