It is good to see many new people posting on the DS forum and finding the courage to reclaim their lives from alcoholism. Starting off on the journey to sobriety can be a frightening and confusing experience, so as someone who has been around for a while, I thought that I would share a little bit of what I have learned over the years, in the hope that it will make it easier for the newcomers.

Around nine out of ten drinkers can take it or leave it – they are at ease with alcohol. One in ten will keep drinking more when everyone else has stopped, may try to sneak in extra drinks while drinking in company and will possibly drink secretly at home, often hiding the evidence from family and friends. These are not the only traits of a problem drinker but they are common characteristics. These people are “dis-ease” or away from ease where alcohol is concerned, but why is that?

Two things happen to this minority of drinkers that sets them apart from their social drinking counterparts, but not many will know about these changes and they will find it difficult to understand or explain why they drink so much. Gradual and subtle changes occur in the minds and bodies of these drinkers and if they continue to drink, they will cross the line into alcoholism.  

Let’s first of all look at the change that occurs in the mind. Alcohol helps people to relax and momentarily at least, to forget the problems of the world. A small child will learn from experience and as certain incidents become memorised by the sub-conscious mind, he or she will react automatically to future events, based upon this learned past experience. Likewise, the mind of a drinker will remember that alcohol helped in the past when some difficulty or other had to be faced. When another life problem arises, the mind remembers and sends out a sub-conscious message along the lines of: “A few drinks would fix this”. Alcohol may indeed help in dealing with the problem and the message that it really works is further etched into the memory.

As time goes by, what had been a means of dealing with difficult problems starts to be used for handling more common life events. The drinker will usually be unaware that alcohol has started to become a crutch to lean on and will find ways to justify his or her drinking. People, places, and things will be used as a convenient excuse to drink. When a suitable excuse cannot be found, one will be manufactured, for example, by picking a fight with a family member, and then storming out of the house to sit on the bar stool. As drinking becomes more entrenched, emotions such as self-pity, self-loathing, and a lack of confidence come to the surface. An attitude of: “If you had my problems, you would drink too,” or “What the hell, I don’t care anyway” will often prevail. Drinking becomes an OBSESSION.

An obsession for alcohol on its own could be somewhat manageable but there is another aspect to the problem that makes matters much worse, and that is a change that occurs in the body of these drinkers. The body of a so-called normal drinker will break down alcohol into water, sugar, and carbon dioxide and these will be disposed of without difficulty. The body of the alcoholic does not contain enzymes of sufficient quantity or quality to allow this process of breaking down alcohol to be completed successfully. Consequently, traces of a chemical called acetone remain in the body. (Ladies who use nail polish remover will be familiar with the smell of acetone). The result of this is that when a small quantity of alcohol such as one drink is consumed, the body develops a strong CRAVING for more. A signal is sent to the brain, another drink is taken, and the craving in the body gets even stronger. This is why an alcoholic will keep drinking long after most other people have stopped at a few drinks. It is also the reason why it is the first drink, not the sixth, tenth etc. that causes the problem for the alcoholic. If the first drink can be avoided, the craving for more cannot develop.

That is a brief description of the problem of alcoholism. In the next post, I will look at a solution to the problem.