One afternoon, as I was driving home on the freeway, a question crossed my mind. There are thousands of support groups in our country for chronic drinkers who have made the decision to abstain from alcohol. Why aren't there any support groups available for problem drinkers who have made the decision to reduce their drinking?
Drinking too much, after all, is not like being pregnant. You either are or aren't pregnant, whereas drinking problems lie along a continuum ranging from very mild to life threatening. Problem drinkers have at least some health, personal, family, job-related, financial, or legal problems due to alcohol use. But unlike many chronic drinkers problem drinkers do not experience significant withdrawal symptoms when they stop drinking. And they' normally have most of their resources intact and possess the skills necessary for self-change.
When I finally realized why there were no support groups for problem drinkers, I became very upset. Then, after I calmed down, I did two things: I started a group called Moderation Management (MM) for problem drinkers who want to moderate their drinking. And I wrote a book, Moderate Drinking.
The basic concepts of MM are derived from brief behavioral self-management approaches to alcohol abuse, which in turn are based on controlled studies with problem drinkers. The guidelines MM uses have been carefully reviewed by professionals in the field. But most important, MM was born from the real-life experiences of former problem drinkers who have returned to moderate drinking, including myself.
Bona Fide Boozer
I will now provide you with my "credentials" as a former problem drinker. Though this is something I would prefer not to do, it is necessary because there are those who believe that a return to moderate drinking is impossible for anyone who has ever had a drinking problem. They will say I never was an "alcoholic" And they are correct, if by "alcoholic" they mean a chronic, severely dependent drinker. But if they mean a person with any type of drinking problem, then saying I was never an alcoholic would imply that I never had a "real" drinking problem--in which case, they are wrong.
Like many people, I first tried alcohol in my late teens at home and began drinking socially in my early twenties with friends. From my early to late twenties, however, over a period of about six years, I gradually drank more, and more often. Drinking became a central activity in my life: The people I associated with were mostly heavy drinkers, my evenings were planned around drinking, and having fun meant alcohol had to be involved.
I drank when I was happy, sad, bored, or when I didn't know how I was feeling. But mostly I drank because it became a habit. Naturally this began to cause problems in my life. I did not eat right, and slept poorly. I did not perform to the best of my abilities at work, and began to have difficulties keeping up with the courses I was taking in night school. I started to postpone everything: studying, projects, even getting together with people I knew did not drink as much as I did. I drank irresponsibly, risking other people's lives when I drove after I had too much. Finally, after a long-term relationship fell apart, I started to drink alone. I became depressed, scared, and lonely.
I decided to seek help. For those who say I was never an alcoholic, I want to stress that two treatment centers, an aftercare program, and conservatively 30 to 40 professionals had no problem saying that I was. With my new "alcoholic" label, I experienced traditional treatment first hand. For my "medical disease" I received the following treatments for 28 days as a "patient" on the third floor of a hospital: group psychotherapy, confrontation counseling, and life-skills training. My "detoxification" consisted of sleeping in a room separate from the rest of the clients where a nurse could take my blood pressure and temperature regularly for 24 hours. It is important to note I did not experience any significant withdrawal symptoms when I quit drinking--a point either ignored or considered irrelevant by treatment personnel.
In addition, I was introduced to the institutionalized version of Alcoholics Anonymous while still in the hospital. I was told to fill out workbooks based on the treatment center's interpretation of the first five steps of the AA program. These steps instructed me to do the following: admit that I was powerless over alcohol and not sane; turn my will and my life over to the care of God; write a moral inventory; and confess my wrongs to God. Thus, spiritual training was another aspect of the treatment for my supposed medical disease.
Treatment personnel emphasized that I would have to attend AA meetings for the rest of my life, or else I would end up dead, in jail, insane, or in the gutter. With this kind of advice, I made sure that I went to meetings for several years after inpatient care. I attended literally hundreds of meetings.
The result of all this "treatment?" At first, my drinking became far worse. Hospital staff members had told me I had a physical disease that I had no control over. In possibly the most defenseless and dependent stage of my entire life, I began to fulfill some of these prophecies. I became a binge drinker, suddenly obsessed with drinking too much or not at all. I accepted that I was indeed powerless over my "condition" and my old self-esteem and confidence gradually disappeared.
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