Alcohol Dependency, Enabling, and Alcohol Relapse
It is worthy of note to articulate something that family members who have been harmfully affected by the alcoholism of another family member evidently do not grasp. It appears that by shielding the alcohol dependent individual with untruths and deceit to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have essentially created a situation that makes it easier for the alcoholic to continue and advance with his or her injurious, destructive existence.
Clearly, instead of helping the alcohol addicted person and themselves, these family members have in reality become enablers who have involuntarily helped worsen the alcohol dependent individual’s drinking problem even more.
Perhaps the real downside of this is that the alcohol dependent individual will continue drinking in a hazardous and irresponsible manner and go through a variety of “alcohol side effects.” Some of these side effects include deteriorating relationships, considerable financial problems, legal issues (such as getting arrested for one or more DUIs), employment difficulties, diminished mental functioning, and poor health.
Relapses Can and Do Happen
According to the research literature and statistics on alcohol dependency, another key alcohol dependency issue involves alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol addicted individual has successfully gone through alcoholism rehabilitation and then resorts to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first glance, this situation flies in the face of logical thinking and sounds so implausible that it forces an individual to speculate why anyone who has experienced the dreadfulness of alcoholism can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol treatment and in turn after reaching sobriety. There are, to be sure, many rational reasons for this.
It should be explained, then again that alcoholism research that has centered on the long standing outcomes of alcoholism has demonstrated-proven that long after the alcoholic has discontinued his or her drinking, significant transformations in the way in which the alcohol dependent person’s brain functions 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 transformations that have taken place in the brain is to begin drinking once again.
A Requirement for An Essential Lifestyle Modification
There are additional reasons why quite a few recovering alcohol addicted persons return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after attaining sobriety. In accordance to the alcohol dependency research literature, to make an effective recovery, the alcohol dependent person needs new ways of responding and thinking in order to deal more competently with taxing alcohol-related situations that will take place.
Circumstances 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 dependent person was drinking abusively; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these situations can bring forth memories that can trigger psychological anxiety or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in excessive drinking once again. Regrettably, all of these circumstances may not only negate long-term alcohol recovery for the alcohol addicted person but they can also result in relapse and therefore short-circuit one’s sobriety.
The Good News: There’s a Lot of Hope for a Lasting Recovery
In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol dependent individual, family members can in fact cause inadvertent damage by enabling the unsafe drinking behavior of the alcoholic.
The alcohol abuse research literature confirms the fact that most individuals who successfully complete alcohol rehab go through at least one relapse. Alcohol addicted individuals and their family members need to know this so that they do not get defeated or overwhelmed when a relapse manifests itself.
Happily, participation in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up counseling and education have resulted in more productive, long standing alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction treatment outcomes, have helped decrease alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted individuals accomplish long lasting alcohol recovery.