It is interesting to mention something that family members who have been harmfully affected by the alcohol addiction of another family member apparently do not know. It seems that by protecting the alcohol dependent individual with untruths and deceitfulness to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have in effect created a condition that makes it easier for the alcoholic to carry on and advance with his or her damaging, detrimental daily life.
To be sure, rather than helping the alcohol addicted individual and themselves, these family members have in reality become enablers who have inadvertently helped negatively affect the alcohol dependent person’s drinking problem even further.
Perhaps the real downside of this is that the alcohol addicted individual will continue drinking in an abusive manner and experience a range of “alcohol side effects.” Some of these side effects include diminished mental functioning, employment difficulties, poor health, deteriorating relationships, legal issues (such as getting arrested for one or more DUIs), and considerable financial problems.
The Probability of a Relapse is Real
According to the research findings and statistics on alcohol addiction, another key alcohol dependency issue has to do with alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol dependent person has effectively gone through alcohol addiction rehabilitation and then returns to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first glance, this situation flies in the face of common sense and sounds so unrealistic that it forces an individual to wonder why anyone who has lived through the awfulness of alcohol dependency can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol counseling and in turn after achieving recovery. There are, without a doubt, more than a few rational reasons for this.
It should be explained, then again that alcoholism research that has centered on the long standing consequences of alcohol addiction has demonstrated-proven that long after the alcohol addicted individual has discontinued his or her drinking, fundamental changes in the way in which the alcoholic’s brain functions are still present. As a consequence, all a recovering alcohol addicted individual has to do to involve himself or herself in behaviors that correspond with the transformations that have come about in the brain is to start drinking again.
The Necessity for A Crucial Lifestyle Transformation
There are even more reasons why quite a few recovering alcohol dependent persons return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after achieving sobriety. In accordance to the alcoholism research literature, to make a successful recovery, the alcohol dependent individual needs new ways of responding and thinking in order to deal more competently with demanding alcohol-related circumstances that will take place.
Conditions such as returning to the same alcohol addictive environment or to the same geographic location; interacting once again with friends from the days when the alcohol dependent person was drinking irresponsibly; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these circumstances can bring forth memories that can prompt psychological anxiety or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in excessive drinking once again. Regrettably, all of these circumstances may not only counteract lasting alcohol recovery for the alcohol addicted person but they can also result in relapse and thus counteract one’s alcohol recovery.
The Good News: There’s a Lot of Hope for a Lasting Recovery
In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol dependent individual, family members can in point of fact cause unintended destruction by enabling the harmful drinking behavior of the alcohol addicted person.
The drug abuse research literature highlights the fact that most individuals who successfully complete alcohol therapy experience at least one relapse. Alcohol dependent individuals and their family members need to know this so that they do not get crestfallen or beleaguered when a relapse occurs.
Happily, involvement in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up therapy and training have resulted in more productive, ongoing alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction therapeutic outcomes, have helped diminish alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted persons reach ongoing alcohol recovery.