Quitting alcohol for 2016 requires perspective and direction

Recovery takes vision. Vision is a combination of what you're seeing and where you're looking. Perpective and direction. First things first. Let's look at perspective. (The 68th episode looks at how vision plays a critical role in getting and staying sober. Read the transcript or share the YouTube video today)

This is one of several familiar watering holes in my neighborhood. It's not moving out of the neighborhood, and neither am I. So what I'm seeing – instead of laughter and televised sports and camaraderie with friends and people of the opposite gender who get more attractive by the ounce – is a place that's going to bring me back to severe health problems and a set of handcuffs. There isn't one time I set foot in a tavern and had just one drink, after all. Ironically, I now chair a recovery meeting right next door.

The same vision applies when I go to the grocery store. I had to walk past the liquor aisle to get to the bakery … or at least I had to until I swore off the bakery for a New Year's resolution. Walking past the liquor department, I don't get slowed down by sales signs, sights of slick ads with slicker models or that golden hue of Jack in the familiar square bottle. What I see instead, is a trip back to misery. It's what I choose to see. After all, Lynchburg isn't going stop barreling whiskey just because I stopped drinking it and the local tavern isn't going to close down and build a shrine to my sobriety instead.

That's perpective, or what you see. Where you're looking is your direction.

The rearview mirror is a handy tool when you're backing up. If you are driving forward, you're going to have a devil of a time keeping the car between the poles if you're staring into the rearview. If you are rebuilding your life in the first months or years of sobriety, you're better off using the windshield and looking forward, than you are using the rearview and staring at what's behind you. Never diminish what you've been through, what you've survived. Even the most skilled drivers check their mirrors. Just remember this thing is the past and you don't live there anymore.
Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Host Ed Forteau led a discussion on risky myths of about "healthy" drinking.  Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature on Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com and works with TheAddictionsAcademy as well.

Six sobriety-saving holiday season tips

Here are six field-tested tactics for handling the holidays sober, and it doesn't matter if it is the first or your 10th alcohol-free holiday. (Read the transcript or share the YouTube video today)

1) Find sober celebrations. Not as rare as you might think. If you're timid, take someone along with you who might be even newer to sobriety. If there aren't celebrations, it could be time for a diversion like a museum or pick a dry theater and watch Star Wars. All the older kids are doing it.

2) Bail out. There is nothing wrong with the word no. We were all pretty creative with excuses for our drinking this drug. If you are even slightly apprehensive about an event, put the same creativity to use for why you can't go. And if you're busted telling a little white one… isn't it better than possibly challenging your sobriety? Real friends understand.

3) If you can't bail, bring candy. Seriously. Satisfying an oral fixation can make a difference. The taste on your palate will make alcohol flavorings less inviting, too. If you ever had a beer on top of a candy cane, you know.

4) Never stay late if you do go. Our reputations as the last soldiers standing – gone. Be the first leaving. Everyone has seen a dreaded morning after or the photos of the night before and uttered the words, 'I shoulda left way earlier.' The more tired you get, the weaker your defenses become anyway. My grandmother's rule was that nothing good ever happens after 10 pm.

5) Go help another alcoholic who might be struggling. The twelve-steppers founded their fellowship on this simple act. Even if you're not a twelve-stepper or vow to never be one, give this a try. It works.

6) Breathe. The holidays are loaded with financial stress, family stress, traffic stress, cold-and-flu stress, and end-of-year work stress in addition to the normal everyday stress of life. Alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike drink to relieve stress. There isn't a single stressor that is cured by drinking: There isn't one that got worse because you chose to just breathe rather than drinking it off the calendar.

By the way, these six aren't just for the end of the year and the start of a new one. They work anytime.

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Host Ed Forteau led a discussion on risky myths of about "healthy" drinking.  Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature on Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com and works with TheAddictionsAcademy as well.

Claims of alcohol health benefits jump the shark

Common sense dictates that a toxic drug and known carcinogen cannot have evidence-based health-improving properties any more than a tree full of elves actually painted little fudge stripes on these cookies. It's wishful thinking observational data. An observational study that's garnered recent attention was released by Danish researchers in Dec. 2015 claiming two to three units of alcohol a day can prolong life for patient's with Alzheimer's.(Share the YouTube video or read the entire article)

It's an observation, based on a large population survey, without taking into account other lifestyle factors. And it ignores the evidence that two to three units of alcohol daily is one sign of the disease of alcoholism, as well as a contributing factor for more than 60 other diseases including a risk factor for eight types of cancer as covered in a previous segment. (See "Alcohol a carcinogen hiding in plain sight")

What also was a segment topic just a month before the headline-grabbing Danish study was that evidence-based science shows a connection between alcohol use and an increased risk of Alzheimer's and dementia due to the cellular-level damage the toxin causes in brain structure. (See related episode) So observational studying shows life increasing qualities of the drug, and evidence-based studies show the same drug causing the problem. To put it briefly, one study says it makes you live longer, science says it kills you. Same drug.

The biggest problem caused by the collision between observation and evidence is with 21 million U.S. alcoholics like me. An active alcoholic gloms onto any piece of information that justifies our daily or continued drinking. That's how the disease works on the mind until we get into recovery. Alcohol's health benefits do not exist, not for a so-called social drinker, and certainly not for the person with the disease of alcoholism. The disease is chronic, progressive, primary and fatal unless treated into remission.

When public translation of observational studies links alcohol to improved brain or heart health (another former topic, see "Junk Science vs. facts on alcohol and heart, liver health") it shifts the dialogue from what alcohol does to you, to the wishful thinking of what it does for you. That's when health news has officially jumped the shark.

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Host Ed Forteau led a discussion on risky myths of about "healthy" drinking.  Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature on Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com, plus the NEW book, Adding Fire to the Fuel, is now available. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today

Overcome two objections to an alcoholism intervention over the Holidays

This is the time for holiday cheer and family memories and Norman Rockwell-esque Christmas scenes with smiling families gathered around a tree or a fire. Hopefully, not both. The reality for families of the 20 million adults in the U.S. challenged by addiction to alcohol or other drugs is more like the beginning of the Grinch tale, than the end. (Watch the YouTube video or see the online article)

Holidays are a stressful time in addition to being a time of joy. Alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike drink to ease stress. The alcoholic can't stop at one. Or six. Or on his own. And how many times, after a tear-filled holiday or blacked-out Christmas on the couch has the drinker vowed: Next holiday will be better, I promise? It's part of the way we alcoholics protect our drug. We shove the quit date off to buy one more day or week or season. We make promises. And sometimes it isn't even that we mean to break them. An alcohol abuser can quit but won't… an alcoholic wants to quit but can't. Not on his own anyway.

They quit with help. A family intervention is one way to get that help.

Two questions come up: First… Is it Grinchlike to confront the issue during the holiday? (And it's the alcohol, not the person, that's the issue.) Second… can't it wait til the New Year?

First, it's not cruel. On the contrary. It may be the best gift you ever give the person with the disease and the family around him or her. Inside every person sick with this disease is a trembling, sorry, sad person dying to feel well again. Invite him or her out onto the path to recovery. Professional interventionists are especially well-trained to do this with compassion and understanding.

Second, There's no better time than the present is the antiquated saying. In the case of the disease of alcoholism, there's no worse time than waiting for tomorrow, or the New Year. You wouldn't imagine postponing treatment for a chronic, fatal, progressive disease like cancer. Why postpone it for a chronic, fatal, progressive disease like alcoholism? If the worry is that it wouldn't be the holiday without that person near, what have the past few holidays told you about that… and what if there isn't a next holiday?

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Host Ed Forteau led a discussion on risky myths of about "healthy" drinking.  Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature on Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com, plus the NEW book, Adding Fire to the Fuel, is now available. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today