Stan West - How to help your alcoholic

How to help your alcoholic

Second edition: epub format

March 2019

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How to help your

ALCOHOLIC

Stan West

If you have picked up this book then you probably have a spouse, partner, loved-one or close friend whose drinking is causing you concern. The purpose of this book is to explain how the mind of an alcoholic works and show you what you can do to help them.

The single most important thing to understand about an alcoholic is that they are mentally ill: alcoholism is an illness, not a moral weakness. Alcoholism is an addiction, but unlike other addictions; heroin, cannabis, or gambling for example, alcoholism is so common that it has its own name; it is addiction nonetheless.

The human brain is an incredibly complex thing. It has evolved through the eons to be the pinnacle of self-learning and problem solving on the planet. Our brains have evolved to make us more successful at surviving adversity than any other species, and have many pre-defined instinctive processes to help us achieve this. In alcoholics some of these processes have become unhelpfully associated with the acquisition and consumption of alcohol. Their minds have established subconscious processes which constantly search for alcohol and the means to acquire it. Alcoholics havent chosen this. It is done without their awareness or approval, and they do not even know it is happening.

Addiction is a corruption of mental processes where the addict recognises the benefit of continued use of some substance or activity but not the harm that it causes; they see the benefits but are blind to, and will deny the damage. Alcoholics perceive alcohol as bringing happiness and relief from distress, and they see it as the only available relief from their distress. They cannot see it as a problem itself, and they cannot see that much of the distress they suffer is caused by the very thing that they think is helping them.

Addiction is a mental feedback loop. Alcoholics drink to be happy. They do (or dont do) things while drunk that cause distress. They accumulate guilt and shame. Drinking relieves this distress briefly. Their minds learn that distress is relieved by drinking and engage an ancient and primitive seek/reward mechanism that impels them to find alcohol again every time they are distressed. On acquiring drink they are rewarded with a wonderful surge of dopamine though their brains. Dopamine is a drug the brain releases to produce the sensation of relaxation and joy. But when they sober up they quickly return to their distressed state; nothing has happened to change that, so they seek drink again. Once established this is a completely automated looping process that they have no influence over whatsoever, and they are blinded to the fact that they are locked into a downward spiral the deeper they go, the more urgent the demand that they find drink. The compulsion to drink has no words, shape or form. It is a deep, instinctive and powerful feeling that is as urgent as needing to breathe, or flee from danger.

The only way out of this downward trajectory is to stop drinking completely, but this is an unimaginable thought to an alcoholic. Over time their memories have become distorted to present drinking as being fun ultimately it is the only source of happiness they can recall. They cannot imagine life being worthwhile without alcohol; it means a life without fun. So why would they want to stop? This is the extent of their entrapment.

The alcoholics fight is not with the bottle, but with their own mind. Their foe is themselves. It is therefore precisely as cunning and deceptive as they can be, except that they also have to fight primal survival drives with nothing but intellect and willpower. On a good day they are only equal to their addiction, on a bad day they will succumb to its demands. It is not a fair fight. The scales are tipped against them and they need help if they are going to win through.

You havent caused anyone to become alcoholic, and you cant stop them either. As much as you may wish it you cant make them well again, they are the only ones that can do that. You can help them, but you are not responsible for their recovery; they are. You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink.

Their fight is huge, and the scales are not tipped in their favour. They need guidance, strength and support from people whose minds are not distorted by the damage caused by addiction. They need reminding of when their minds are lying to them, they need reassurance when the peaks of withdrawal have them begging for relief, and they need affirmation that life without alcohol is both possible and worthwhile.

The bad news is that un-checked alcoholics die before their time: from organ failure, traumatic accidents (car crashes etc.) or suicide.

The good news is that most alcoholics do recover, and that you can help them.

A diabetic is someone who suffers from diabetes. If someone refers to a sufferer as a diabetic then it is said with implied compassion. This is not the case for an alcoholic. An alcoholic is someone who is afflicted by alcoholism, but that word is rarely accompanied by compassion, it is usually said with implied disgust. If someone is addicted to tobacco then people blame tobacco and the tobacco companies, but if someone is addicted to alcohol they blame the person.

Society generally portrays alcoholism as a shameful state that the sufferer has brought on themselves. An alcoholic is generally regarded as someone contemptible; they are weak and should exercise more control, they are beyond help, their problems are of their own making and they do not warrant sympathy.

But this overlooks a fundamental of addiction. The general view of society is that alcoholics simply need to grow a backbone and exercise some control over themselves. But that control isnt available to the sufferer. Alcoholics do not make poor choices regarding drinking; they have no choice to make. They dont choose to drink, they have to drink.

A normal drinker can choose whether or not to drink, and can choose when theyve had enough. If they drink too much when they should have stopped then they dont expect sympathy; they have brought this on themselves by not exercising better control. They apply the same standard to alcoholics, but an alcoholic has no such freedom of choice. In them it is absent, and in its place is a wordless, primal, urgent and instinctive demand that they find drink, and find it now. Once drinking then there is no thought coming from the back of their mind saying thats enough now, instead there is always the opposite. Theres time for one more!

Alcoholism is not poor behaviour, but corrupted mental processes. It is not moral weakness, but a reversal of the normal checks and balances that accompany drinking, whereby I shouldnt drink now has been replaced by I should.

There is no single point at which someone becomes alcoholic, and it is not determined by how much they drink. In fact alcoholism has remarkably little to do with alcohol at all. There is another drug, that our brain produces naturally, which is central to the formation of addiction.

Dopamine is involved in many aspects of our brains functions. It motivates us to take action toward certain goals, desires, and needs, and gives us a surge of reinforcing pleasure when we achieve them. Serotonin is another of the brains feel-good drugs. When it is present it gives us the feeling of being socially significant or important. The starting point for the addiction process is that dopamine induces pleasure. When dopamine is released into our brain it is detected by receptors, and in one particular part of the brain these receptors induce the sensation of pleasure when they are activated.