Enabling and Reasons Why Many Recovering Alcoholics Return to Drinking
It is fascinating to mention something that family members who have been harmfully affected by the alcoholism of another family member evidently do not comprehend. It appears that by shielding the alcohol addicted individual with untruths and deceitfulness to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have in actual fact created a condition that makes it easier for the alcoholic to persevere and press forward with his or her harmful, devastating daily life.
Without a doubt, instead of helping the alcohol dependent person and themselves, these family members have in fact become enablers who have inadvertently helped deteriorate the alcohol dependent person’s problem drinking situation even further.
Relapses Can Occasionally Happen
Another key alcoholism issue involves alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol dependent individual has successfully gone through alcohol dependency treatment and then resorts to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first thought, this situation flies in the face of rational thinking and appears to be so doubtful that it forces one to question why anyone who has lived through the terror of alcohol dependency can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol treatment and in turn after reaching sobriety. There are, for sure, more than a few conceivable reasons for this.
It should be explained, then again that alcohol dependency research that has focused on the lasting effects of alcohol addiction has demonstrated-proven that long after the alcohol addicted person has stopped his or her drinking, critical modifications in the way in which the alcohol dependent individual’s brain operates are still present. As a consequence, all a recovering alcohol addicted person has to do to involve himself or herself in behaviors that correspond with the alterations that have come about in the brain is to engage in drinking once again.
A Requirement for An Essential Lifestyle Modification
There are other reasons why several recovering alcohol dependent individuals return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after attaining sobriety. In accordance to the alcoholism research literature, to make an effective recovery, the alcohol addicted individual needs new ways of responding and thinking in order to deal more competently with demanding alcohol-related situations that will take place.
Situations such as returning to the same alcohol addictive atmosphere or to the same geographic location; interacting once again with friends from the time when the alcohol dependent person was drinking excessively; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these conditions can bring forth memories that can trigger psychological tension or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in hazardous drinking once again. Unfortunately, all of these circumstances may not only work against long standing alcohol recovery for the alcohol dependent individual but they can also result in relapse and as a result work against one’s sobriety.
Conclusion
In an attempt to “protect” the family alcoholic, family members can actually cause inadvertent destruction by enabling the unsafe drinking behavior of the alcohol dependent person.
The substance abuse research literature demonstrates the fact that most individuals who effectively complete alcohol therapy go through at least one relapse. Alcohol addicted individuals and their family members need to know this so that they do not get crestfallen or overwhelmed when a relapse takes place.
Luckily, participation in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up treatment and training have resulted in more effective, long-term alcohol abuse and alcoholism therapeutic outcomes, have helped decrease alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted persons accomplish long standing alcohol recovery.
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