Alcoholism, Enabling, and Alcohol Relapse

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Alcoholism, Enabling, and Alcohol Relapse

Sunday, April 19th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

It is fascinating to articulate something that family members who have been negatively affected by the alcoholism of another family member plainly do not grasp. It appears that by protecting the alcohol addicted person with untruths and dishonesty to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have in effect created a circumstance that makes it easier for the alcohol dependent person to persist and press forward with his or her harmful, devastating lifestyle.

In fact, instead of helping the alcoholic and themselves, these family members have basically become enablers who have inadvertently helped negatively affect the alcohol addicted person’s problem drinking condition even further.

The Possibility of a Relapse is Real

Another key alcohol dependency issue concerns alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol dependent individual has effectively gone through alcohol dependency therapy and then returns to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first thought, this predicament flies in the face of rational thinking and appears to be so implausible that it forces a person to speculate why anyone who has lived through the awfulness of alcoholism can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol treatment and in turn after achieving recovery. There are, to be sure, more than a few possible reasons for this.

It should be explained, then again that alcohol dependency research that has centered on the enduring effects of alcoholism has demonstrated-proven that long after the alcohol dependent individual has halted his or her drinking, fundamental transformations in the way in which the alcohol dependent person’s brain operates are still present. As a result, all a recovering alcohol addicted individual has to do to involve himself or herself in behaviors that correspond with the alterations that have taken place in the brain is to start drinking again.

The Need for a Radical Lifestyle Change

There are even more reasons why many recovering alcohol dependent persons return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after attaining sobriety. According to the alcohol addiction research literature, to make a successful recovery, the alcohol dependent individual needs new ways of acting and thinking in order to deal more competently with taxing alcohol-related situations that will take place.

Conditions such as returning to the same alcohol addictive environment or to the same geographic location; interacting once again with friends from the time when the alcohol dependent individual was drinking in a hazardous manner; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these conditions can bring forth memories that can prompt psychological stress or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in excessive drinking once again. Unfortunately, all of these circumstances may not only negate enduring sobriety for the alcoholic but they can also result in relapse and thus negate one’s alcohol recovery.

Conclusion

In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol addicted person, family members can in fact cause unintended damage by enabling the destructive drinking behavior of the alcohol dependent individual.

The alcoholism research literature validates the fact that most individuals who successfully complete alcohol treatment experience at least one relapse. Alcoholics and their family members need to know this so that they do not get defeated or stressed out when a relapse manifests itself.

Luckily, taking part in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up therapy and training have resulted in more productive, long lasting alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency rehab outcomes, have helped diminish alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted individuals reach ongoing sobriety.

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