Alcoholism
Question: How long does it take for an alcoholic to end the problem with alcohol?
Answer: Five seconds.
The details about ending alcohol abuse may be found at Rational Recovery.
In particular, go to The Crash Course on AVRT at Rational Recovery.
Be certain to read The Structural Model of Addiction
Follow up with Bullets For My Beast
The solution is available now.
There is no excuse.
There is no need to fear the future.
End alcohol abuse now.
Health Considerations in terminating alcohol abruptly
Alcoholism
is a genetic disease inherited from the mother through the
mitochondria which affects the processing of alcohol in the
liver.
Normal people metabolize alcohol in the liver through the Microsomal Ethanol Oxidizing System (MEOS) to break down the alcohol to acetate. The enzymes in the liver first break down the alcohol into acetaldehyde and then break down the acetaldehyde into the acetate:
Alcohol ==> acetaldehyde ==> acetate
It takes the liver in alcoholics twice as long to process the acetaldehyde to acetate as it does for the normally functioning liver.
This has important ramifications: Acetaldehyde is a dangerous substance to have around in the body in any quantity.
Acetaldehyde:
hampers cellular activities
Acetaldehyde damages the cells in the liver making it progressively more difficult to metabolize the substance in the body of an alcoholic with an ever spiraling degenerative affect.
Acetaldehyde competes with other chemical substances known as brain amines (or neurotransmitters) for the attention of certain enzymes. Acetaldehyde wins this competition and, as a result, blocks the enzymes from accomplishing their primary duty of inhibiting the amine's activity and produces isoquinolines which act on opiate receptors in the brain, contributing to alcohol addiction.
There is an objective test which can be administered to determine if a person is an alcoholic. This test has been available in the past at the Lakeside - Milam Recovery centers.
For the alcoholic, every drink of alcohol is toxic and does damage to the body.
Abstinence is the only true treatment for the disease.
Progression
Alcoholism progresses in three stages:
The Early Adaptive Stage
The Middle Stage of Alcoholism increasing physical dependence
The Final Stage of Alcoholism before death as the body of the Alcoholic deteriorates precipitously
First stage:
Alcohol does not relax the alcoholic as it does in normal people
Alcohol gives the alcoholic energy and improves performance
Tolerance builds quickly and alcoholics can drink much more than normal people
Over time, the alcoholic needs alcohol to function because the alcohol fuels the alcoholic
Second stage:
Third stage [some symptoms may occur in late second stage]:
Convulsions
Hallucinations
Cancer
Pancreatitis
Hypoglycemia
Hypoglycemia causes instant precipitous drops in blood sugar as the pancreas dumps insulin into the body. Overstimulation leads to terrible migraine headaches. Hypoglycemia is the result of third stage alcoholism and alcohol seems to account for over 80% of the cases of hypoglycemia.
Death follows the third stage of alcoholism.
Nutrition
Alcoholism,
particularly in its third stage results in malnutrition,
seriously depleting the B vitamins from the body with other
detrimental consequences. While it is true that alcoholics can
cease alcohol consumption at any time, the consequences in the
second and third stages may be dire: Withdrawal symptoms will be
aggravated by the malnutrition and threaten the life of the
alcoholic who stops drinking. The alternative -- to continue
drinking -- is not an option because with every drink, the
alcoholic deteriorates further.
An alcoholic in late stages of alcoholism may need to be under a physician's care.
Some factors can be used to assist with the withdrawal from
alcohol.
The first of these is Brewer's Yeast -- particularly Brewer's Yeast grown on sugar beets by Lewis Laboratories. Brewer's yeast is rich in B vitamins which will help mitigate the impact to the nervous system. It is also rich in organic chromium which assists the pancreas to stabilize production of insulin and other hormones in the body. Brewer's yeast is also very high in RNA [ribonucleic acid] and DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] to give the body cells more energy with the ATP cycle and assist with the rebuilding of cellular materials.
Recovering Alcoholics should also consider the Chromium-Glucose Tolerance Factor (GTF) which is essential for burning blood sugar. An alcoholic can reduce cravings for alcohol significantly by using it. The source is also from brewer's yeast, particularly brewer's yeast grown from sugar beets.
The effect of exercise should not be discounted. In Shadow Syndromes, the authors show the profound ability of the body to restore functions to heal itself, particularly when the positive tipping point has been reached.
Fluid levels and proper nutrition cannot be ignored and a balanced diet with sufficient water must be balanced to maintain the body to full effect.
Mothers
Those
who work with babies who have alcohol fetal syndrome know how
damaging it is for a mother to drink during pregnancy.
Dr. John J. Ratey in his book, A User's Guide to the Brain, said this:
Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can have devastating consequences. Microscopic studies of fetal brains show that alcohol causes faulty cell migration. Once they begin to travel, the neurons do not know when to stop, miss their proper destinations and often die. As a result, the brains of babies whose mothers drink regularly are frequently small shrunken, and malformed, with a lower density of neurons. These fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) babies have low IQ scores in childhood and severe reading and math disabilities by the time they reach high school and adulthood, as well as maladaptive behavior, hyperactivity, and depression.
The really unfortunate news is that, as with every other developmental toxin, the most significant effects of alcohol come early in pregnancy: the first six weeks are the most crucial. If a woman is drinking during this period, by the time that she becomes aware that she is pregnant the damage may have been done. Given this, there may be hundreds of thousands of people who have some degree of mental or physical impairment owing to in utero exposure to alcohol.
Research also shows that the effects associated with FAS continue and indeed increase as children become adults. There is also a more subtle version of fetal damage know as fetal alcohol effects (FAE). A recent study of 253 people diagnosed with FAS and FAE found that 90 percent had mental health problems; 60 percent experienced disrupted educations; 60 percent had trouble with the law; 50 percent had been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior. This points to a theme that will be repeated time and again in this book: Some types of antisocial and even criminal behavior could be linked to, if not caused by, physical problems in the brain.
Drinking mothers damage their children during pregnancy. Alcohol kills brain cells by the millions at a critical time.
Groups
People tend to believe that support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous will enable them to overcome their problems with alcohol, but support groups of this nature are deleterious to health and act against an alcoholic taking personal responsibility for ceasing drinking. Here is what thoroughly documented The Orange Papers say:
On their own
There is a high rate of recovery among alcoholics and addicts, treated and untreated. According to one estimate, heroin addicts break the habit in an average of 11 years. Another estimate is that at least 50% of alcoholics eventually free themselves although only 10% are ever treated. One recent study found that 80% of all alcoholics who recover for a year or more do so on their own, some after being unsuccessfully treated. When a group of these self-treated alcoholics was interviewed, 57% said they simply decided that alcohol was bad for them. Twenty-nine percent said health problems, frightening experiences, accidents, or blackouts persuaded them to quit. Others used such phrases as "Things were building up" or "I was sick and tired of it." Support from a husband or wife was important in sustaining the resolution.
Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.
(See Aug. (Part I), Sept. (Part II), Oct. 1995 (Part III).)
Likewise, American Health Magazine reported:
...people are about ten times as likely to change on their own as with the help of doctors, therapists, or self-help groups.
J. Gurion, American Health Magazine, March 1990.
In his book on the treatment of alcoholism, Dr. Sheldon Zimberg surveyed the literature for reports of spontaneous remission of alcoholism:A number of studies have found that a small percentage of alcoholics improve to the point of remission of problems associated with alcohol consumption. Bailey and Stewart (235) interviewed alcoholics after three years without treatment and found that about 27 percent of the former patients denied alcoholism. Cahalan (268) in a national drinking practices study noted that drinking problems decrease in men after age 50 and the amount of alcohol consumed also decreases. Cahalan, Cisin, and Crossley (11) in another national survey of drinking practices found that about one-third more individuals had problem drinking in a period before their three-year study period than during the study period itself, suggesting a tendency toward spontaneous remission of drinking problems. Goodwin, Crane, and Guze (269) found that on an eight-year follow-up with no treatment about 18 percent of the alcoholic felons had been abstinent for at least two years. Lemere (238) reported long-term abstinence in 11 percent of untreated alcoholics over an unspecified interval. Kendall and Staton (236) reported 15 percent abstinence in untreated alcoholics after a seven-year follow-up. Kissin, Platz, and Su (203) reported a 4 percent one-year improvement rate in untreated lower class alcoholics. Imber et al. (10) described a follow-up of 58 alcoholics who received no treatment for their alcoholism. It was noted that the rate of abstinence was 15 percent at one year and 11 percent after three years.
In sum, the preponderance of these studies suggests that a spontaneous remission rate for alcoholism of at least one-year duration is about 4-18 percent. Successful treatment would, therefore, have to produce rates of improvement significantly above this probable range of spontaneous remission.
It should be noted in the research at the Orange Papers website on The Effectiveness of the Twelve Step Program that not only is Alcoholics Anonymous a total failure to stop alcoholics from drinking, it has a side detriment of killing off its attendees at a rate of 3% per year above the averages. Generally speaking, 50% of all alcoholics spontaneously decide to forgo alcohol eventually, while those who attend AA have a failure rate of 88% or higher.
There are those who point out that even for those who eventually use Rational Recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous without realizing it, they have traded one addiction for another.
Support groups don't work and Harvard Studies say so.
Support groups are designed to have people depend upon others for their success. It can be used as a method for ready made failure by putting responsibility for one's own life in the hands of another rather than taking ownership for one's own destiny. Sponsors of support group want dependence upon them and the group so they can tacitly control other people's lives. In doing so, they weaken the character and moral fiber of those they manipulate.
Personal responsibility internally motivated leads to success.
Christians
Atheist alcoholics have stopped drinking alcohol on their own. Christians have no excuse.
An online chat room of fundamental Christians were shocked during a discussion of Alcoholism to have a participant tell them that Alcoholism was a genetic disease of the liver. Their reaction was "That's just giving an alcoholic another excuse!". They did not want to be swayed in their prejudice.
What
they did not realize was that by definition, Scripture convicts
the alcoholic for every drink of alcohol he or she takes:
Alcohol destroys the Temple of the Holy
Spirit1 Corinthians 3:17
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for
the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. and
hence it is a sin every time an alcoholic Christian takes a
drink of alcohol.
Scriptures are very clear that
Proscriptions against the unrighteous even go so far to declare that
For a Christian who drinks and does not know he or she is an alcoholic, there is damage even so for each drink, but for someone who knowingly and purposefully knows and even tells others that he or she is an alcoholic while holding a plastic cup of wine in their hands at a religious festival is playing games.
An irony exists: Though many churches prohibit drinking alcohol entirely, others allow it and some few even promote aggressively drinking alcohol by quoting Scripture in the Old Testament about
And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? and the New Testament about
This, unfortunately, promotes the idea that the cup should overflow and oft temperance is abandoned, not just by members but by segments of the ministry and even the leadership. Thus it is that an alcoholic who abstained all his life is thrust suddenly into dysfunction innocently. The religion inadvertently creates a problem for the alcoholic and then abandons them as "sinners" when the church itself created the problem.
All alcoholic Christians must stop drinking alcohol: It is a moral imperative; it is sin and it will result in a loss of salvation if the person does not repent.
Repentance is the instant immediate permanent abstinence of all alcohol forever.
Accountability and competence are intertwined: Each person must take ownership and responsibility for we must work out our own salvation....
If you say you can do without it, prove it: take the challenge and do without it.
Teens
Adolescents go through a tumultuous time of change during the years between approximately 13 and 21 years of age. This is a time critical to the preparation of adulthood. It is a time to explore, grow and make mistakes in a safe environment to develop good judgment and hone interpersonal skills for the future.
Adolescence is a transition time when the body is undergoing many significant changes, such as hormonal alterations and brain development. It is also a time when young people start to associate more with friends and associates beyond their childhood contacts. They feel an increased pressure to ‘fit in’ or ‘go along with the crowd’ in order to be accepted socially. These new circumstances can be confusing and difficult for the youth to understand and deal with. Often their ability to make correct or safe decisions is also at a stage of immaturity. Exposing the brain to alcohol during this period may interrupt key processes of brain development, possibly leading to mild cognitive impairment as well as to a further escalation of drinking.
Alcohol is absorbed very rapidly into the blood stream from the stomach lining, in as short a time as 5 to 10 minutes and it’s effects last for several hours depending on the amount ingested and how quickly it was consumed. Females absorb alcohol faster than males because their bodies contain less water. The water dilutes the alcohol and so the same amount of alcohol will produce a higher concentration in the blood. After consuming only two to three normal strength beers, or four or five standard glasses of wine, most people will feel less inhibited and more relaxed. Anything consumed after this amount most people slur their speech and become less coordinated and clumsy. Some people have increased emotional reactions. More alcohol could result in staggering, double vision, and loss of balance, nausea, vomiting and an impression of the room spinning.
This is not to mention that from the neurological point of view, the absorption of alcohol will lead the death of millions of brain cells.
According to information issued from the U. S. government, teen alcohol abuse showed:
“Subtle alcohol-induced adolescent learning impairments could affect academic and occupational achievement. In one study... short-term memory skills were evaluated in alcohol-dependent and nondependent adolescents ages 15 and 16. The alcohol-dependent youth had greater difficulty remembering words and simple geometric designs after a 10-minute interval. In this and similar studies memory problems were most common among adolescents in treatment who had experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms."
Aside from the fact that underage drinking is illegal, it poses a high risk to both the individual and society.
Teen drinkers are more likely to get fat or have health problems, too. One study by the University of Washington found that people who regularly had five or more drinks in a row starting at age 13 were much more likely to be overweight or have high blood pressure by age 24 than their nondrinking peers. People who continue drinking heavily well into adulthood risk damaging their organs, such as the liver, heart, and brain.
The teen years are central to the formation of the will to set the purpose of the adolescent through life through the development of the prefrontal lobes. Teen girls develop more quickly than their male counterparts. The development of the prefrontal lobes in teen males starts between the age of 17 to 19 and continue to the age of 25. Up until full development, the adolescent is pliable in perspectives and will -- and this becomes part of the psychology of the teen to believe that he "can do anything". Experiences during this time become developmental fundamental building blocks for personality for a lifetime. The military prefers those 19 to 25 because it is a time to set the will and purpose, the confidence for adulthood. The military does not actually care about setting the confidence for adulthood, they care because of the pliability of the candidate and because the Teen feels that they can achieve anything, they lack the rational process to fear death. The military can use this vulnerability to get the adolescent to follow certain orders which might be the case after the person is "seasoned".
During this critical time, alcohol can have a devastating effect, distorting the perceptions of the adolescent and doing critical damage that will become the baggage until the end of life.
Both parents and teens should take great care to insure that there is the best environment possible for adolescents to set forth on the right path. Alcoholism needs to be nipped in the bud to save the vulnerable teen from deep loss for a lifetime.
Damage
Alcoholics in positions of power can easily hurt and victimize people and they often do. A spouse, a manager, a minister, a political leader, can all create havoc in the lives of others with their dysfunction. The damage that an alcoholic does to himself or herself may often be but a small part of the suffering in the broader scope of the community.
Practicing alcoholics kill people: Drinking and driving are devastating in terms of outright deaths, but even more to the permanent disabilities inflicted on people which last a lifetime. Massive disfigurement, paraplegics, quadriplegics, people with internal organs disrupted, brain damage and comas are all a part of the horrifying scenario. Drinking and driving is costly.
In the year 2000, alcohol related crashes cost Americans an estimated $114 billion, including $51 billion in monetary costs and an estimated $63.2 billion in quality of life losses. Additional information concerning the prevalence and types of problems may be found at the National Institute of Alcohol and Drug Abuse: Health care expenses, premature death, impaired productivity, motor vehicle crashes, crime, social welfare.
Perhaps it is deemed to be lesser in impact for an abusive spouse or significant other to persecute those close to them, but the damage is also far reaching, particularly when children are involved. Normally kind and agreeable people become monsters under the influence of alcohol and all of us pay dearly.
The practicing alcoholic seldom knows or understands the impact of what he has done. Deep in denial and with no ability to discern the social incompetence, the alcoholic is not only dysfunctional but makes it difficult or impossible for others to function.
It is impossible to be competent in a dysfunctional environment.
The alcoholic in denial simply is generally incapable of measuring the negative impact of his behavior -- or more accurately does not care. It may well be that the alcoholic generates lots of "friends" in the form of "drinking buddies", but in reality simply generates more pain and suffering to extend it to even more people in the sphere of influence. The "drinking buddies" aren't real "friends" at all, but collaborators in destructive behavior whose association is a matter of convenience who don't really matter. Generally, the alcoholic cares for no one but himself.
Those in positions of power are particularly pernicious because they can enforce their behaviors upon others who may have few options under the dominion of a person irrational and unreasonable under the influence of alcohol.
Alcoholics often become particularly abusive when those who are concerned about their welfare attempt to bring the problem to light for the benefit of the alcoholic. Usually, this is perceived as unwelcome interference in the life of someone who really does need the help. In the denial, the rejection of unsolicited assistance may end very badly for the concerned person. A belligerent alcoholic can do a lot of damage. In such cases, only superior force will have results, whether it be the employer with a credible threat of dismissing the alcoholic, the spouse seeking a divorce or law enforcement. Even in the face of overwhelming power, the alcoholic will generally remain quite defiant and uncooperative. For those caught in the influence of an alcoholic, only termination of the relationship is viable in the long term, unless or until the alcoholic abandons alcohol in total abstinence.
At the very best, an alcoholic who continues to consume alcohol will have severely distorted perceptions, effecting extremely poor judgment to set completely inappropriate priorities in what is most important in life.
For the sake of the community and the world at large: If you say you can do without it, prove it: take the challenge and do without it.
Church Corporate Drinking
Church Corporate drinking is often unbelievable. Lushes often run the ministry and the administration.Gerald Flurry founder and current owner of the Philadelphia Church of God was arrested for Driving while Under the Influence of Alcohol. The documents are in a .pdf file online here: Gerald Flurry Arrest. In addition, The Ambassador Report makes the following declaration:One final comment on Flurry. In our last issue we reported how in October, Flurry had been arrested when found drunk behind the steering wheel of a car parked in a university parking lot. To his followers, Flurry explained away this episode by saying the law was unfair and should be changed and by claiming that the officer who arrested him, Brandon C. Berryhill, was a WCG member (the WCG denies this). On February 23, Flurry pleaded nolo contendere to the main charge of "APC" - being in actual physical control of an automobile while intoxicated (like DUI - Driving Under the Influence) and was fined $400 plus $200 in victim's compensation plus court costs. In addition, he may face a term of incarceration. His date of sentencing has been suspended to Feb. 23, 1995. But Flurry apparently doesn't feel he will ever have to show up. He has been telling followers he expects to flee to Petra in Jordan sometime this year and perhaps as soon as June. We here at the Report wish him a pleasant journey.
Gerald Flurry has told everyone who will listen that he is "That Prophet", that is, he is Jesus Christ in the flesh. He also says that those who do not obey and follow him will automatically be assigned to the lake of hell fire at the third resurrection after they die. People who follow him in the Philadelphia Church of God are terribly afraid. One former member said, "It is like a black hole: Once you get in, you can never get out". Fortunately, a few do. Those who have had to endure the abuse of a heavy ham handed alcoholic abuser can relate instantly to the kind of abuse such a man with power wields and the suffering of those who are dominated and manipulated by him. Yet, in spite of critics' warnings, he continues in contempt of any authority but his own and in contempt of all others as being "The one and only End Time Apostle" beholden to no one.
Many of those who have endured the Church Corporate have observed ministers getting up to preach a sermon at 10:00 in the morning stumble up the stairs in a drunken stupor.
There is record of entire church areas being afflicted with alcoholic boozers forming the inner circle of the elite in the church in league with alcoholic ministers, inducing others into their ranks and making drinking the height of godly worship. As one observes the "careers" of such stridently aggressive abusive boozers, detrimental deterioration progresses with alarming speed:
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The practicing alcoholic enters the Church Corporate venue and professes "repentance" to adopt the religious doctrines;
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The alcoholic lays low for awhile to get the lay of the land;
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Drinking proceeds surreptitiously in secret;
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Drinking buddies in the church are found: There are dinner parties followed by drinking parties;
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Ministers are found to participate and are drawn away after their own lusts [not that they weren't primed and ready];
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Cliques and inner circles are formed;
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Innocents are drawn into the drinking circles and are recruited;
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Family life begins to deteriorate as the spouse is abandoned / abused and the children are neglected / abused;
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Strange things happen to relationships and people in the church: Injustices occur, fornication and adultery abound with both the ministers and members and those who object to the evils are either ignored or ejected;
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Marriages and careers end.
Some cases are not just social. Many times the practicing alcoholic has a business and hires members of the church. The drinking buddies rise to the top and the others are bound to a dead end career. Everyone copes as best they can in an insane environment where there is no consistency and the alcoholism creates arbitrary unpredictable conditions. Certainly, in this case, the workers can't take it to the boss because the boss is the problem.
Eventually the situation works itself out: Relationships end, careers end, people are separated forcibly from the alcoholic in less than optimal ways.
These scenarios occur again and again over twenty years or more.
For the alcoholic Church Corporate, the problem begins with the founder who often establishes a "headquarters" replete with an unaccredited college where the drug abusers flourish. Beer busts and pot parties were rampant at Ambassador College in Pasadena during the Seventies, fueled by the tacit support of a drunken leadership. It was all hidden from public and member view as it generally always is. It eats away at the Church Corporate from the inside like a cancer causing great suffering until the leader dies, the ministers move on and the members leave and / or the alcoholics die or truly repent.
The false prophets and drunken sots will often be identified by absolute narcissistic certainty that they alone have the truth and if you don't follow them, you will be doomed to perdition.
Quite the opposite is true.
There is great value in avoiding them.
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