Alcohol Abuse Advice

“Reading Beyond The Label”

In my 20 years of professionally employed in the behavioral healthcare field, a number of them in direct counseling environments working with those clients who have such labels stamped on their forheads, I’ve come to realize how those names impede the recovery process. Time and time again I have witnessed the inabilty for a diagnosed addict, and those trying to help them, to get past the drug itself, or the flavor label of the day as the primary component of the problem. Until identified client and those who love and care about them are able to get past this misused identification, recovery is not possible. So of course the question is, how do we get past the labels and find a true identity beneath it all ? Obviously first and foremost the client must have a sense of willingness, a flag of surrender, a desire for change before anything can happen. Once such an honest admission takes place, then putting down the drug of choice becomes a little easier. It’s easy to speak words, it’s harder to take action. For the client, this may in fact mean a undetermined length of stay in a detox center or hospital, depending on the severity of their use, and how they repsond physically and emotionally from the withdrawal of the drug. Now the individual is ready to engage in the most painful, yet rewarding process of recovery…the revealing of one’s soul. No person who has been taken over by addiction is immune to possessing those deep, dark secrets of their being that they keep secure within the confines of their inner most selves, unannounced to those around them. For many, such demons have lived freely within for many, many years, as early as infancy, or at the time of conception. Born into a world of chaos, such formation begins immediately upon exposure and become what I like to refer to as “core issues”. It is these issues that are at the heart and soul of every addiction, they are the fuel that burns the fire of every drug. When the book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written, also knwn as the “Big Book”, Bill Wilson described alcohol as merely a symptom of the disease of alcoholism. He clearly was on to something beyond his years. The book went on to further state that anyone afflicted had to get down to “causes and conditions” of their malady. Core issues is really what he was talking about and the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is but one means to begin to address those issues. My personal and professional experience has found that a number of tools and resources are required to effectively begin the healing process of such opened, infected wounds. Some may choose inpatient treatment, others a combination of outpatient therapy and a 12-step type program, still others find healing in the midst of their spirtual practices and houses of worship. Whatever path you choose to take, there is no right or wrong one, as long as you have honestly surrendered and long for the discovery of your true self, not some temporary label.