Oh-Crap Sunday: Addiction, Family, and the Holidays

The treatment discussion revs up between Thanksgiving Thursday and Cyber Monday

Real talk: If you put off the substance use discussion until the New Year, you might not have a chance to have the discussion. Addiction is a disease. People die. And they only can dig themselves deeper into destruction during the Holidays without help.

That's news as ice cold as Wausau, Wisconsin or the turkey leftovers you stuffed into the back of the freezer. By the way, you're never going to eat that. It tasted dry on Thanksgiving... it won't get better by March by itself. Likewise, a drug user won't get better by March (or Christmas) by himself.

Oh-Crap Sunday means more than you blew through your entire holiday budget on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. It's more relevant than your favorite NCAA team getting crushed on Rivalry Saturday, or your NFL team being worse than the Bears on any given Sunday at the twilight of the calendar. Oh-Crap Sunday is the pause at the start of the Holiday Gauntlet where you have an a-ha moment after the first of the season's socializing, realizing that a loved one is in over his or her head with alcohol or other drugs. Oh. Crap.

Help starts at home

What does 'in over their head' mean? Noticing someone's drug use – alcohol is a drug – means it is a problem. You don't notice someone's consumption otherwise. The nodding off is more than turkey's tryptophan. The slurred speech telling the same joke loudly for the third time isn't just because Uncle Dan is mixing the drinks. The fragrance in the bathroom isn't potpourri. Wise up. Trust your instinct. You're probably right about a drug use problem. If you're wrong, what does it cost you?

We've normalized drug use in the U.S. as pointed out in Look What Dragged the Cat In. With it being normalized, the tendency is to blow it off until it gets obvious. Then it's time to get help.

In looking for help, there is no substitute for intervention at home. You can go to every slick treatment website Google throws at you. Nobody's going for an evaluation until the personal, charged conversation takes place at home. Work with your M.D. or a treatment professional to find the right path toward 'clean and sober' after the Oh-Crap conversation. The first step is the conversation.

Drugs alter the mind, talk to the heart

Consider that all drugs of abuse licit and illicit alter the mind. An altered mind isn't going to decide for itself that it needs help. People don't take drugs to feel good, they take drugs to feel less bad. If the brain's user is going to feel more bad, he or she is going to be messaged by that brain that the drug isn't a problem. A person first needs to hear from family and friends that the drug use is concerning.

The talk is harder than you think. But not harder than talking to a corpse. Alcohologist.com has resources like videos (see the New Year, New You series opener here) that help ease into the conversation. The three-question AUDIT is also an ice-breaker/resolve-breaker.

Quick: What's the next holiday? Will you spend it without him or her in your life?

Image by Roman Stetsyk, used with permission.

An addiction is anything you have to hide

(Originally posted on AddictedMinds.com)

A many-faceted challenge for families, interventionists, and other addiction pros alike is defining an addiction. We have textbook definitions. We have tests. But when it comes down to addressing the addiction with an addict in denial that he or she has one, we are consistently challenged with breaking down denial.
Signaling the problem, we turn to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). The latest version is October 2016’s DSM-5. Its 11-part impersonal analysis for any substance use disorder:

1. Taking the substance in larger amounts or for longer than the you meant to
2. Wanting to cut down or stop using the substance but not managing to
3. Spending a lot of time getting, using, or recovering from use of the substance
4. Cravings and urges to use the substance
5. Not managing to do what you should at work, home or school, because of substance use
6. Continuing to use, even when it causes problems in relationships
7. Giving up important social, occupational or recreational activities because of substance use
8. Using substances again and again, even when it puts the you in danger
9. Continuing use, even when you know you have a physical or psychological problem that could have been caused or made worse by the substance
10. Needing more of the substance to get the effect you want (tolerance)
11. Development of withdrawal symptoms, which can be relieved by taking more of the substance.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

The DSM 5 allows clinicians to specify how severe the addiction is, depending on how many of the 11 signs are present. Two or three symptoms indicate a mild substance use disorder, four or five symptoms indicate a moderate substance use disorder, and six or more symptoms indicate a severe substance use disorder.

BOOM! That was easy.

Now tell the addict he or she is one and needs help. The 947 pages of the American Psychiatric Association’s ‘bible’ do little for that discussion. Assume very few people under the influence of a mind-altering drug have the capacity to use that same mind to analyze (honestly) the symptoms.

A simple pair of personal questions gets at the a-ha moment the impersonal DSM can’t get at eyeball-to-eyeball:
Are you hiding your use? Why?

The answers are C-R-I-T-I-C-A-L to making change. You can get at any of those 11 DSM criteria with those two questions. We hide use because we don’t want anyone to see. Or judge. Or evaluate us on a DSM scale. We don’t want them to see because we don’t want to hear that it’s “wrong” or “shameful” or fill-in-the-blank. Yet, family sees. Counselors see. The addict needs that vision and it comes from that introspection. And very few – if any – are ever asked directly what they are hiding, and why are they hiding it.

Scott Stevens is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Buy the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere books are sold. Stevens also heads up BlogTender LLC, a content marketing firm headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wis.

Photo by Vasilisa Karpova, used with permission.

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: ZERO Health Benefit

(See online video and article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' ran throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. The final segment, Episode Z, elaborates on the fact there are zero documented, evidence-based health benefits tied to the consumption of alcohol. Since 2010, there have been numerous articles on alcohologist.com challenging the junk science people were willing to believe regarding health benefits related to alcohol use.

There are zero health benefits. Not from wine, not from moderate drinking. There is no evidence that drinking a toxin will make you prettier, healthier, funnier, smarter, immune to disease, improve your sex life or extend your years on the planet. Even the notion that alcohol improves quality of life isn't realistic. Four things to consider when reading a study promoting alcohol.

1) Many of the studies compared ‘moderate’ drinkers with ‘current’ abstainers. These abstainers could be people who had, for example, stopped drinking alcohol because of poor health, the disease of alcoholism, legal issues or common sense. When a 2016 study from the University of Victoria adjusted for these sorts of abstainer biases, only 13 of the 87 studies didn’t bias the abstainer comparison group, and none of these 13 showed any health benefit associated with moderate alcohol consumption anyway.

2.) In 2013, the journal Addiction ran a critical analysis of observational studies vs. evidence-based ones, concluding, “For almost all the diseases, we do not know of any plausible biological mechanism explaining a preventive role for alcohol. Alcohol's possible ability to prevent diseases should probably not be considered as an established fact. The absence of definite knowledge leaves plenty of room for wishful thinking, which we observe frequently on this topic.”

3.) Common sense does not support the notion that a drug that causes a disease can also help prevent the same disease. Alcohol increases blood pressure in the lab and is claimed to protect the heart in pro-alcohol studies. Alcohol use is a documented carcinogen, but pro-alcohol studies claim some prophylactic effect. Alcohol use visibly shrinks the brain in MRIs and cadaver studies, but pro-alcohol studies claim it helps stave off dementia.

Fourth, and not the least, is to ask 'does this study pass the smell test?' What would cause a reputable physician or scientist to expend the time and resources – and risk reputation – to look for a health benefit of consuming a toxin and known carcinogen? Health or otherwise, what causes problems, is one.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature 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 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Nutrition

(See online article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode N is on nutrition: You are what you eat, right? So what does that say about the notorious alcoholic diet? If we eat at all while practicing our craft, it is usually some fried, fat-laden, over-processed food to stave off the hangover or quickly satisfy a rumbling stomach.

Alcohol-related malnutrition is often reflected in body weight loss, mainly

muscle tissue. You're not growing huge guns lifting 12 ounces at a time. Nutritional imbalance is often compounded in drinkers by the effect alcohol has on gastrointestinal function. These effects include increased transit times between when you eat or drink something and pass it as waste. Impaired salt and water absorption also play a role in malnutrition. (See related study)

Wet brain is a term used in treatment circles. We get it not because we're alcoholic, but because of what alcohol does to B-vitamin absorption plus our notoriously lame diets. Malnourishment causes it, not alcoholism. Binge drinkers, people with the eating disorder bulimia and even women with severe morning sickness can get it too, again because the body is thiamine deficient. Wet brain is brain damage. It's medical term is Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, a combination of Wernicke's encephalopathy and Korsakoff's psychosis. A person with wet brain usually has trouble walking or poor coordination, memory loss or memories of things that never happened, hallucinations, vision changes.

Two things to know about wet brain. First, is that it has two stages. The Wernicke's encephalopathy stage often is struck off by a surge of blood sugar in a vitamin-deficient brain. Alcohol doesn't fry the brain or kill brain cells the way people commonly think, the B-1 protects the brain from glucose surges which gray matter doesn't tolerate well. If the first stage isn't immediately treated with thiamine injections, it cannot be reversed. If it goes untreated all together, the Korsakoff's psychosis is the second stage. This is permanent brain damage. But people can relearn through rehab.

Only 20 percent of cases are diagnosed before death. For those who are diagnosed before the alcohol kills them, one in four cases require long-term care. Wet brain isn't something that takes awhile to develop. It hits suddenly. There is no warning. Let the drinking serve as the warning.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature 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 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Life Expectancy

(See online article)

Alcohol consumption of two or more drinks a day shaves 10 to 12 years off life expectancy. That's from the A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia. More moderate use, cuts at least 12 months from how long you'll live. A.D.A.M.'s 10-12 years is the conservative estimate by the way: A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2005 found that alcohol use shortens lives by at least 30 years.

Alcohol use will affect the body in so many ways that researchers have a hard time specifying exactly what the life expectancy consequences are from drinking. Drinking is associated with earlier death. However, it is not just from a higher risk of the more common serious health problems, such as heart attack, heart failure, diabetes, lung disease, or stroke. Other ways alcohol cuts life expectancy:

• People who drink regularly have a higher rate of death from violence. Half of all murders are alcohol-related.
• Alcohol overdose can lead to death and can interaction with other medications. Alcohol overdose doesn't just stem from any one heavy drinking incident, but also may occur from a constant infusion of alcohol into the bloodstream.
• Severe withdrawal and delirium tremens (DTs). Delirium tremens occurs in about five percent of alcoholics attempting to quit. It includes progressively severe withdrawal symptoms and altered mental states. In some cases, it can be fatal. Alcohol withdrawal is one of only two drug withdrawals that can kill you. The other drug class is benzodiazepines. Heroin addicts may think their withdrawal is going to kill them, but alcohol withdrawal will.
• Alcohol use directly harms many areas in the body to produce dangerous health conditions related to liver damage, heart damage, pancreatitis, anemia, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, nerve damage, and visible brain damage.
• Alcohol users who need surgery have an increased risk of postoperative complications, including infections, bleeding, insufficient heart and lung functions, and problems with wound healing. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms after surgery may also delay recuperation.

Alcohol also plays a huge role in household accidents, drownings, a third of car-crash fatalities, and half of all suicides. It's the third-leading cause of preventable death… not in some depressed and undereducated locale, but here, in the U.S., taking one life every 10 seconds.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature 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 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Fetal Alcohol Exposure

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' will run throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode F looks at fetal exposure to alcohol.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are now more common than autism and a child is born with one in the range of FASDs every 4.5 minutes. The responsibility for FASD isn't all on mom. Research published in Animal Cells and Systems suggests the father's drinking may contribute. The authors concluded that alcohol consumption affects genes in sperm which are responsible for normal fetal development.

The unborn use the same blood and therefore have the same blood alcohol concentration (BAC) as the mother. The fetus lacks the ability to process the alcohol the way an adult does, so the BAC remains high for a long time, causing a number of physical, cognitive, social and neurological problems that are permanent and irreversible. And sometimes fatal. A developing baby doesn’t know the difference between an alcoholic or a social drinker: The alcohol is the same. Any amount of alcohol risks infant development because alcohol is a toxin. The byproduct of alcohol metabolism, acetaldehyde, is even more toxic and any quantity can be responsible for physical deformities.

A study released in April 2015 by Australia's University of New South Wales found an increased risk of low birth weight even if the mother was treated for an alcohol use disorder 12 months before conception. Alcohol causes lasting changes in a mother’s DNA, which explains the problems in the babies even long after the drinking ceased. And long after birth. As many as 40,000 babies are born with an FASD annually, costing the U.S. up to $6 billion annually in institutional and medical costs. Costs of FAS alone are estimated at between 1 and 5 million dollars per child.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reiterated in a 2015 report that no amount of alcohol in any trimester is safe. Authors said in the report: First trimester drinking (vs. no drinking) produces 12 times the odds of giving birth to a child with FASD, first and second trimester drinking increases FASD odds 61 times, and drinking in all trimesters increases FASD odds 65 times. A 2016 study conducted by the Center for Development and Behavioral Neuroscience even suggests the child exposed to alcohol in the womb, with or without an FASD, is more prone to alcohol use disorders the rest of his or her life. Something you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature 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 

Beat the heat? Three ways the heat beats you when alcohol is involved

Episode #47 of The Sobriety :60+ looks at the danger of dehydration and heat injury.  Read the transcript at  or share the YouTube video .

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 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.

The Sobriety :60 #16 - Alcohol doesn't warm you, it increases hypothermia risk

The extreme cold temperatures bring about a warning or two about hypothermia, including the sixteenth episode of The Sobriety :60. (video) (article)

Hypothermia is a potentially fatal condition causing a change in your total body core temperature. A normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees, plus or minus one degree. But, with the temperatures as warm as 40, it doesn`t take long for your body to fall below 94 degrees.

One of the leading causes of hypothermia is alcohol abuse. When temperatures are in the 40s and lower, it’s important to wear clothing appropriate for cold weather. However, bundling up doesn’t do much to counter alcohol in the system. Alcohol gives a sensation of warmth, especially at higher concentrations. The sensation is not actual warming. Alcohol thins blood and increases blood flow near the skin. It's called vasodilation in doctorspeak. The blood near the skin cools in the extreme temperatures, leading to hypothermia.

Symptoms of hypothermia include shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech and drowsiness. Symptoms of too much booze include exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech and drowsiness. The drunk mind says, AH I'LL BE OK. The hypothermic mind says, "WHOA, I better start shutting down metabolism and some organs."  Point is, you won't know the difference if you don't bundle up, layoff the booze or both.

Fahrenheit or Celsius, zero degrees is very unfriendly to intoxicated people. If you passed out in Orlando tonight, you`d probably get hypothermia and likely survive. If you passed out, tonight, in the Midwest, you wouldn`t survive it. It`s just the nature of it. 

Some people will drink in the cold because they think it 'warms them up.' But it can kill you.
www.alcohologist.com

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of the Bringing Inspiration To Earth show feature with Scott Stevens. 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 also can be found on www.alcohologist.com, plus an interview with Scott Stevens on Health Media Now and one at Christoph Fisher Books.  Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international author from the UK, among his works is the Alzheimer's book "Time to Let Go."  

A Mother's Day review of a new documentary on recovering moms

My recent appearance at the REEL Recovery Film Festival in San Francisco coincided with the world premier of the documentary "On Life's Terms: Mothers in Recovery."  I met filmmaker Sheila Ganz afterward, and have nothing but the greatest admiration for the work she has done.  This is a gripping one-hour that's a MUST SEE film on women facing tough odds with an eye on reuniting their families after facing their addictions.

Sheila follows five new moms facing legal challenges and the removal of their children in a criminal justice system too often known for heavy-handedness and mistreatment, rather than compassion and treatment.  The film follows the mothers through gut-wrenching stories, tears, reluctant acceptance, then growth into their "aha" moments... through the years following their program commitment and reuniting with their children.  There's also the draw of old relationships and the pull of old ways of thinking and resentments, even months and years after the moms get clean and sober.  Those moments I believe were intentionally left in the final cut to prove that all of us are recovering, not cured.  I covered my eyes, telling the screen, "DON'T DO IT."

And all this is VERY well done. 

I admit to not having a whole lot of experience with moms and recovery.  This opened my eyes.  I am glad there are resources but never realized until the film just how scarce they are.  There are only 150 mom-oriented programs in the whole country?? When the outcomes are so potentially powerful??

I have strong feelings about women risking the unborn and believe they MUST be accountable.  This film showed they can be without incarceration. Corrections and a punitive justice system do more harm than their (mis)treatment programs claim.  This film shows the positives of diverting young families away from the hostility of a lockup,  It works for the community as well as the offender and MOST IMPORTANTLY the kids.  

We all have a stake in the outcomes for mother and child.  This brilliantly executed documentary shows how it works when restorative justice trumps punitive justice ... and left me inspired to learn more and DO MORE.

You can visit www.onlifesterms.org and follow the film and a remarkable filmmaker on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/onlifestermsfilm.

www.alcohologist.com

Scroll down for the replay of the April 13 Sound Health Options show feature with Scott Stevens. 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 can be found on www.alcohologist.com, plus an interview with Scott Stevens on Health Media Now and one at Christoph Fisher Books.  Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international author from the UK, among his works is the Alzheimer's book "Time to Let Go."  

March Madness? 22,000 will have died YTD from alcohol by NCAA tip time

www.alcohologist.com

 

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman's three lessons for those of us who aren't celebs

Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman died from apparent heroin overdose Feb.2, according to updated reports in the New York Times. Hoffman spoke candidly over the years about past struggles with drug addiction. His passing packs three valuable messages to counter the over-the-top behavior of pop-music teen star Justin Bieber for a generation of abusers of alcohol and other drugs.

1. Addiction is the only disease that convinces you that you don't have it. Regardless of how long the disease is in remission, without vigilance, it will convince a drinker or drug user he “can handle it” of “have just one.” Twelve-step groups refer to it as the “cunning, baffling and powerful” nature of substance use disorders. Control is an illusion.

2. There is treatment, but no cure, for addiction and the disease of alcoholism. Hoffman sought treatment at least two times. In 2006, he said in an interview with CBS-TV's “60 Minutes” that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was 22. Last year he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his turning again to heroin.

Hoffman died in a relapse. He had 23 years of continuous sobriety. He was sober longer than Bieber has been alive. Then the addiction and urge to use became more important than anything else in his life. Within a year he was dead.

3. Drugs – and alcohol is a drug – do not discriminate. They can kill, regardless of social status, religion, career, education, bank account, genes, tolerance, gender, size, race, ethnicity or marriage. And it isn't glamorous.

Hoffman died like many drug users. Alone. Discovered by a friend who found his body in the apartment and phoned police. FoxNews.com reports authorities are investigating whether Hoffman received a more potent type of heroin that's being blamed for numerous deaths over the past two weeks, first in the Pittsburgh area and later along the east coast. The substance combines heroin and fentanyl, an opiate used to soothe the pain of cancer patients, and is being blamed for dozens of deaths across the country. Average people. Not celebs.

Ego makes a person say, “That can't happen to me.” Hoffman's death is a tragic reminder that “Oh, yes it can.”
-- from examiner.com (see full article)

SUNDAY SNIPPET: November 17

Grieving is something in which few aspire to be experts.  Even non-alcoholics are poor performers in accepting and grieving their losses... but an Alcoholic in recovery had better not skip over the grief process. This excerpt from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety shows the vital connection between successful long-term recovery and transcending loss.

You will not find recovery without the process of mourning. Most of us try to pull that off, but we can’t. Period. There is no conceivable scenario to avoid mourning in sobriety. You cannot go from drinking to recovery by skipping the pain of grief any more than you can go directly from Kindergarten to college. “After all, if our life is altered so dramatically by our trauma that we can hardly recognize it as our own, we might think it as a death,” says Kathryn Cramer. (Staying on Top When Your World Turns Upside Down, Penguin Books, New York 1990) “In a small but real way our life as we once knew it has died.” Death and grief go hand in hand.

You have a grievable loss. Failure to grieve, failure to grieve appropriately (e.g. without booze), or failing to even identify our losses as losses, sacks more attempts at long-term recovery than any other stressor. One thing few people respect or even notice about Alcoholics is the upheaval and loss we go through. Instead people seem more interested in the upheaval and loss we create.

Attention in group therapy is showered on abstinence. But look to those who have the most experience in their own recoveries and you’ll see people who have identified their losses, grieved them and transcended them. Every single one of them knows fully what he or she lost and is over it. Grief—the process, not the noun—belongs in treatment for Alcoholism. A full, real grief process. Not the infomercial version. It doesn’t happen in a series of handouts or a couple of DVDs. There are no shortcuts, and because there aren’t it is often overlooked in short-term treatment efforts. Mourning has to be an essential part of recovery’s curriculum. The carnage Alcoholism causes in our lives needs to be seen in the same light as grief counselors view a loss such as a natural disaster or untimely death.
--  Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pg. 72
www.alcohologist.com

Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, plus the new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books.  Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK. 

SATURDAY REWIND: Alcohol warning for prediabetes, type-2 diabetes during Diabetes Month

November is American Diabetes Month -- the 14th is World Diabetes Day -- and this article from the alcohol research news archive notes that among the many health risks associated with alcohol, a significant danger among them is developing type 2 diabetes.


The blood sugar disorder has reached near epidemic status in the United States and has largely been blamed on an increase in the percentage of the population considered overweight. However, alcohol abuse and the disease of alcoholism also contribute to the disease.

Heavy alcohol use (with moderate use being defined as one drink daily for women, two a day for men) damages the pancreas, the organ responsible for producing insulin naturally to regulate blood sugar. The more a person drinks, the more damage to that organ and the higher the risk of developing prediabetes, which can lead to type 2 diabetes.

According to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) , prediabetes is when a person's blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be type 2 diabetes. Prediabetics are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

The risk of prediabetes may be even higher for people with high blood pressure, according to preliminary research introduced April 18 at the European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation's EuroPRevent meeting. Lucio Mos, of San Antonio Hospital at the University of Padova, Italy, found that patients with high blood pressure who drank more than 10 drinks a day had a six-times higher risk of developing a prediabetic condition.

Drinking alcohol, especially in large quantities, contributes to diabetes in three ways.
1. Heavy drinking can reduce the body’s sensitivity to insulin (according to the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism)
2.Diabetes is a common side effect of chronic pancreatitis, which is overwhelmingly caused by heavy drinking, especially in men. (See related examiner.com article on the Y-chromosome and pancreatitis)
3.Alcohol contains a huge amount of calories. One beer can be equivalent to a slice of pizza. (see examiner.com article on alcohol calories) The extra calories increase your chance of becoming overweight, another diabetes risk factor.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 26 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes and another 79 million Americans have prediabetes. Many people with alcohol use disorders already may be prediabetic and not know it, according to the ADA, “because the symptoms develop so gradually, people often don't recognize them. Some people have no symptoms at all.”
Signs of prediabetes include:
unusual thirst
frequent urination
blurred vision
extreme fatigue
frequent infections
cuts/bruises that are slow to heal
tingling/numbness in the hands/feet
recurring skin, gum or bladder infections

Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, non-traumatic lower-limb amputations and new cases of blindness among adults, and a major cause of heart disease and stroke. It's the seventh-leading cause of death.
--from examiner.com (see full article)
www.alcohologist.com

The new radio interview replay is available at alcohologist.com... and please read the new interview with Scott Stevens at Christoph Fisher Books.  Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international historical fiction novelist from the UK. 

SUNDAY SNIPPET: October 27

The excerpt this weekend comes, again, from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety.  However, there will be a second excerpt and links to an author interview posted Oct. 28. The book had the honor of appearing on the website of internationally acclaimed historical fiction novelist, Christoph Fischer.  Watch for that tomorrow.  

Today's snippet is the introduction to a chapter on communication in recovery...

Communication is the glue that holds an Alcoholic together during recovery, so in that regard it is me-oriented. In no way does this mean exalting yourself or venting your ego. Instead, the emphasis is on self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is give-and-take even though it might feel like you’re just taking.

We have a bandage of silence over the wounds alcohol left if we clam up. The bandage does not cure the cortisol, it only makes the Symptoms feel less goofy temporarily.

Self-disclosure is the medicine for the cortisol. “Disclosing private information about ourselves is a very effective assertiveness skill. Private feelings and worries cannot be dealt with by other people by denying or disregarding the truths of your feelings,” according to psychologist Manuel Smith. “The type of voluntary self-disclosure is about things we assume we should hide.” Like grief. Like guilt. “Voluntary self-disclosure is not to be confused with the vomiting up of confessions of lack of self-worth.” Voluntary self-disclosure also means talking only about today. Twelve-step manual Alcoholics Anonymous adds, “Unless some good or useful purpose is to be served, past occurrences should not be discussed.”

Talk about what you feel, in other words, not what you did.
--  Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pg. 88
www.alcohologist.com

Alcohol use creeps upward when Halloween falls closer to weekend

Spirits, of the alcohol type, are used more frequently when the spirits, of the ghostly type, are out on All Hallows' Eve according to an Oct. 25 report from Alcohol Monitoring Systems (AMS). What's even spookier is that the company monitors compliance for those ordered by courts to remain sober or face potential jail time.

AMS found that criminal offenders and those with pending cases who have their freedom only due to intense monitoring for absolute sobriety violated that condition around Halloween. Drinking violations rise nearly 30 percent when Halloween takes place on Friday or Saturday, compared to just five percent when it happens on a Monday.

This year the holiday falls on Thursday, and drinking rates are expected to rise approximately 25 percent. Drinking during the weekend before Halloween also is expected to jump by the same percentage.

AMS spokesperson Lou Sugo notes for these individuals monitored by his company's electronic anklet every 30 minutes, drinking is a violation, and the consequence often is arrest and jail, making the increase especially startling. "These individuals know they're going to be caught and face consequences. You can imagine the rate of drinking for those who aren't being monitored."

The study looked at data from more than 305,000 offenders monitored since 2003. Many monitored with the anklet are alcohol abusers or have the disease of alcoholism and have been charged with driving while intoxicated.

The AMS statistics mate up with data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The agency reports more than half of all national fatalities occurring on Halloween resulted from an alcohol-related crash. That's up from one-third of all accidents throughout the rest of the year. NHTSA is publicizing the data as part of their ongoing Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over awareness campaign. Officials caution that sobriety checkpoints will be prominent on Halloween, which has become one of the deadliest days of the year for drunk driving.

Sugo adds, "Drunk people generally make poor decisions, and deciding to get behind the wheel of a car is just one of the potential issues," he adds. Additional data compiled for the 2013 book Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud shows:

• Two hospital admissions each minute are attributable to alcohol directly, a 65 percent increase over five years
• 22 percent of the 12 million home-accident injuries in 2012 were alcohol-related
• 58 percent of fire fatalities have alcohol in their systems, which presumably kept them from fleeing safely
• 45 percent of drownings are alcohol-related
• 15.5 percent of occupational injuries are alcohol-related
• 76 percent of incarcerated men and women claim to have been under the influence while committing their offenses
• 56 percent of assault victims have alcohol in their bodies
• A drinker is at a two-and-a-half-times greater risk of a violent death

-- from examiner.com (see full article)
www.alcohologist.com


Also, please check out the author interview with Scott Stevens on "All That's Written" 10/11/13
www.alcohologist.com