The Complicated Nature of Alcoholism
The complicated and all encompassing nature of alcoholism never ceases to amaze me. It seems that every time I am asked about the disease that I have to concentrate on just one facet lest I confuse myself in the explanation. The mental, physical, social and environmental aspects of the disease are all very relevant and easy to explain one at a time, but together they have a pathological relationship that can be as difficult to understand as quantum physics.
Today I was asked how someone could continue to drink knowing full well the damage it is causing which raises a whole other issue; the lack of perspective those with healthy minds have in relating to those suffering from this mental illness.
The mental aspect is one of the most difficult things for an alcoholic to explain, I would guess that it is just as difficult for someone to explain how schizophrenia “feels”. Those with normal brains and thought process just don’t have a way to place this information in context and have a difficult time relating.
So the best way I can do this is by saying that our desire for alcohol is so strong that we have the ability to minimize the importance of any task, chore, duty, or relationship as secondary to drinking. Conversely we also inflate the importance of these same things so that the fear and stress generated by them overshadow the negative consequences of drinking. I think because we have only one way of dealing with issues in life that we too lose all perspective unable to see logical alternatives. Alcohol is the problem, alcohol is the solution, and alcohol is the only choice- so the end result is always going to be the same.
Today’s the day I want to become an alcoholic
One point to make early on is this: No one, not a single person, woke up one morning and thought to themselves (or better yet spoke out loud and said), “Today’s the day. Today’s the day I want to become an alcoholic”
The Effects of Methamphetamine
The Effects of Methamphetamine as an Addictive Substance
There are many myths and justifications for using mind-altering substances and the use of methamphetamine, (meth, crank, crystal, speed) certainly has its share.
Probably the most detrimental myth about meth is the idea that it is not addictive. Users of methamphetamine equate it to a super potent caffeine-type substance, and in some ways they’re right. Meth and caffeine are both stimulants, but the similarities end there. Drugs of abuse can be addictive at the psychological level, the physical level or both. However, all psychologically addictive drugs have a physical addictive component. The level of the addiction is directly related to the amount of discomfort an addict experiences when the drug use is discontinued. Everyone is familiar with the headaches that you can get when you have been drinking coffee on a regular basis and then abruptly stop. Times that by about a hundred and you’ll be close to what an addict feels like quitting meth cold turkey.
The body gets accustomed to having the drug as an external stimulus and when that is removed, there is an physiological adjustment that causes stress. When a person uses methamphetamine on a regular/daily basis and stops, dramatic effects occur all over the body. It isn’t uncommon for someone to sleep for two days after being on a meth binge. The over-stimulated glands, especially the adrenals, under-produce until they re-establish normal levels of activity again, and in the absence of these hormones a person is barely able to keep their body functioning. It becomes necessary to sleep for long periods of time while normal equilibrium is being renewed.
With the body under extreme stress, a meth users emotions become unstable. They may experience mild to severe depression, sometimes leading to suicidal thoughts. And knowing that simply using the drug again can stop these uncomfortable feelings is the simplicity of addiction… and the reason that most people need professional help to progress through their recovery.
Article Source: www.easyezinearticles.com
I’ve Been Rehabilitated
So it took a month or so in the converted basement of an old school in the Northern confines of some two bit town in the middle of nowhere for me to detox long enough so I could see I had become a hopeless asshole full of alcohol and resentments.
Could have been worse…
I’ll never forget Rita, the cook, who’d been preparing meals there for girls and boys like me for near twenty years by the time I rolled through her kitchen for my first night of clean-up duty. Rita had arms the size of my legs, and a permanent scowl that ensured she got to go home after her ten hour shift every day without taking any of our shit with her.
There were counselors there, and on and off, for a month, alone and in group, they tried to make me feel like they gave a shit whether I lived or died after I left the relative safety of the treatment center. But I remember Rita most of all. I remember her sending another guy on permanent toilet scrubbing duty ’cause he complained the eggs were overcooked one morning…
Rita ran that joint, I don’t care what it said on the diplomas hanging on the wall behind the clinical director’s desk.
I made it through, along with only a few others from my intake. It was a tough month.
My counselor gave me a coin with a picture of a sailboat on it.
Rita gave me a hug and shed a tear when she saw mine.
Small pleasures…
Yeah, I remember detox
I’d been through a couple of detox facilities (around here, they do it right in the psych wards) and one “dual-diagnosis” unit — where they treat the addiction stuff and “adjust yer meds” at the same time. In that one, I came out hooked on more shit than when I went in.
The last time, I was serious. I wanted to be rehabilitated and made fit for society again. Man, they had their work cut out for them! But I had to get there first.
See, my health was in the toilet (physical health, as well as mental, emotional & spiritual health, too), I was stuck in a godforsaken wheel chair, and I was hooked on OCs — my last “DOC” in the collective cess pool of “MORE.” And I actually did have by that time valid medical reasons for taking them. Problem was, as an addict, all the pain in the world wasn’t enough for me to moderate their use like a good girl and not abuse them. But that’s another story.
One hospital told me, “There’s not a detox facility in the state that’s handicapped accessible.” WHAT?? WHY NOT?? Didn’t they ever hear of the Americans with Disabilities Act?? I was told, “People like you don’t want to get better.”
Don’t call me a “people” like anything. I’m a stubborn broad, and I also knew I’d be a dead broad soon, so some kind of willingness (and willfulness) kicked in and sustained me through the next coupla days while the powers that be opened up their bag of tricks and finally, finally found me a place.
Oh, man, I’m leaving out the part where I had to first get myself involuntarily committed to a nut ward cuz “we only do alcoholics here.” I am an alcoholic, you dumb bitch. I just also happen to be a drug addict. Sheesh. Well, another time perhaps.
In a strange way, I’m glad I had to jump through hoops. It was baptism by fire, a first test of “how much I wanted it.” And I wanted it. Talk about being sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I guess any description of that wonderful hospital-based place upstate will have to wait. See, I guess they did a pretty good job. I have a life now. Family, too. And I’m more or less, on most days, anyway, a “productive member of society.” So…I keep up the maintenance work, but I suppose you could say I have been “rehabilitated.”
Till later…
Doesn’t have to be that way…
…but more often than not, I’m afraid, it is.
In rehab, they told us, only two out of ten of us would still be clean & sober at the end of one year. Several of us were likely to be dead. Some wouldn’t last twenty-four hours outside of the walls before we’d be drunk or high. Some of us would be back again, and a lucky one or two would find the strength to surrender.
I heard my brothers and sisters describe their bottoms. Sure, there were a couple that everyone figured would be in jail or worse. They were the loudmouths, pissed because they’d been pressured into something they “didn’t need.” Everything was fine with them if others would just leave them alone.
I don’t know how quickly we were supposed to fall, but I do believe that we were the exceptional class that exceeded even the hardened, pessimistic expections of the rehab staff. We exchanged addresses & phone numbers, and Mike, the guy brought in after the car accident with stitches in his head and a whole pile of broken ribs who’d just dropped his two-year-old daughter off a few minutes before he slid into a tree, crushing the passenger side where she’d been strapped in her car seat, took it upon himself to keep everyone connected. He kept it up. For almost a month.
Bill corresponded with me. We e-mailed back and forth. IM’d a few times. By two weeks, he admitted a “slip.” By a month, he stopped returning my e-mails.
Ryan, who’s parents owned the bar, a place he swore was his last chance for employment, made it almost three weeks.
Kim never responded. She went back to the middle-class home and the PTA meetings, believing that if she could just accept her role in life, be happy with it, she’d be okay. Meetings weren’t necessary, and besides, her husband would never understand why she’d want to keep in touch with a bunch of junkies. Someone saw her name in the paper for a D.U.I. That was about a week after her release.
I don’t know what happened to the rest. Mike said he just lost touch with them. At the end of the year, only he and I remained. Only he and I were going to meetings, staying clean and sober one day at a time. That doesn’t make us superstars or anything else. Just a couple of folks who had had enough.
Jessica was supposed to call me to take her to a meeting tonight. She went with me last Tuesday, and Friday night when I called her, she told me she had a medical emergency. Something about a reaction to antibiotics she was taking for an ingrown toenail. She “hated to miss a meeting,” but she was too sick to go. She thought she might go to the E.R. and see if they’d give her something for pain. I was having a hard time connecting the different directions her part of the conversation was taking. She promised to call the next day. Didn’t show up for the meeting that night. Yes, I’ve tried to call her.
Jessica had asked me to be her sponsor a week ago. She’s been out of rehab for almost a month.
I guess she’s right on schedule.
