With everyone around us having holiday parties, and many of us celebrating getting through some major crunch times at work or university, it’s easy to run into situations where we’re surrounded by alcohol. And it’s even easier, when alcohol is such a normalized part of all of our social lives, to forget its dark side.
This “hard pill to swallow” for students who do a lot of social drinking inspired a couple of other Tumblr users to share their qualms with how society understands alcoholism. But while the first two posts in the thread are pretty fatalistic, another user imparted some advice for people who are looking for a way out of drinking habits that are causing problems in their lives.
These people shared some hard truths about alcohol and alcoholism
Image credits: attractive-nuisance-esq
As for what constitutes alcoholism and what doesn’t, medical professionals actually make a distinction between binge drinking and alcoholism, but acknowledge that the former can lead to the latter as well as being harmful in its own right. While alcoholics develop an addiction alcohol, often physically, most people who binge drink in social situations don’t drink outside of those situations.
But Harvard Health found that even though only 10% of Americans who reported binge drinking by the numbers were physically dependent on alcohol, many reported alcohol-related problems with their health, employment and relationships even without meeting the criteria for alcoholism.
For people who realize that they need support to overcome their problem with alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous is usually promoted as a lifeline, but not everyone manages to connect with it. Although AA gives the option for participants to define their understanding of a higher power however they see fit, some people don’t connect with the step of appealing to a spiritual force at all. Other non-religious people feel that even if the language to include them is technically in the manual, their local AA branches seem unwelcoming to them.
One person in the thread shared their experience with SMART recovery, an approach that addresses addictive behavior and unhealthy coping mechanisms of all kinds by examining the motivations behind it and imbuing participants with similar principles to cognitive behavioral therapy. It doesn’t preclude other treatment programs, and some participants say that its flexibility has benefited them in their recovery more than programs with other structures could.
Commenters thanked them, and shared their experiences with recovery
No addiction treatment program works for *all*, and if you want to insist you don't need help from a "higher power", that's fine, but I've got lots of dead relatives who said that. AA, SMART, whatever works to help someone realize evolutoin and addiction are not answerable to human ego. Focus on helping people, not tearing down what you don't like about what helps some of them, maybe?
Addict and alcoholic. Resisted AA, convinced that it was a sect. Truth is I had never tried this program. Went back after a relapse two years ago. Gave myself one year: for one year, I would try AA but this time with acceptance, willingness, and honesty. I am so glad I did that. This program has helped me tremendously and not only with my sobriety but with my life as a whole. I would like to ask the people who comment rather negatively against AA what event, story, experience that drove them to the conclusion that AA is a sect? I among many in AA don't believe that AA is for everyone and IF another method is what keeps you sober, then, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Interesting that many of anti AA cannot give any objective reason as to why AA is close-minded and a sect.... Very ironic. Anyway, it would be great if instead of being at war, we join forces... no worries: no coolaid in the coffee 😜
No addiction treatment program works for *all*, and if you want to insist you don't need help from a "higher power", that's fine, but I've got lots of dead relatives who said that. AA, SMART, whatever works to help someone realize evolutoin and addiction are not answerable to human ego. Focus on helping people, not tearing down what you don't like about what helps some of them, maybe?
Addict and alcoholic. Resisted AA, convinced that it was a sect. Truth is I had never tried this program. Went back after a relapse two years ago. Gave myself one year: for one year, I would try AA but this time with acceptance, willingness, and honesty. I am so glad I did that. This program has helped me tremendously and not only with my sobriety but with my life as a whole. I would like to ask the people who comment rather negatively against AA what event, story, experience that drove them to the conclusion that AA is a sect? I among many in AA don't believe that AA is for everyone and IF another method is what keeps you sober, then, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Interesting that many of anti AA cannot give any objective reason as to why AA is close-minded and a sect.... Very ironic. Anyway, it would be great if instead of being at war, we join forces... no worries: no coolaid in the coffee 😜
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