After a short period of abstinence, almost every substance-dependent patient asks this question: “Can I ever drink like a normal person?” Although statistically there will always be exceptions to any rule, it is my experience and that of my recovering fellow addicts that a diagnosis of substance dependency virtually guarantees the inability to ever drink alcohol “normally” or “rationally” again in the long run and in the vast majority of cases.
“But I abused cocaine, alcohol was never a problem for me”… Yet in Recovery, most addicts find that their relationship to alcohol has strangely been altered in that now alcohol hijacks the same brain reward circuitry previously controlled by addictive drugs. In other words, alcohol has become just another addictive substance, indistinguishable in its addictivity from other habit-forming substances!
Of course, statistically speaking, there are always “rare exceptions”. But is it worth the risk of severe alcoholic relapse through one or more attempts at “controlled” or “rational” drinking in order to find out if one is a “rare exception”? The evidence shows that in the vast majority of cases, total abstinence from alcohol is the only option. The medical evidence for successful “rational” drinking as a viable option is not convincing.
This blog also applies to the patient with alcohol dependency who wonders whether he/she will ever be able to drink “normally”. The evidence once again favours total abstinence from all mood-altering substances including alcohol.
This is a topic for which excellent information can be found in the Twelve-Step Fellowship meetings. Recovering addicts/alcoholics at the meetings are usually more than willing to share their often harrowing stories of cross-addictions. There is a wealth of experience to be had here, and I would encourage any addict/alcoholic in early Recovery to talk to as many experienced Fellowship members as possible regarding this extremely important issue. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals, if they do not have addiction issues themselves, would not be able to provide this kind of valuable feedback or counselling as it is based on hard-won experience and real-life events.
27 Comments
Leave your reply.