Alcoholism Addiction – Taking the Path of Least Resistance

Alcoholism addiction is almost as prevalent as the common cold. Drug overuse makes the headlines all the time, but you rarely hear of the alcohol that saturates our culture. Everyone likes a few cold ones now and again, but many people have much more than a few. If just having one or two makes you want to stop drinking in mid beer because you are starting to feel a queesy feeling in your stomach and maybe a bit of dizziness, know that you are not an alcoholic.

An alcoholic will have one or two, will start feeling it and then yell out, if two drinks makes me feel good, imagine how good I’ll feel after a dozen! So begins the next debacle.

Once started, a person with alcoholism addiction will find it hard to stop. The addiction takes over. Fear and common sense have little place in his or her thoughts. All that matters is where’s the next drink coming from or who’s going to buy it?

The scariest part of the whole adventure is that after a few drinks, most alcoholics become bullet proof. They can drive like Mario Andretti, kick speeding locomotives off their tracks, leap over tall buildings and stop bullets with their teeth.

Such is not the truth, of course, but it is what makes them so dangerous. What they would never try sober, they happily jump into drunk. Unfortunately, the one thing many of them jump into is a car. The headlines are splashed with photos of what these drivers end up causing.

The bad news is that families suffer, jobs and careers are shattered. Lives are lost and health ruined. Hopelessness sets in after many failed attempts at quitting. Some quit for a little while, but very few manage on their own for very long. Before long the I’ll just have one thought comes up and off they go on the next hell ride.

Support groups are of great help to those that want assistance dealing with their alcoholism addiction. There are also support groups for people who suffer because of someone else’s drinking. Check your yellow pages or see a counsellor for names and phone numbers. The real irony of this whole situation is that the more the alcoholic tries to stop or the more he or she is nagged or threatened into stopping, the worse the drinking gets. Maybe it’s just human nature. I don’t know.

The good news is this: most support groups will tell you that the opposite is the best course. Let it go. Do not try to control the person suffering from alcoholism addiction or, if it is a problem in your life, let go. What you resist, persists.

You might be saying, Well, I don’t buy into all that God stuff I heard about. There are many programs that never mention god. If there is a prayer that you might want to try on for size (in case the darn things work!), it is this one: God, if you exist and if you are listening, please keep me sober today. Try it, you might like it. Anyway, what could it hurt, right? Right?

You have the right to happiness and security. Pursue them, whatever the cost both in money terms and emotional pain.

Till we meet again.