Alcohol Addiction, Enabling And Alcohol Relapse, Why Many Recovering Alcohol Dependent Individuals Go Back To Drinking, And Why Relapses Take Place


It is remarkable to articulate something that family members who have been adversely affected by the signs of alcoholism of another family member clearly do not know. It appears that by protecting the alcohol addicted individual with falsehoods and dishonesty to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have in reality created a circumstance that makes it easier for the alcohol addicted person to continue and go forward with his or her injurious, detrimental existence.

Without a doubt, rather than helping the alcohol dependent individual and themselves, these family members have essentially become enablers who have inadvertently helped worsen the alcohol addicted person's drinking problems and increase her or his negative "alcohol signs."

Another one of the key chronic alcohol abuse signs or alcoholism signs involves alcohol relapses. Relapses happen when an alcoholic or chronic alcohol abuser has successfully undergone alcohol addiction treatment and then returns to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first glance, this situation seems contradictory to rational thinking and sounds so far-fetched that it forces a person to speculate why anyone who has lived through the terror of alcohol dependency can return to drinking a short while after successful alcohol treatment and in turn after reaching sobriety. There are, for sure, more than a few feasible reasons for this.

It should be noted, nonetheless that alcohol dependency research that has centered on the enduring outcomes of alcohol dependency has shown that long after the alcohol addicted individual has stopped her or his drinking, key alterations in the way in which the alcohol addicted individual'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 alterations that have taken place in the brain is to begin drinking once again.

There are other reasons why numerous recovering alcohol addicted individuals return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after achieving sobriety. In accordance to the alcohol dependency research literature, to make a successful recovery, the alcoholic needs new ways of acting and thinking in order to deal more effectively with difficult alcohol-related circumstances that will take place.

Situations 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 addicted person was drinking excessively; or familiar songs, smells, or activities-all of these conditions can elicit memories that can set off psychological anxiety or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcoholic to engage in abusive drinking once again.

Sadly, all of these circumstances may not only negate ongoing alcohol recovery for the alcoholic but they can also lead to relapse and therefore negate one's alcohol recovery. In an attempt to "protect" the family, alcohol addicted family members can actually cause unintended damage by enabling the harmful drinking behavior of the alcoholic.

The substance abuse research literature validates the fact that most people who effectively complete alcohol counseling go through 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.

Fortunately, taking part in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up rehab and education have resulted in more effective, lasting alcohol abuse and alcoholism therapeutic outcomes, have helped decrease alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol dependent persons reach long standing alcohol recovery.

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