Alcohol Relapse and When Dishonesty is a Form of Enabling
It is worthy of note to mention something that family members who have been harmfully affected by the alcoholism of another family member evidently do not understand. It seems that by shielding the alcohol dependent individual with falsehoods and deceit to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have in reality created a circumstance that makes it easier for the alcohol dependent individual to persevere and advance with his or her injurious, destructive lifestyle.
To be sure, instead of helping the alcohol addicted individual and themselves, these family members have in reality become enablers who have unintentionally helped worsen the alcohol addicted person’s drinking problem even further.
The Likelihood of a Relapse is Real
Another key alcoholism issue concerns alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol dependent individual has successfully gone through alcohol addiction rehab and then returns to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first thought, this circumstance flies in the face of logical thinking and seems so improbable that it forces a person to question why anyone who has lived through the horrors of alcohol addiction can return to drinking a short while after successful alcohol treatment and in turn after achieving sobriety. There are, for sure, many feasible reasons for this.
It should be highlighted, however that alcoholism research that has focused on the lasting effects of alcoholism has shown that long after the alcohol addicted person has quit his or her drinking, fundamental alterations in the way in which the alcoholic’s brain functions are still present. As a result, all a recovering alcohol dependent individual has to do to involve himself or herself in behaviors that correspond with the changes that have occurred in the brain is to begin drinking once again.
A Requirement for A Critical Lifestyle Modification
There are additional reasons why quite a lot of recovering alcohol addicted persons return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after reaching sobriety. According to the alcohol dependency research literature, to make a successful recovery, the alcohol addicted person needs new ways of acting and thinking in order to deal more competently with taxing alcohol-related situations that will take place.
Issues 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 addicted individual was drinking in a hazardous manner; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these conditions can bring about memories that can prompt psychological tension or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in irresponsible drinking once again. Regrettably, all of these circumstances may not only counteract long standing sobriety for the alcohol dependent person but they can also lead to relapse and as a result counteract one’s sobriety.
Conclusion
In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol addicted individual, family members can in fact cause inadvertent destruction by enabling the negative drinking behavior of the alcoholic.
The alcoholism research literature demonstrates the fact that most individuals who successfully complete alcohol therapy go through at least one relapse. Alcohol addicted persons and their family members need to know this so that they do not get down in the dumps or beleaguered when a relapse occurs.
Fortunately, involvement in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up treatment and training have resulted in more productive, enduring alcohol abuse and alcoholism rehab outcomes, have helped diminish alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcoholics reach lasting alcohol recovery.
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