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Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), founded in 1935, is a 12-step program that is designed to help the alcoholic recover. A.A. is based on personal experience as a means for people to help each other to stop drinking. Over the years, A.A. has helped hundreds of thousands of alcoholics to recover and become sober.
Alcoholism is a problem that affects a vast cross-section of society. It is a type of illness that doesn’t affect one particular race or social group, and it can be a real problem for both the individual with the problem as well as their close friends and family members. In this article, we’ll work towards increasing your knowledge about alcoholism so that you can better know some of the risks of disease.
Dr. Ezra M. Hunt says: “The capacity of the alcohols for impairment of functions and the initiation and promotion of organic lesions in vital parts, is unsurpassed by any record in the whole range of medicine. The facts as to this are so indisputable, and so far granted by the profession, as to be no longer debatable. Changes in stomach and liver, in kidneys and lungs, in the blood-vessels to the minutest capillary, and in the blood to the smallest red and white blood disc disturbances of secretion, fibroid and fatty degenerations in almost every organ, impairment of muscular power, impressions so profound on both nervous systems as to be often toxic these, and such as these, are the oft manifested results. And these are not confined to those called intemperate.”
Enabling an alcoholic to drink, lie or make excuses is not the way to live with an alcoholic. You then become the enabler and make it easy for the alcoholic to drink and hide the things that they should not be doing. You are the one that helps them hide their drinking from others and this gives them complete power over you. If you make it easy for them, you are just hurting them and yourself. If you do not enable them, they have to make the choices that they do. If they are drinking and being unruly, you cannot allow it or live with it.
The survey appeared in Volume 160, of the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, pages 739-746. The article states “of those 43,000 participants in a survey of U.S. adults who had developed the disease, Alcoholism; 47% of them had met the criteria for alcoholism by age 21.” That is almost half of those involved in the survey. This is important information that will support the theory that alcohol use by our youth is a risk factor for developing alcoholism and for developing it at a quicker rate and at a younger age, usually within 10 years of when they started drinking. The survey took into account other risk factors for alcohol dependence to further validate the evidence.
Dr. Richardson, in his lectures on alcohol, given both in England and America, speaking of the action of this substance on the blood after passing from the stomach, says:
“Suppose, then, a certain measure of alcohol be taken into the stomach, it will be absorbed there, but, previous to absorption, it will have to undergo a proper degree of dilution with water, for there is this peculiarity respecting alcohol when it is separated by an animal membrane from a watery fluid like the blood, that it will not pass through the membrane until it has become charged, to a given point of dilution, with water. It is itself, in fact, so greedy for water, it will pick it up from watery textures, and deprive them of it until, by its saturation, its power of reception is exhausted, after which it will diffuse into the current of circulating fluid.”
Yes, it is a disease, but Alcoholism is also an addiction. It is the undeniable need for a drink that makes if an addiction. It is the inability to stop at just one drink, and the level of difficulty in quitting, requiring professional assistance and the need for a support group to be able to kick the drinking habit; that makes Alcoholism an addiction. Alcohol is after all a drug. As an addiction the condition is a progressive one. It changes in intensity growing and taking over like weeds in a garden.
Not everyone gains weight when he or she begins an alcohol recovery program but there are many people who do gain weight. The average gain is about ten pounds but there are many people who gain a significant amount of weight. This weight gain is discouraging because with alcohol, it is generally easier to stay thin. The weight gain also discourages other alcoholics from recovery because they know there is the possibility of a significant amount of weight gain. The important thing to realize is that a person would have to gain 150 pounds for the weight gain to be unhealthier than the excessive drinking.
Alcoholism is the fourth leading cause of disability in the world. Alcoholism is increasingly viewed as a chronic disease and is the cause of approximately 100,000 preventable deaths in the United States each year. There are many treatment options such as Alcoholics Anonymous, addiction counseling, behavioral counseling, and medications. As with all chronic diseases, long-term comprehensive management is necessary to sustain the desired result, which in this case is sobriety. The view of alcoholism as a chronic disease has led to the development of many new medications and in particular, a medication called Naltrexone.
If you live with an alcoholic, you may live with domestic violence as well. Many people that drink can become violent if they get upset. This might not be the case for some, but when a person drinks, it changes how they think. The sad thing about domestic violence where an alcoholic is concerned is that they may never display this type of behavior when they are not drinking. However, even the mildest mannered person can show signs of an entirely different person when drinking. You have to walk on eggshells when you live with someone that drinks.
