Helping a alcoholic

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Tsetse Fly
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Re: Helping a alcoholic

#21 Post by Tsetse Fly » Sat Sep 21, 2019 12:47 pm

This thread looks to have almost run dry so anyway, here's a tot of thought with which to refresh it.
I don't think or believe that anyone other than a very focused psychologist can do much for the alcoholic, as distinct from the dipsomaniac. I also very much doubt that any such skills can successfully be employed until after the alcoholic has determined and succeeded in giving up the sauce for himself, or herself of course and I make bold enough to base those opinions on a very considerable amount of experience of alcohol morbidity, mortality, genetics and despair.

The common cures.
The chemical therapy Antabuse, especially in patient distributed pill form, can be dangerous if not to say deadly. It needs careful monitoring, not a commodity that common in the NHS culture.
The group therapy sessions provided at many Alcoholic Anonymous gatherings are nothing short of hilarious. A room filled with poor confused people confessing that their world is a little better without the demon drink, although their level of methadone consumption has increased somewhat of late. Is that cruel of me? Certainly but then so is the ravage of booze on a family.

Terror can work in bringing about the positive action of staying the glass filled hand at the halfway mast and leaving it there. The trouble with that is that the terror so often comes as a result of a tragic accident following which a remission into the grog becomes a natural consequence as 'nerves need to be steadied.'
Let me add here that terror can be quite different from remorse. Terror is somewhere you never want to go again. Remorse can be nothing more than a lurch into maudlin self indulgence.
In my case, the terror arrived one day when, having got up at my usual time and done my normal leisure day's activities, I used a highly accurate alcohol testing meter to discover and confirm and have confirmed, that I was still twice over the legal driving limit, at 18.00hrs on the day after the night before. This would not have been a heroic one off situation; far too much of the historic about it! That was fifteen Blue Riband years ago. I was lucky too, I found a good clinician who wittingly gave me enough support so as to see me through the first few months when the road ahead seemed so much longer than the one behind. Of course, that's a perilous path too because it doesn't work, to measure how long you've been dry as a commodity you'd loose if you started boozing again.
Since then, I have met and discussed, in general terms, the problem of alcohol addiction with many extremely experienced clinicians including those deeply involved in aviation.
There is one strain of collective opinion that seems common to them and to me. That is to say that, having been successful in ceasing to be an active alcohol drinker, you need to realise two things. The first one is that you are nothing more than an active drinker having a rest. The second is, don't analyse too deeply how you've managed to do it. Just be exceeding humble and glad that you have.
Bung Ho!

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Re: Helping a alcoholic

#22 Post by OFSO » Sun Sep 22, 2019 8:45 am

Your first paragraph is so very true. In our circle of friends we have seen several drink themselves to death. In one case, getting out of bed, staggering across the street in pajamas to the supermarket to buy spirits - after being diagnosed with kidney failure. We have never managed to stop anyone killing themselves through alcohol consumption. And that hurts.

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