Can Drugs Cure Alcoholism?

The human brain is the most complex organ on earth and study of this subject is still in its infancy.  What scientists do know is that the chemical reactions and electrical impulses in the brain can be affected in ways we are only beginning to understand.

All sorts of drugs can destroy or alter the brain's activity that then results in euphoria, hyperactivity, distorted perceptions, paranoia, depression, anxiety, and other pleasant or deleterious effects.  Some drugs actually can be beneficial by restoring the chemical balance in the brain.  Others can disrupt that chemical balance.

Psychiatrists and psychologists tell us that the brain is also affected by our behavior and by our exeriences with our environment.  Practicing to play a musical instrument by continuous repetition with focused attention alters the brain by forming pathways between neurons in the brain that then allows muscles to react in an almost instinctive way while playing the instrument.  Reading, studying and learning similarly alter the brain by building neural pathways, thus modifying electrical and chemical processes.  These experiences are usually positive and enhancing.  Others can be destructive such as a tramatic event resulting in Post Tramatic Stress Syndrome.

Alcohol obviously alters the brain.  It can be described as causing brain damage.  It destroys brain cells, disrupts neural pathways, and causes chemical imbalances.  Severe damage results when alcohol is present in the body in large doses over a long period of time.  Eliminating the intake of alcohol stops the destruction.

When an alcoholic stops drinking, what is left is a damaged brain that is no longer being destroyed by alcohol, but now needs to heal and recover to a state of chemical balance and the forming of new neural pathways leading to more constructive behavior and positive feelings and emotions.  The chemical balance might never be restored without the use of a pharmacutical drug that inhibits or promotes chemical processes in the brain.

How many alcoholics do you know that don't have a significant emotional problem?  None would be my guess.  Yes, everyone has some emotional problems, but they are usually minor in nature or short in duration.  If an alcoholic didn't have severe emotional problems before becoming alcoholic, the problems surely become apparent while the disease is raging.  Upon reflection, many alcoholics might admit that they turned to alcohol to numb the emotional pain or as an escape from the reality they could no longer face.

Some might claim that there was no particular reason or problem that motivated them to use alcohol.  Those claims are suspect.  Everyone has fears and anxieties whether real or imagined and if nothing else most of us fear death and the thought of our finite existence.  No particular reason needs to found because we all face the ultimate torment and fear of the unknown end to our existence.  Other than that, there's also the stress and demands of our everyday life, confusion, and uncertain future.  No one is immune.

Pharmacutical medications can restore chemical imbalances in the brain and relieve depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, mood swings, and other maladies that are the source of emotional and pyschological problems and behaviors.  If more alcoholics sought psychiatric assistance, perhaps recovery could be accelerated or prolonged and a degree of normalacy achieved to the point of living a productive life.

Some additional brain alteration could be achieved with behavior modification.  This is what AA does and can do fairly well.  It can be a positive influence that develops new ways of thinking and builds neural pathways of constructive thoughts and behavior.  At some point, once a child learns to balance his or her weight on a bike and peddle at the same time, all they need to do is steer.  For this reason, AA is not a life long necessity to permanent sobriety.  How many of us forget how to ride a bicycle once we learn how?

Most alcoholics should strongly consider the intervention of psychiatric services to assess the need for medication to achieve or maintain a chemical balance in the brain.  Maintenance of the chemical balance with medications, along with the initial AA experience or some other kind of behavior modification, might be all that is required for a permanent sobriety. 

I'm Retarded, My Name Is David

Imagine for a moment thirty people gathered inside a meeting room seated in a circle of chairs around the perimeter of the room. Some hold a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup. Others take a bite from a cookie they picked up from the table in the back of the room next to a large coffee pot. The sound of multiple simultaneous conversations blending together quickly quiets down as the minute hand on the wall clock finally reaches its appointed time. In the silence that follows, the participants' attention is directed toward one member of the group who rises from his chair. He greets the group with the familiar introduction that all participants are taught to observe as an acknowledgement of their allegiance and membership in the group.

"Hello, my name is David and I'm retarded."

How does that sound to you? Those in the group accept this acclamation as a stark and bold reminder of their disability. They accept it as a blunt and harsh acknowledgement of their condition, lest they forget. They do not shy away from this term of derision. In fact, they embrace it. There is no need to ever remind an outsider to use a more politically correct reference to their affliction should the "r" word ever be muttered. The term is a badge of honor to its members. It's considered as a pure and total honesty rendering it impossible to deny. There is no wavering about the facts. There is no "sugar coating" of the malady. Once uttered, the speaker places the label upon himself with no wiggle room. There is no such thing in this group as mild retardation. No degrees of mental development are tolerated. You are either retarded or you are not. You decide. That's the cost of initiation into the group. Outsiders are either white or shades of gray, but members are black. If the label is uncomfortable for you, then you're in the wrong group. Accept your total retardation, or at least work on the first step of trying to convince yourself that you are completely retarded and should be a full-fledged member of this organization of retarded people.

Words have meaning and connotations. Words can illicit emotional responses. Words communicate our feelings, intentions, judgments, convictions and beliefs. Words stimulate our brain's neural pathways and cause chemical reactions and hormonal releases in our bodies. Words have social implications that can raise the social status of a person or stigmatize a person's status in the society. The power of the words we use should not be underestimated.

It is with good reason that persons who are developmentally challenged are not referred to as retards or retarded, or even developmentally delayed. This is obvious to everyone. One reference is emotionally non-judgmental. The other is emotionally charged with derision, contempt and stigma. It would be odd indeed if the developmentally challenged individual referred to himself by the term with the most negative connotations. It would only reinforce the individual's thinking about oneself as a human being with less worth and value. It is a bizarre act of self-stigmatizing oneself and trying to feel good about it. Is this meant to confuse and confound the afflicted? Is this some sort of behavioral modification technique that uses cognitive dissonance as a method to shape the beliefs of group members by creating a form of "group speak," which those who have read George Orwell's book "1984" would readily recognize?

Guilty of Using Hyperbole

"Rantings of an Alcoholic" is an exaggeration and overstatement of my state of mind. I did this purposely to bring attention to this blog. Allow me to explain further.

These blog postings are meant to be thought provoking and profound. They are not intended to be emotional diatribes. I am presenting the facts and I am drawing what I think are rational conclusions. I am challenging the AA status quo. Not to be defiant. Not to hinder anyone's recovery. Not to demonstrate that there is no hope.

It is my belief that only when we rationally and honestly approach our addiction can we begin to address the problem and find solutions. Recovery should never be about religious conversion. That is analogous to the old Temperance movement of the late 19th century and early 20th century in America. Convert the sinners and they will repent and be saved. Reliance upon alcohol will be supplanted by reliance upon a rigorous religious dogma and ritual. AA is a thinly veiled 19th century approach to addiction.

AA constantly states that the alcoholic should not question the program. "Stink'in think'in" is the motto. It's founders also stated that the AA program is only a guide and not a panecea. So the conclusion is don't question the program as a step by step recovery program on the one hand. On the other hand, the Big Book states that the 12 steps are only a guide and not to be taken as the final word on recovery. The organization suffers from the same contradictions of belief as any organized religion. "Kill your enemy." "Love your enemy." So which one is it? You choose to follow the beliefs that you want and ignore the contradictory ones. Problem solved, right?

Recovery should not have to be about putting on blinders around our beliefs and following the creed of a 19th century philosophy. Why not deal with recovery without a whisper about god or religion? For all the talk about AA not being about god or Christian religion, it is just that. All talk. In practice, the entire program is based upon religious conversion of sorts.

Can't we eliminate all the talk about god and religion and use what is left of the AA program as a start toward sobiety? Or is AA so fundamentally rooted in it's Temperance movement philosophy that removing god and religion would leave nothing left?

AA is a Failure

AA claims it has about 2 million members. Most are in the USA. According to the CIA World Factbook, the population of the USA for 2005 is estimated at about 295 million. That works out to less than one-half of one percent of the USA population is a member of AA.

By some accounts, 1 in 4 Americans is alcoholic or addicted to something. That means about 70 million Americans could have the disease of addiction. More than 68 million Americans who may be alcoholic are not in AA. Even if these estimated number of addicted Americans is inflated, by any account there are millions and millions of American alcoholics not in the AA recovery program.

The estimated world population for 2005 by the CIA World Factbook is roughly 6.446 billion. In those terms, AA membership is about .002 billion of the world population. Two million members out of six and one-half billion people on the planet. Am I the only one who believes that there are a whole bunch of alcoholics in the world who are not AA members? The truth is that only a very tiny fraction of alcoholics, recovering or not, are AA members.

Combine that fact with the revelation that AA's success rate is probably less than 1%. Only 1 out 100 alcoholics who try the 12 Step Program continue with it and continue to attend AA meetings. A success rate of less than 1% is a failure to the 99% for whom it did not work. I am grateful that 1% found recovery in AA, but it is appalling that 99% do not.

AA membership is stagnant. It is not growing. Membership has plateaued. It is rooted in 1930's mentality which it refuses to let go of. The organization is an anachronism. It does not appeal to the 21st Century man and woman. Add to that the narrow minded concept of spirituality rooted in the acceptance of the Christian god and you have an organization that will never have true world wide appeal.

If a pharmaceutical company claimed to have a medication that worked for less than 1% of those who used it, and you had to use it for the rest of your life, how many would place hope in that? If a football coach had a lifetime win record of less than 1% of the games he coached, would he be considered a success? Why should a recovery program for alcoholics be held to any less of a standard of success? The naked truth is that AA does not work and is a failure.

What's god got to do with it ... got to do with it?

AA is schizophrenic. They will swear on a stack of bibles that your "higher power" and "god as you understand him" can be anything you want. But the whole program is about god. And to make matters worse, it's the god of Christianity. What's that all about? Everything is about god. Surrender to god's will. Pray to god. Ask god. For Bill Wilson, getting sober is about finding god.

Every single AA meeting I have ever been to has ended with a group prayer reciting the Lord's Prayer from the Christian Bible. There are no Hebrew prayers or Muslim prayers. Just Christian prayers.

Unfortunately, other groups of non-believers like Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and other belief systems not based upon the Christian god, are left out. Unless they are willing to trash their own belief system and accept the Christian interpretation, there's no place for them in AA. Why should a recovery program be based upon such obvious cultural biases and arrogance? Hindus don't believe in god. So a Hindu alcoholic would have to accept a Christian god to become sober? Rubbish.

Let's face it, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob were not scholarly thinkers. They did the best they could to come up with an explanation of a spiritual awakening. They were living in a Christian society in the 1930's and so they naturally and easily included it into their own AA dogma. It seemed to work for the small group of mostly white Christian men they got together.

The "god of your understanding" might not be the god that AA talks about. That "god of your understanding" is nothing but a bone thrown to a non-believer to get them through the door. They will tell you that your higher power can be anything that is greater than yourself. You are relieved because you don't want god crammed down your throat. But eventually, you must accept the Christian god or you will not feel like a complete member of the group. For AA, "higher power" = god.

Step Two of the AA Twelve Step program is the only step to slightly conceal its meaning but it's obvious to all that "a Power greater than ourselves" = god. Specific references to "god" are made five times in the Twelve Steps. Only two of those references qualifies it with the phrase "as we understood Him."

This is a tradgety for AA. The one truth that they happened to stumble upon got perverted. Spirituality is the key. Not god. Yes, you can be spiritual and have spirituality without god. Spirituality is a much broader and inclusive concept.

Why criticise Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)?

After the drinking stops, the hard part begins. How do you keep your sobriety and not drink again? Alcoholics Anonymous seems to be the only option. What happens after a stay at a hospital detox ward? An expensive treatment facility? Extensive outpatient program? Or individual psychotherapy? AA is the final repository. Everyone is referred to AA.

That's a lot of responsibility to place on a volunteer organization that offers no professional help. It's almost scary. I consider myself an alcoholic in recovery. I also consider myself a member of AA. I've got a few things to say (rantings) about alcohol, recovery and AA. I want to be brutally frank and not sugar coat this. These are rantings because I want to emphasise the problems.

WARNING: Do not read the postings in this blog if you cannot tolerate criticism of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Opinions expressed in this blog may be disturbing to sensitive individuals and may lead to the loss of sobriety.