Alcohol Addiction, Alcohol Relapse, and Enabling
It is interesting to bring up something that family members who have been unfavorably affected by the alcohol dependency of another family member apparently do not grasp. It appears that by protecting the alcohol dependent person with falsehoods and deceitfulness to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have essentially created a situation that makes it easier for the alcohol addicted individual to continue and proceed with his or her harmful, detrimental daily life.
Indeed, instead of helping the alcoholic and themselves, these family members have basically become enablers who have inadvertently helped negatively affect the alcoholic’s drinking problem even more.
Perhaps the real downside of this is that the alcohol dependent person will continue drinking in a hazardous and excessive manner and go through a range of “alcohol side effects.” Some of these side effects include legal issues (such as getting arrested for one or more DUIs), employment difficulties, considerable financial problems, poor health, diminished mental functioning, and deteriorating relationships.
The Likelihood of a Relapse is Real
According to the research findings and statistics on alcohol addiction, another key alcoholism issue has to do with alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol addicted individual has fruitfully gone through alcohol dependency treatment and then returns to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first glance, this predicament seems contradictory to common sense and seems so improbable that it forces one to speculate why anyone who has lived through the dejection of alcohol addiction can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol therapy and in turn after reaching recovery. There are, for sure, numerous credible reasons for this.
It should be mentioned, then again that alcohol addiction research that has centered on the enduring outcomes of alcoholism has demonstrated-proven that long after the alcohol dependent person has terminated his or her drinking, critical changes in the way in which the alcohol dependent individual’s brain operates are still present. As a result, all a recovering alcoholic has to do to involve himself or herself in actions that correspond with the changes that have occurred in the brain is to engage in drinking once again.
A Requirement for A Critical Lifestyle Transformation
There are additional reasons why quite a lot of recovering alcoholics return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after attaining sobriety. In accordance to the alcohol dependency research literature, to make an effective recovery, the alcoholic needs new ways of reacting and thinking in order to deal more efficiently with challenging alcohol-related situations 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 excessively; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these conditions can elicit memories that can set off psychological tension or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in irresponsible drinking once again. Unfortunately, all of these circumstances may not only contradict long standing sobriety for the alcohol addicted individual but they can also result in relapse and thus work against one’s sobriety.
The Good News: There’s Light at the End of the Tunnel
In an attempt to “protect” the family alcoholic, family members can in fact cause unintended destruction by enabling the unsafe drinking behavior of the alcohol dependent person.
The addiction research literature confirms the fact that most people who successfully complete alcohol rehab experience at least one relapse. Alcohol dependent individuals and their family members need to know this so that they do not get depressed or stressed out when a relapse manifests itself.
Fortunately, participation in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up rehab and education have resulted in more successful, lasting alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency treatment outcomes, have helped decrease alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted individuals reach lasting alcohol recovery.