Keys to early sobriety success

A common error made by those who've never lived a day in their lives challenged by alcohol is that all someone who has a drinking problem needs to do is just stop drinking. There's some sort of finish line in their minds. Those of us who've quit or struggled to stay sober know with certainty there is no finish line.

It is a progressive, disease without a cure. The quit date is just a start.

If you quit as a New Year's resolution, by the Fourth of Dry July, biologically, your body has begun to repair some damage. Insomnia, headaches, dizziness, fogginess, trouble with balance, problems with hand/eye coordination and reflexes are in the rear-view mirror or at least a whole lot better for most recoverers in that six months. But a lot rides on four factors:

1) Diet and exercise

2) Stress management

3) Depression care

and of course 4) the severity of the drinking prior to the quit date.

Nothing can be done about that last one: Nobody has the luxury of rewriting history. But the first three require attention in those first six months and beyond. Diet and exercise are crucial: Neither got more attention while drinking. If you do nothing else, eat veggies and fruit and take a daily walk. Doing so will help with stress management and depression care.

On the stress side, alcoholics have a higher level of the stress hormone cortisol, as detailed in Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud. Non-alcoholics and alcoholics alike drink for the same reason, to alleviate stress. You have a hole in your routine now that you've taken alcohol out of it. Plug something into that hole, whether it is exercise, spirituality, self-help meetings like 12-step groups or Women for Sobriety, etc.

Depression is a chicken and egg thing for alcoholics: How much was there before the alcohol and how much was caused by the alcohol? Let a professional help. Talking is cathartic, especially in recovery. And so is a balanced brain chemistry. Hard-line 12-steppers say you cannot take an anti-depressant and call yourself sober. (Archaic thinking… based on more bullcrap than you'd find at a rodeo.) Trust me, those dinosaurs are hard to come by and none of them know the first thing about the neurochemicals dopamine and serotonin. Just find a different meeting and follow a doctor's orders, including anti-depressants as prescribed. Most of the older recipes are available as generics for $4 these days.

Post-acute withdrawal can last a while – six to sixty months – but not everyone goes through it, and it beats the alternative of going to your own funeral. Quit in Dry July and imagine where you'll be by Christmas.

See the entire transcript with video 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.

Widely misreported study says 'senior alcoholism rising' -- fact is, more are seeking help

A Nov. 17 report from by Public Health England notes the number of women over the age of 60 being treated for alcoholism is on the rise. Women in the age bracket account for nearly one in 10 people starting treatment for alcohol consumption, compared with six percent five years ago.

The report has been widely misreported as alcoholism being on the rise for the age group. In actuality, the research demonstrates only that the women are educated more than they were five years ago to the dangers of untreated alcohol problems and are doing something about it. Alcoholism, as a disease recognized by the American Medical Association and World Health Organization, is a primary, progressive, chronic and fatal disease held by about eight to ten percent of the population.


Using an increase in alcoholism treatment to claim more seniors are alcoholic is like claiming blindness is on the rise because eyeglass sales are up.

The percent of the women-over-60 population with the disease did not change. The percent getting help for it did. The other side of the spectrum – women under age 30 – shows the opposite trend. The figures showed that women beginning treatment for alcoholism between ages 18 and 29 fell to 14 percent, from 18 percent five years ago.

The report does shine a bright light on an often secret problem for seniors, especially senior women. (Watch The Sobriety :60 #1 – Senior Health on the dangers of drinking and aging, or listen to a replay of WIND-AM Chicago's program on AgingInfo Radioabout senior drinking. Links to both programs can be found on alcohologist.com) Loneliness, boredom, depression, failing health and isolation are some of the factors that contribute to senior drinking.

Dr Sally Marlow, a researcher at King's College Institute of Psychiatry, explained that study figures do run contrary to the portrayal of alcoholism in the media, which she said focuses on young people's binge drinking habits to a much greater extent.

-- See full article

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."  

The Sobriety :60 - Depression & Suicide

Alcohol causes depression rather than alleviating it... plus the tragic intersections of alcohol, depression and taking one's own life. The transcript of episode #15 of The Sobriety :60 is at http://www.examiner.com/article/the-sobriety-60-spotlights-alcohol-depression-and-suicide and the video is on YouTube http://youtu.be/1NLTnlt20Ow

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."  

Researcher says middle-aged women drink more than other age groups

Middle-aged women drink more alcohol than any other age group, according to a Queensland University of Technology study. Researcher Hanna Watling says 13 percent of women aged 45 to 59 are drinking an average of more than two glasses of wine daily, which could be placing them at risk of serious illness. A survey concluded July 1 to find out why more middle-aged women are turning to the bottle.

"We're hoping to understand a bit more about what's going on for this particular group of drinkers and why it is they tend to turn to alcohol in this sort of way," says Watling. "When we understand more about what's going on for this particular group of drinkers we might be able to develop interventions that are tailored to their specific needs and their specific circumstances."

Watling notes that earlier research found when women increased their drinking from two to three standard drinks a day (12 oz. beer, 1.5 oz. shot of liquor or 10 oz. wine), they more than tripled their lifetime risk of death from alcoholism and other alcohol-related diseases. Alcohol is a carcinogen and the only known dietary connection to increased breast cancer risk. Alcohol use contributes to cardiovascular disease and is the primary or secondary cause of more than 60 other illnesses. It also increases the likelihood of becoming a violence and/or accident statistic. It is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., claiming more than 88,000 lives annually.

The book, Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, notes that “alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike drink for the same reason: It relieves stress. Alcoholics can't drink safely. Medically, non-alcoholics can't either, without increasing other health risks.”

"Alcohol also becomes a way of dealing with the stresses of busy lives such as family worries, work pressures or social commitments,” according to the Australian study's summary. Watling adds researchers are concerned that women who drink moderately often may end up consuming a larger volume of alcohol than those who drink heavily but less frequently.

The study suggests that for women in their 40s and 50s, drinking is not about getting drunk. "Heavy drinking is more common among young women in their late teens and 20s, but as they age, women tend to abandon binge drinking for less heavy but more frequent levels of alcohol consumption," she said. "Instead, it's more that alcohol becomes a greater part of everyday life as you age, for example having a wine with dinner or in front of the TV," she said.

-- (see full article)
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."  

Support group meeting, Men for Sobriety, based on four decades of Women for Sobriety (WFS)

The full article appears in The JournalTimes (Racine, Wis.)

Positive thinking...

Being sober doesn’t mean being miserable. That’s the basic premise of a new, free support group offered in Burlington at the Agape Recovery Center, 201 N. Pine St., Burlington.

Called Men For Sobriety, these Wednesday evening sessions are not a 12-step assessment or court program, and are not intended to replace any recovery resource or counseling. Men for Sobriety is just talk, for sober men who want to stay sober, according to Scott Stevens, one of the group’s co-moderators.
“Our focus is on the positive,” said Stevens, a 47-year-old journalist and former mutual fund industry executive who has been in recovery since 2007 (www.alcohologist.com).

The program’s basic point is that the past is gone forever and, rather than going back and reliving its dark days, it is time to move on and focus on the future, Stevens said.

“Men for Sobriety is a way of life — a new life and starting over,” he said.

Based on Women For Sobriety
Burlington’s MFS group is the only one of its kind currently operating in the U.S., according to Stevens. MFS groups have been meeting in Canada and other countries for more than 16 years, he said. And both they and the Burlington group are based on an international program called Women for Sobriety.

Founded in 1975 by Jean Kirkpatrick, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s doctoral program, WFS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women overcome alcoholism and other addictions. Its self-help groups can be found across the country and focus on a 13-statement “New Life” program of positivity that encourages emotional and spiritual growth (see accompanying box for WFS info).

Like WFS, the men’s program follows 13 statements of “New Life.” “But we don’t sit around and read and memorize things,” said Stevens. “We talk about what’s happening today.”

People in recovery face a lot of stress as they deal with living in a society that seems to focus on alcohol, he said. Both alcoholics and non-alcoholics drink to relieve stress, but doing so is not a good option for alcoholics, he said. “So, let’s talk about that stress, and the shame, guilt and stigma of alcoholism.”

‘Dirty word’
Such feelings are familiar to Stevens, a Burlington resident who has authored a couple books about alcoholism (www.alcohologist.com). His work as a volunteer with the MFS program is part of his own recovery from the disease of alcoholism — a disease that is often still viewed as a “lifestyle choice” made by bad people or a “dirty word” that people are afraid to admit they have, he said.

“That type of thinking still persists,” Stevens said. “But I was the guy sitting behind you in church and playing next to you on the golf course. I’m the guy with the nice house and nice kids who has a genetic problem — once I have one drink, all bets are off and I’m just not able to say no to that second drink.”  (Read more in The JournalTimes)

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."  

SUNDAY SNIPPET: December 22

There are several reasons Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud notes in favor of attending some sort of self-help group. Attendance can help stave off relapse, but on a more basic level it provides a place to talk and to be heard and to be understood. It doesn't have to be the 12-steps. There are other alternatives, some are quite effective and might be a better fit given a person's location or belief system. The fact is, regardless of belief system, we need a place to talk about The Things We Don't Talk About.

 

 

"I’m no shill for AA. (No member is: They're anonymous at the level of publicity. It's attraction rather than promotion.) The AA slogan factory drives me nuts. More about this in a moment. I hate the coffee. The Higher Power thing is tough for some people to swallow. Some people stay away from 12-step meetings because they don’t see themselves in the people around the tables or hear their stories told in the tragic stories of others. That is the point in going: To make sure you’re communicating what is stressing you before you go back to the drinking and become those tragic stories. You go because you don’t want to become The Alcoholic You Don’t Want To Be.

 

I screwed that one up, big time.

 

When I first went to a 12-step meeting, I was Alcoholic. No Doubt About It. But I didn’t hear myself as I presently was in the stories. I heard the horror stories. I was a functioning, maintenance drinker with a great job, two cars, etc. I didn’t have this low bottom I heard in the other stories. So I walked away, not realizing that day could have been my bottom. Their stories of grief and shame weren’t me. I had great empathy for their ordeals. What I failed to see was that they were a gift, showing me where I was headed, not where I was. That these ordeals of theirs were mine if I didn’t make that day my bottom. They were the Alcoholics I Didn’t Want To Be.

 

At the dawn of AA in the 1930s, the makeup was men and women with low, low bottoms. Over the years, that changed mainly because those who had hit low bottoms were able to raise the bottom to a level where it applies to Alcoholics-in-training like me who hadn’t had a low bottom. Yet. I failed. I didn’t listen . . . there’s that communication thing again . . . to what they were saying that they, too, were one day in the same shape I was. And then I became the Alcoholic I Didn’t Want To Be a few years down the road. While we have to talk about the stuff we don’t talk about, it pays to listen. A lot. I go to 12-step meetings for this, but there are other options out there, too. Use them. Most are free.  All are free of excuses not to attend."

--from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pgs. 104-105 (image: ThampaPon)

www.alcohologist.com

Alcoholics Anonymous has -- you guessed it -- a slogan.  Sometimes, the clichés get it right.  Meeting Makers Make It. Especially when it comes to beating relapse.  Doesn't have to be AA, though it works for me and many. Just GO.


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. 

SUNDAY SNIPPET: December 15

Shame is one of the four stressors related to relapse emphasized in Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety.  Our disease is more than biochemical and the majority of the book looks at other happenings in the eight inches between the right ear and the left that sabotage recovery .  In addition to being bluntly personal, I turn to many of the established pros in addictions and psychology... men and women who know the stigma the word "alcoholism" carries. This excerpt continues a couple pages after where the December 8 SUNDAY SNIPPET left off on the subject of shame and stigma.


"Your brain is an echo chamber for the toxic shame words: You’re Not Normal. They are amplified, too. You hear over and over that you’re flawed even when the words aren’t spoken directly to you. Staying sober helps reduce the echoes, but they stubbornly refuse to vanish. The longer they hang on, the more the Symptoms hang on.

One of the foremost authorities on the impact of toxic shame is John Bradshaw. (Healing the Shame that Binds, Health Communications, Deerfield Beach, FL 1988) Bradshaw makes a direct connection between shame and lapse because alcohol provides an escape from the feelings you get from the Symptoms and the labels. Labels that don’t fit but others have tagged onto you leave you feeling wounded. You want to medicate the wound by having a drink. You’re caught between the dog and the hydrant.

The shame causes stress . . . the shamer causes stress . . . not conforming to your body’s request for a shot or two causes stress . . . and knowing you’ve never in your life just had one or two causes stress. Knowing you’ll easily spiral back downward into a new bottom causes stress.

If/When you drink because of the shame someone else heaps onto you for being Alcoholic, the more right the shamer becomes. You prove their points. And you earn more shame. Bradshaw sees this cycle of shame begetting more shame and guilt as a squirrel cage, beginning at the point at which you’ve been labeled. You then want relief, you take a drink, get relief, then get shamed for getting the relief which puts you back to wanting relief from yet more shame.

For an Alcoholic in sobriety, only a single spin through the squirrel cage—maybe two—and you’re well on the path from lapse to relapse.

People expect more out of someone who’s put his Alcoholism into remission. There’s the expectation that the Alcoholic avoids relapse. Forever. There’s the demand that he achieves new levels of productivity on the job. He’s not allowed other human problems, like overeating. They insist he pursues spiritual enlightenment. And if he fails in any of these areas, they’re actually disappointed in him and label him again as a failure—as if non-Alcoholics routinely achieve such goals! Just because you never can drink does not mean you never can be allowed to live without someone reminding you of it each day.

You don’t need to have a really low bottom to have attracted shamers. People shame high-bottom Alcoholics, too, whether or not they’ve been a victim of his drinking. These are the people who are on you for having a disease like ants are on a popsicle melting on the sidewalk. There will always be some Bozo who is going to help you into the squirrel cage because shamers and shame go hand-in-hand with Alcoholism."

---  from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pages 56-57

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. 

SUNDAY SNIPPET: December 8

Shame is one of the four stressors related to relapse emphasized in Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety.   The book leans heavily toward the neuroscience and endocrinology fields in parts of the first chapter of the book.  However, our disease is more than biochemical and the majority of the book looks at other happenings in the eight inches between the right ear and the left that sabotage recovery .  In addition to being bluntly personal, I turn to many of the established pros in addictions and psychology... men and women who know the stigma the word "alcoholism" carries.

"...That’s just one example of stigma or ignorance leading to the insensitivity behind shame other people bring to our doorsteps or the shame we find when we stand on their doorsteps. In a lot of ways the shame is as pain-provoking as the disease itself, especially when we’re treated this way by People Who Should Know Better. I once thought I had a huge fund of tolerance for people, but realized it could be quickly drained once I began dealing with otherwise smart people who say dumb things about Alcoholism.

The shamer may not want me to go to heaven because I’ve got this thing, but I want to go anyway, so who’s the one with the problem? The Person Who Should Know Better.

You do not expect them to build a shrine to your sobriety, but it isn’t too much to expect them to let you try to succeed. They are simply not strong enough to accept that negative things can happen in life randomly. It is a part of nature they have chosen to deny. They have a “conflict of visions of reality” to steal from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Robert M. Pirsig, HarperCollins, New York 1974) It’s the way people choose to see the world regardless of scientific discoveries.

Stigma is the shadow cast by ignorance, and ignorance about Alcoholism remains very strong in society. A poll cited in HBO’s 2007 series, Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Quit? reported that one half of the public believes Alcoholism is a “personal weakness.” In the face of 56 years passing since the American Medical Association deemed Alcoholism a disease, HALF the population still refuses to believe it is one, and are wed to a 3,000-year-old notion that it is a bad person rather than a bad medical condition. Call it lack of training or education to be more diplomatic, but it isn’t going to change by the time you finish this book. According to a truly common way of thinking called the “just world philosophy,” you’ve gotten what you deserved. In a just world, if you are careful, smart and moral you can avoid misfortune; and if you don’t avoid misfortune, you are misfortune. Shame on you.

In 1957 Dr. Jellinek’s disease model of Alcoholism authoritatively ended centuries of false conclusions about Alcoholism being tied to careful, smart and moral. People still have a hard time giving up the idea that it is some sort of problem that can be stopped by just walking in a different direction. They don’t isolate the science from the myth and rhetoric. The prevalence of shaming is a natural human tendency to be subjective rather than objective and that the untrained and closed mind will follow the path of least resistance. The American society shames the Alcoholic, so too must they.”

--- condensed from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pages 53-54

 

It's unicorns-and-rainbows thinking for those in recovery to try to single-handedly overturn the stigma that is rooted so deeply in our culture. We can work with others to fight stigma... the best first step toward that end is learning to live, live well and live sober around shame. When we drink over the shamers' dumb ideas, we prove them right.

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. 

SUNDAY SNIPPET: November 24

Alcoholics drink that first drink for many of the same reasons non-alcoholics do: among the reasons is to relieve stress. Non-alcoholics can stop, alcoholics cannot, after the first drink. Chapter Two covers stress and cortisol and their relation to relapse, plus the new research revealing how the stress hormone alters the perception of and reaction to stress in those with the disease of alcoholism.


"The stressors some Alcoholics pile up over periods of sobriety aren’t the small day-by-day stressors like coffee spills on new carpet. They’re the four major category stressors covered in chapters four through seven.  The longer you spend in prolonged stress with the cortisol rioting through you, the more intense your feelings of helplessness and, sometimes, emotional numbness. You at times feel like you’re just going through the motions. Things “normal” people drink to forget. 

 

Adrenal glands secrete the stress hormone cortisol and, like the rest of the body, are not designed for prolonged stress according to Dr. Aphrodite Matsakis (I Can’t Get Over It, New Harbinger Publications, Oakland, CA 1992). “The adrenals can be permanently damaged leading to overfunctioning during subsequent stress. If you were subjected to repeated or intense trauma or stress, certain biochemicals may have been depleted.”

 

In a famous series of experiments conducted by Martin Seligman in the 1970s, animals were subjected to electrical shocks they could not flee no matter what they did or did not do (Helplessness: On Depression, Development and Death, W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, CA 1975). They fought at first. Later the animals became listless when shocked. This was phase one. In Seligman’s second phase, the animals were shocked again but could prevent the zap by pressing a button. They didn’t. They were too changed biochemically to take a simple action to end their suffering. Bessel van der Kolk (in Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 1, 1988) followed up the Seligman work and concluded the shocked creatures had the same biochemical imbalances as humans enduring prolonged exposure to stressors.

With people though, human nature dictates that we try to avoid or escape anything to do with the stressor. Someone might, for example, avoid driving a car after the stress of a car wreck. That is a single, short-duration stressor. An Alcoholic, like Seligman’s experiment subjects, has multiple stressors of long duration. And you can’t run from them all. Like the two experiments convincingly demonstrated, there’s a point at which we don’t even save ourselves. Alcohol becomes a cheap, fast, easy, available escape.

 

Initially as we begin abstinence, we’re told to save ourselves from triggers. People. Places. Things. And the things in slogan-happy and acronym-rich rehab we call HALT: being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Research demonstrates that those triggers lead to lapse because you are not thinking your clearest thoughts. When your stomach growls the oldest parts of the brain focus your body’s resources on food. If you’re focused on food, you’re not focused on sobriety, the thinking goes. You’re juggling sobriety’s apples and hunger throws you a chainsaw. When you’re tired, your thinking is blunted by your need for sleep. When you’re angry or lonely, you may prioritize resolving those emotions rather than concentrating on sobriety. HALT is a good starting point. The objective is to stay out of harm’s way. Avoid. But the four major stressors knocking our cortisol out of whack and leading to lapse, you cannot avoid. We need to instead alter our reactions to them.”

– from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety, pages 29-30

 

The first drink is the ESC key for the big stressors in the book, even for infrequent drinkers.  Alcohol has managed to remain popular for millennia for that reason despite troubling social or physical outcomes from alcohol misuse. For non-alcoholics, stopping after that first drink, after hitting the ESC key, isn't an issue.  All bets are off for the Alcoholic after the first drink to break the stress.  That isn't to say violence or illness is inevitable for that episode, just that stopping at one drink is not an option.  Many drinkers have tried and failed that simple test.  After the first one, it's like trying to slam a revolving door.
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. 

 

Five considerations about alcohol and the holidays

For those in recovery, sober is the only way to do the holidays.  For non-alcoholics, here's some food for thought...

Nearly half of annual domestic sales of wine and roughly 40 percent of higher-priced spirits are sold in the final three months of the year as consumers tend to drink more and buy alcoholic beverages as gifts or to bring to holiday parties and other special occasions. Then there are the office parties and gatherings of family and friends.

For many, abstinence is a year-round plan, and for those who may be concerned about their drinking, here are five fast facts about the season of drinking that demonstrate the value or moderation or abstinence.

Parents, not peers, set drinking examples. Much of parental alcohol abuse or the disease of alcoholism is only occasionally visible to the world outside the family. However, children get their attitudes toward alcohol by observing how the adults around them behave while drinking. Christmas can be stressful. Getting home, complaining to our partner and having a drink seems normal. But stop and think what that might be teaching your children – that alcohol is a coping mechanism.

Drink responsibly – you don’t have to finish the bottle just because it’s open, or even drain your glass. Know your limit. Once you’ve reached it, set the example. Also, when planning a family celebration where teens might be present, try to reach an agreement on rules for them beforehand. Don’t feel pressured to let your teen drink if you’ve already decided they shouldn’t drink before a certain age. And don’t feel hypocritical for drinking when you’ve told your kids they can’t. Explain that alcohol is for adults because their bodies have finished growing, and even then, there are laws about drinking and driving. (See nine more alcohol tips for holiday parenting.)

Alcohol adds calories. Many Americans worry about the extra calories from that green Jello stuff or slab of pumpkin pie. Put down the extra glass of wine and save yourself about 200 calories. If you drink a glass of wine before dinner, another glass with dinner and a sweet wine for dessert, that’s more than 400 calories in addition to the meal. If three beers help that dry turkey seem more palatable, that will add an extra 450 calories. (See more in this related examiner.com article.)

Company parties are back. A recent survey by executive search firm Battalia Wilson found that 91 percent of the companies polled will have holiday parties this year, a significant increase from last year’s low of just 74 percent. If you’re a business owner hosting a party, you have liability. For a former drinker struggling with sobriety, there is no shame in skipping a bash. Otherwise, if you’re an attendee, ginger ale looks just like a cocktail and may keep you from legal trouble on the roads, because…

More people get in collisions during the holidays. Twenty-five people die on an average day in alcohol-related crashes. Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, the average spikes to 45 alcohol-involved traffic deaths daily. December is Drunk and Buzzed Driving Month to emphasize the dangers of drinking and driving during the travel- and celebration-intensive season. Motor vehicle violations involving alcohol increase an average of 54 percent after Thanksgiving. Twelve hundred Americans will die on the roads this month from intoxicated driving crashes. The numbers are higher in years when Christmas and New Year's land on a weekend, which they won’t this year.

Alcohol-related violent crime increases in December. The Department of Justice reports alcohol-related violent crime is highest in December compared to the rest of the year except July – which is a statistical tie. One-third of state prisoners and one-fifth of federal prisoners report alcohol use at the time of the offense. Twenty-one percent of federal prisoners serving time for a violent offense reported alcohol use at the time of the offense. An earlier study in 2008 by Pew Research revealed that 25 percent of state prisoners given a standard questionnaire to screen for the disease of alcoholism tested positive.
--from examiner.com (see full article)
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. 

SUNDAY SNIPPET, April 28

For this week's excerpt, I'm sharing part of an early chapter of Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety. Alcoholics drink that first drink for many of the same reasons non-alcoholics do: among the reasons is to relieve stress. Non-alcoholics can stop, alcoholics cannot, after the first drink. Chapter Two covers stress and cortisol and their relation to relapse, plus the new research revealing how the stress hormone alters the perception of and reaction to stress in those with the disease of alcoholism.


"The stressors Alcoholics pile up over periods of sobriety aren’t the small day-by-day stressors like coffee spills on new carpet. They’re the four major category stressors covered in chapters four through seven.  The longer you spend in prolonged stress with the cortisol rioting through you, the more intense your feelings of helplessness and, sometimes, emotional numbness. You at times feel like you’re just going through the motions. Things “normal” people drink to forget. 

 

Adrenals, like the rest of the body, are not designed for prolonged stress according to Dr. Aphrodite Matsakis (I Can’t Get Over It, New Harbinger Publications, Oakland, CA 1992). “The adrenals can be permanently damaged leading to overfunctioning during subsequent stress. If you were subjected to repeated or intense trauma or stress, certain biochemicals may have been depleted.”

 

In a famous series of experiments conducted by Martin Seligman in the 1970s, animals were subjected to electrical shocks they could not flee no matter what they did or did not do (Helplessness: On Depression, Development and Death, W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, CA 1975). They fought at first. Later the animals became listless when shocked. This was phase one. In Seligman’s second phase, the animals were shocked again but could prevent the zap by pressing a button. They didn’t. They were too changed biochemically to take a simple action to end their suffering. Bessel van der Kolk (in Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 1, 1988) followed up the Seligman work and concluded the shocked creatures had the same biochemical imbalances as humans enduring prolonged exposure to stressors. With people though, human nature dictates that we try to avoid or escape anything to do with the stressor. Someone might, for example, avoid driving a car after the stress of a car wreck. That is a single, short-duration stressor. An Alcoholic, like Seligman’s experiment subjects, has multiple stressors of long duration. And you can’t run from them all. Like the two experiments convincingly demonstrated, there’s a point at which we don’t even save ourselves. Alcohol becomes an efficient escape.

 

Initially as we begin abstinence, we’re told to save ourselves from triggers. People. Places. Things. And the things in slogan-happy and acronym-rich rehab we call HALT: being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Research demonstrates that those triggers lead to lapse because you are not thinking your clearest thoughts. When your stomach growls the oldest parts of the brain focus your body’s resources on food. If you’re focused on food, you’re not focused on sobriety, the thinking goes. You’re juggling sobriety’s apples and hunger throws you a chainsaw. When you’re tired, your thinking is blunted by your need for sleep. When you’re angry or lonely, you may prioritize resolving those emotions rather than concentrating on sobriety. HALT is a good starting point. The objective is to stay out of harm’s way. Avoid. But the four major stressors knocking our cortisol out of whack and leading to lapse, you cannot avoid. We need to instead alter our reactions to them.”

– from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, pages 29-30, FIVE STARS on amazon.com 

 

The first drink is the ESC key for the big stressors in the book, even for infrequent drinkers.  Alcohol has managed to remain popular for millennia for that reason despite troubling social or physical outcomes from alcohol misuse. For non-alcoholics, stopping after that first drink, after hitting the ESC key, isn't an issue.  All bets are off for the Alcoholic after the first drink to break the stress.  That isn't to say violence or illness is inevitable for that episode, just that stopping at one is not an option.  Many drinkers have tried and failed that simple test.  After the first one, it's like trying to slam a revolving door.
www.alcohologist.com 

 

SUNDAY SNIPPET, April 21

For this week's excerpt, I'm introducing one of the four stressors related to relapse emphasized in Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety. Shame. The book leans heavily toward the neuroscience and endocrinology fields in parts of the first portion of the book. In this middle section, in addition to being bluntly personal, I turn to many of the established pros in addictions and psychology... men and women who know the stigma the word "alcoholism" carries.


"...That’s just one example of stigma or ignorance leading to the insensitivity behind shame other people bring to our doorsteps or the shame we find when we stand on their doorsteps. In a lot of ways the shame is as pain-provoking as the disease itself, especially when we’re treated this way by People Who Should Know Better. I once thought I had a huge fund of tolerance for people but realized it could be quickly drained once I began dealing with otherwise smart people who say dumb things about Alcoholism.

The shamer may not want me to go to heaven because I’ve got this thing, but I want to go anyway, so who’s the one with the problem? The Person Who Should Know Better. You do not expect them to build a shrine to your sobriety, but it isn’t too much to expect them to let you try to succeed. They are simply not strong enough to accept that negative things can happen in life randomly. It is a part of nature they have chosen to deny. They have a “conflict of visions of reality” to steal from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Robert M. Pirsig, HarperCollins, New York 1974) It’s the way people choose to see the world regardless of scientific discoveries.

Stigma is the shadow cast by ignorance, and ignorance about Alcoholism remains very strong in society. A poll cited in HBO’s 2007 series, Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Quit? reported that one half of the public believes Alcoholism is a “personal weakness.” In the face of 56 years passing since the American Medical Association deemed Alcoholism a disease, HALF the population still refuses to believe it is one, and are wed to a 3000-year-old notion that it is a bad person rather than a bad medical condition. Call it lack of training or education to be more diplomatic, but it isn’t going to change by the time you finish this book. According to a truly common way of thinking called the “just world philosophy,” you’ve gotten what you deserved. In a just world, if you are careful, smart and moral you can avoid misfortune; and if you don’t avoid misfortune, you are misfortune. Shame on you.

In 1957 Dr. Jellinek’s disease model of Alcoholism authoritatively ended centuries of false conclusions about Alcoholism being tied to careful, smart and moral. People still have a hard time giving up the idea that it is some sort of problem that can be stopped by just walking in a different direction. They don’t isolate the science from the myth and rhetoric. The prevalence of shaming is a natural human tendency to be subjective rather than objective and that the untrained and closed mind will follow the path of least resistance. The American society shames the Alcoholic, so too must they.”

--- condensed from Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, pages 53-54, FIVE STARS on amazon.com 

 

It's unicorns-and-rainbows thinking for those in recovery to try to overturn the stigma that is rooted so deeply in our culture. What we can do is learn to live, live well and live sober around it. It's a key to long-term recovery.

www.alcohologist.com

Rock legend Ozzy relapsed: It is part of having a chronic disease

Nine of 10 sober alcoholics relapse at LEAST once during recovery.  Even celebrities, with the best treatment resources at their disposal are not exempt.  Here's an excerpt from my examiner.com article today with some relapse stats.  I have additional commentary at the end.



Ozzy Osbourne recently suffered a relapse and has admitted to drinking alcohol and taking drugs in the last 18 months. The solo artist and Black Sabbath frontman confessed on his Facebook page April 15 that he was “in a very dark place” and has apologized to his family for his “insane behavior.” He reports he has now been sober 44 days since ending his relapse.

Relapse – a return to a pattern of drinking – is very common among those with the disease of alcoholism. Relapse is considered by most counselors to be part of the recovery process, yet some cynically state that relapse isn’t part of recovery it’s part of drinking.

Terence Gorski, author of Staying Sober, notes “you cannot experience recovery without experiencing a tendency toward relapse.” Louise Bailey Burgess, author of Alcohol and Your Health adds, “Unfortunately, despite desperate determination, the depressing fact remains that not more than 50 percent of those who decide to quit, manage to attain sobriety for the rest of their lives.” Neuroscientist George Koob of the Scripps Research Institute, in the public TV special "Close to Home: Moyers on Addiction," puts the number at 80 percent of those who have detoxed relapsing within the first year. Yet another expert, Michael Dennis of Chestnut Health Systems says in HBO's, "Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Quit?" “Seventy percent of patients relapse after the first time getting help. It’s not like fixing a broken bone.”

The 2013 book Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud: Relapse and the Symptoms of Sobriety puts the number at nine of 10 sober alcoholics returning to alcohol at least once, noting relapse isn’t even unique to alcoholics. "People with chronic depression have a relapse rate also at 50-80 percent. High blood pressure patients only have to keep taking their meds—a really simple task compared to staying clear of alcohol—and their rate of non-compliance is as high. Patients with seizure disorders: Same thing. Diabetics? Ditto . . . high rate of relapse/non-compliance. Asthmatics are even worse. Relapse is a part of having a chronic disease."

-- from examiner.com


Studies completed in 2012 and reported in my book point to an elevated level of the stress hormone cortisol in practicing and recovering alcoholics are a key part in relapse.  Too much cortisol creates an exaggerated startle response, confusion and mood changes like irritability. These non-physiological reactions to cortisol have a direct connection to lapse/relapse and are to what I’m referring when I use the term Symptoms of Sobriety.

Ironically, research from the University of Chicago showed conclusively what does block cortisol. Alcohol. “Alcohol can decrease the cortisol the body releases to respond to stress,” says Emma Childs, a research associate at the university quoted in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, October 2011. That’s one of the many paradoxes of alcohol and the Alcoholic: The quick, easy solution to cortisol giving you the Symptoms is to drink. After all, relieving stress is the number one or two reason most people, including non-Alcoholics, drink. Lapse or relapse is, obviously, a ridiculous alternative that only makes the tress—and the cortisol—worse in the long term. In the hand of an Alcoholic alcohol is no answer, it is a question: “What do you feel like losing today?”
www.alcohologist.com