(Part 2) Nature + Science CCTV program: husband + wife scenario with drunkenness….. facing separation + divorce….. Part 1 www.youtube.com

Millions of people around the world suffer from alcohol addiction. Alcohol abuse crosses all social boundaries, affecting both genders, all ethnic groups, and all income levels. Regardless of the alcoholic’s social position, the family will surely be negatively affected. This addiction overwhelms both the drinker and family with self-pity, anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, frustration, self-hatred, and sadness. Alcoholics Effects On Family

Often, family members cannot understand why a drinker cannot use willpower to stop drinking. However, alcohol dependence has little to do with willpower. Those with an addiction are gripped by powerful cravings and uncontrollable urges. This misunderstanding may cause uncertainty and inaction, leaving the family to hope things will get better. But over time the severity of the addiction worsens and family life begins to suffer.

For example, when an alcohol-dependent parent is not paying attention to the children, neglect is inevitable. Daily caretaking duties are left undone. The sober parent is left with the responsibility to maintain daily routines, family rituals, as well as holidays and vacations.

Increasingly, the family arranges its whole life around the alcoholic. Out of love and fear, families of drinkers go to great lengths to cover up — or control — destructive drinking patterns. They have a compulsion to keep the family together, at any cost. This is called care-taking, rescuing, and enabling. Family members feel they have no choice but to put up with anger and disrespect and to remain in a state of continual worry, fear, and mistrust. As a result, life becomes totally dysfunctional. Also, the addict is further enabled to continue his or her destructive behavior.

As many have experienced, trying to change the drinker only brings resistance, hostility, and resentment. At times, the drinker’s hidden guilt and unhappiness is expressed with accusations and an explosive temper. They sometimes strike children, kick doors, and attack the nearest person. Alcoholics Effects On Family

Therefore, it is easy for family members to feel hopeless, unhappy, and unable to believe that things can ever change. The family is sometimes gripped by the memory of violence, infidelities, and other humiliations, such as yelling, crying, threatening, or the silent treatment. The family wants and needs help, yet cannot do it alone.

However, the situation is not hopeless. To begin repairing family life, one must first understand alcohol addiction and how it affects the drinker. One must separate facts from misconceptions. Indeed, erroneous beliefs about alcohol abuse can derail any efforts to help the addict.

Secondly, the family members must learn what they can do to reduce stress, anxiety, and worry. Most importantly, they must acquire techniques and strategies to change the dynamic of their interaction with the drinker. This change lays the groundwork for the drinker to have a paradigm shift — which is critical before he or she can decide to quit drinking. For, in the end, it is the drinker who must decide and commit to the clear path to sobriety. Only then can the family recover and rediscover life without the devastating effects of alcoholism. Alcoholics Effects On Family

but for people who trully believe
this is it in life

i have to ask
when you were at your lowest of low
be it
depression
alcohol
or drug addiction
and had trully no one you could find to reach out a kind hand or kind word to help you thru your difficult time

what did you do to help yourself get thru it
now while many would just say
o my friends and family

now please just imagine if you didnt have any friends and your family hated you
or
imagine what it would be like to be an addict who’s family has given up on you

what would you want to cling to in a sense for a little bit of hope
that you will be able to make it thru this

RELIGIOUS OR NOT
i am not asking this to imply that jesus or any other religion is going to cure everything

but just interested as
alot of former addicts and people who have hit the lowest point in their life
say they had religion or something of that nature help them thru that difficult time
and help turn their life around

im just interested to see
for people who dont believe in any spirituality, or religion or any concept of god
and have trully hit rock bottom
and have no friends or family to turn to

what would you do to help you thru this situation
Ok again for people who are defending the fact saying
“i have great friends and family ”
please read the damn question again
and THINK ABOUT IT

it is not a bashing on you or your friends or your family
and NO i am not sayin just because you are athiest means you dont have friends
READ THE QUESTIONS
its part hypothetical
because
obviously most of the answers on here
are some of the dumbest ones ive ever heard from people who call themselves athiest

This was for people who have hit rock bottom and or been an addict

spongesquare
and gentelman jack

you two were the ONLY ones on here who seemed to understand the concept of the question
and for that i thank you

the rest of you who keep defending the fact that you have “GREAT FRIENDS AND FAMILY ”

defend it till its blue in the face
i really dont care
you are missing the point of the question all together

Chalk Talks: Recovery and the Family with Father Joseph C. Martin

Amazon.com
Drug addiction is a secret that can hide in plain sight. ABC News reports on an addict whose out of control behavior has always been just a camera click away — Daniel Baldwin. How did he get that way, and can he stop? And what do his famous brothers think? ABC News is with him every step of the way through his ninth stint in rehab, this one could be his last chance. The hour delves into the mind of an addict, and the step-by-step, sometimes excruciating, process of ridding … More >>

ABC News Primetime Family Secrets: Inside Addiction

Thankfully, that popular conception is false. Families can exert an powerful influence towards treatment, and once someone enters into drug treatment or rehab (even if they maintain that they don’t need it) those days of therapy, sobriety and introspection can do a lot to change one’s perspective, and statistics show that those people who were pressured into rehab do just as well as those people who went of their own accord.

The intervention

Interventions are astonishingly effective in convincing of a need for treatment, and one carefully executed meeting of concerned family and friends can change a lifetime of abuse and tragedy. But a poorly run, negative or confrontational intervention can backfire, and in fact be worse than no intervention at all. The stakes of success are high, and it’s imperative that you get it right.

3 steps to a successful family intervention

1) Planning

The emotional complexity of a family intervention for the most part precludes a hastily assembled group and a poorly run intervention. Many family members may have conflicted emotions about the addict, and mixed with concern and love are equal feelings of anger, shame and guilt. For any chance at success, the tone of the intervention needs to stay positive and stay caring, and family members will need to be educated on how to make an appropriate contribution, and everyone will benefit from a practice run of the intervention.

The practice run can ease some of the anxiety family may feel about and honest and heartfelt confrontation, and it will also help to ensure that things proceed smoothly on the day of the event.

At least one pre intervention meeting is essential, more is better.

2) Wide participation

The effectiveness of the intervention hinges on the comprehensiveness of the participating friends and families. Using addicts and alcoholics cannot easily maintain a strategy of denial when confronted with unified and caring testimonials of all important people in their life, and without public denial, it is far more difficult to ignore the need for help.

But if many people are absent from the intervention, the addict may well feel able to maintain a sense of denial, thinking that the many loved ones not present at least do not share in feelings of a need for treatment.

Everyone close to the addict should be invited to participate, and this includes children, who can offer hard to ignore and powerful testimonies of hurt.

Have treatment pre arranged

The ultimate goal of the intervention is to have the addict proceed immediately into treatment. A concession of a need for help, and an agreement to go may not last, and it is vital to act fast. Have the treatment arranged, have responsibilities covered and bags packed. There should be nothing left to do at the end of an intervention other than get in the car, and get into rehab.

Follow these three steps when planning a family intervention and you have a far greater chance of achieving the desired end result, and making a powerful difference in the lives of all.

I have recently spoken to my parents about the subject of my depression. My mother has said that she thinks we have some kind of depression gene as most of our family suffer from similar symptoms.

Last week I suffered a bout of depression, but similar to other bouts, I learned a number of from it. At the same time I experienced a bad part in my life too, which seemed like everything was going wrong. I felt as though there was bad news after bad news and this brought a lot of negativity into my life. Also, it seemed as though there wasn’t anything good to look forward to and I believed going out for the night with my friends was a good way to cheer myself up. I also had the intention of getting as drunk as possible too.

I was terribly hangover the next day and felt really ill, simply because of the amount of alcohol that I had consumed. I struggled to stay awake the whole day awake and as the day went on I became increasingly depressed. Then, the negative side of my brain took over and it seemed to me that there was another load of negativity running through my body.

The lesson I have learnt is that is not a good idea to go out drinking alcohol if you are feeling low and depressed.

As I was speaking to my parents over my own feelings of depression and anxiety, I was told some interesting news and useful advice. They told me to think about all of the different things in my life that were getting me down at present and not to shut them away. They then told me that I should talk to them, think about positive things, and look to find solutions to overcome things.

This is not at all easy to do but is something I now try. I have realised that it is good to talk about our fears and phobias and that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you are stressed and depressed.

I hope I will not have to live with these regular bouts of depression for the rest of my life as I have to say I hate it, especially when it means I can not get any sleep during a night, which happens quite regularly for me. I will however look for more ways of beating my depression when it does occur.

I now try to think positive in all situations, life is far too short to be always worrying about everything. I have also started to read a lot of self-help books, these have taught me quite a lot of new things and have given me many new ideas.

This involvement is indeed planned out quite elaborately. Though the family stands for the patient undergoing the alcohol addiction treatment in Utah throughout the program, their role is definitely more profound during certain important parts of the program.

One example when the family becomes almost indispensable for the entire treatment program in Utah is during the initial phase of the treatment when the patient needs to be motivated for entering into treatment. This is the time when the patient goes through the denial phase, i.e. a phase of non-acceptance of treatment. Most people will not even want to think that their alcoholism is to an extent that warrants any kind of treatment.

This is where the family has to come forward and convince the patient that the need for the alcoholism treatment is definitely present. Families will usually form groups called as intervention groups, and be guided by a specialist known as the interventionist when coming together for this purpose. The gist of what the family will make the patient understand is that addiction is indeed harmful and must be removed as soon as possible. They will also emphasize their love and care for the patient and let them know that they want them back in a completely normal lifestyle, free from their addiction.

This is something that only the family of the patient can do because they exercise that kind of influence on the patient, having shared common bonds through life. However, families may not know how to go about this intervention program in the right manner, and that explains the need of the intervention specialist.

Once the patient has been pulled out of the denial phase, it becomes the responsibility of the family to search a proper treatment option for them. This is again a very crucial time in the entire addiction treatment for the patient, because selecting the right treatment option is as good as deciding what kind of recovery the patient will have. People from the patient’s family might arrange appointments with substance abuse counselors and may contact various treatment centers. They might go online and search for as much information as they can find about the alcohol treatment program in Utah. It is after a long search period, with the decision-making involved, that the family will be able to find an appropriate treatment option for the patient.

They will then have to handle the admission procedure and communicate with the treatment center while the entire process gets underway. When the patient is in the treatment center, the family must keep track of the progress of the treatment. The patient might undergo a denial again. If that happens, it will be the family’s role to convince them about the treatment again.

Similarly, the family has a very important role to play when the patient is brought back home form the treatment center. This is a very vulnerable phase of the treatment program, where there is the risk that the patient might get back into the addiction. This has to be prevented at all costs. Working under the guidance of the treatment center, the family will monitor the progress of the patient’s recovery. They will get trained on understanding the signs and symptoms of an impending relapse situation and what they must do if that actually happens.

On the other hand, it is vital that the families learn how to face the fact that someone at home is undergoing addiction treatment. There might be emotional issues developed in the minds of some members, including depression and stress. It is important that these issues are worked out, as they will only impede the alcohol treatment of the patient. There are counseling programs for families in most alcohol treatment centers in Utah. The intention is to keep them away from the mental wrangles that are involved in alcohol treatment, and instead make them a constructive force in the treatment program for the patient.