Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

Cunning alcoholism one step ahead

Alcoholism is a thinking disease.

It sneaks up and gets you where you’re weakest. It waits. It does push-ups while you’re sleeping. It’s smarter than you. Identifying alco-thought is like trying to put your finger on mercury.

I was talking to a gentleman recently who has had repeated problems with his drinking.

He was on his way to the grocery store after about a month of non-drinking when he decided to swing by his favorite gas station (where incidentally they sold liquor) to fill up. “I need to fill the tank,” he thought.

He didn’t know that it was alcoholism that suggested the need for gas because had he been better prepared, he would have noticed that he had half a tank of gas.

Having him where it wanted him, alcoholism now suggested that it might be a good opportunity to buy a small bottle that he could “drink later to take the edge off.”

Now, with alcoholism firmly at the wheel, his alco-intention was to buy a pint, but he decided at the last minute to buy a fifth because, he thought, “it’s so much more expensive to buy small quantities.”

Unfortunately, one drink made up of approximately a quarter of the bottle turned out to be insufficient to take the edge off, so that a second drink made up of another quarter of the bottle was required.

Upon awakening with a red face, a throbbing headache and a large wheelbarrow full of remorse, he thought “Why did I do that?”

It happened because like most struggling alcoholics, he underestimated the strength of his adversary.

It is said in the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous that alcoholism is “cunning, baffling and powerful.”

How true.

The power isn’t in the substance, rather in the ability of the alcoholic mind to justify and rationalize the “rightness” of a drink in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The alcoholic, drinking or not, has a peculiar mental twist that without healing, will lead to the only drink that will ever damage them, the first one.

source: Northwest Herald

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Law aims for youth drinking, hits everyone

In the most tragic way possible, the December alcohol-poisoning death of Foothill High School student Shelby Lyn Allen fostered intense local discussion of underage drinking and its consequences. And on Tuesday, in a move they argue would prevent another such senseless death, advocates will ask the Shasta County Board of Supervisors to pass a “Social….

Dual Diagnosis

Dual diagnosis is the co-existence of a mental health disorder and drug addiction or alcoholism. Dual diagnosis also can be co-existence of eating disorder or drug addiction or alcoholism. To recover completely the person will require addiction treatment and psychiatric treatment for both problems. Alcohol and drug problem is common in Dual diagnosis and it….

Boozing mothers affect babies’ response to pain: Study

Prenatal exposure to alcohol dulls the pain response in babies, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia. The research, which will be published in the April issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, showed that even healthy babies whose mothers drank while they were pregnant were affected by the….

Mixing Drinks With Work and Staying Sober, Too

FOR Del Pedro, a bartender at the Pegu Club in SoHo, Mondays are especially challenging. That’s when he allows himself careful tastes of new drinks at the bar, where cocktails are designed with precision. Mr. Pedro, an alcoholic with almost 15 years of sobriety behind him, is part of a quiet brigade of people who….

Booze putting teen brains at risk

A Generation of Victorian teenagers are drinking themselves into oblivion, with more than a quarter of 15-year-olds bingeing until they black out – the point at which brain damage is likely to occur. Research has also found that more than a third of 11-year-old boys have consumed alcohol. The figures, contained in a study by….