A recent relapse has caused me to relive those thirty days, so I know exactly what you’re going through. However, I can attest to the fact that it becomes manageable. It’s like a death in a sense, it gets easier and easier as a year then two, then three go by, but I don’t think it ever goes away.

The first thirty days of sobriety are of course the hardest. Fear, anxiety, and uncertainty are sure to set in along with feelings of guilt, seclusion, and depression. This will happen; it’s a loss, just like any other and it will feel bleak and hopeless for a while. Isolation can set in, and I believe it’s perfectly normal, but don’t let it continue for more than a few weeks without seeking help.

The first step in your first thirty days is to detoxify your body. Now, any heavy alcohol abuser will experience a detox which can last from one to seven days depending on the amount you were consuming. You should drink plenty of water and grab some multivitamins. Nutrition and rest are essential for returning your body to health. In any case, for severe withdrawal, I would never recommend doing it on your own. A medical detox at a local hospital is where you should be. Some alcoholics can suffer seizures or extreme hallucinations, and in some cases quitting cold turkey can be physically dangerous and even life threatening. There is medication in the hospital they can give you to lessen the suffering of withdrawal such as Librium, Valium, or Tranxene.

You must keep in mind that you are NOT abstaining from alcoholic drinks to punish yourself; you are frankly doing it to save your life.

Next, you must decide exactly what remedy is for you.
People have gotten sober without inpatient treatment before, so if you are doing this on your own, there are prescriptions you can take to try and ease the obstacles to sobriety.

Acamprosate (Campral) - An anti-craving drug. I have tried it and had fairly good results in lessening my cravings.

Disulfiram (Antabuse) – This can be a deterrent for you, although not an anti-craving medication, if you drink alcohol, the drug produces a severe physical reaction. Typical symptoms’ include vomiting, accelerated heart rate, throbbing headache, shortness of breath, mental confusion, fainting and even circulatory collapse. You must have great ambition to not drink in order for the medicine to be safe for you to take.

Naltrexone - A shot once a month can significantly reduce the rate of heavy drinking in patients with alcohol dependence. I have yet to try this, but hear that it works well, yet very expensive.

Now you don’t necessarily have to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, but in my experience you need at least one person in your life that is in recovery. It’s not that misery loves company, but misery understands misery. I have found this extremely useful in the past. Someone to talk to that actually “gets it”. On that same note, you may have to lose friends, people you’re going to have to stay away from because they are heavy drinker themselves. A lot of pain arises in this, so surround yourself with as many recovering alcoholics you can find.

I’m a firm believer that positive thinking is the only way to fight for your sobriety. Focus on things you are grateful for. Maybe five things you can take comfort in, but think of them often.

It is wise to read as much as possible on the subject of alcoholism and recovery, because as cliché as it is….knowledge truly is power. You want to make it this time, because alcohol has too many damaging effects from long term binge drinking. From my experience some of that damage, even after a couple of years of sobriety, is permanent. My brain just doesn’t work like it used to.

Keep in mind while you’re battling your addiction of the long-term effects of chronic heavy alcohol consumption. It’s time to scare yourself straight. It impairs brain development, and can causes brain shrinkage. It increases neuropsychiatric and cognitive disorders and causes distortion of your brain chemistry. Alcoholism is associated with possible development of major depressive disorder and a number of other mental health disorders. You can develop serious gastrointestinal, liver, and cardiovascular destruction. Bone loss and higher risk of cancer are also factors.

The sad truth is each year about 100,000 Americans die of alcohol-related causes. Alcohol is also a factor in nearly half of ALL traffic deaths, and approximately 30% of all suicides. You don’t want to be a statistic, and neither do I.

WOMEN - It is proven that women are more susceptible than men to a variety of the medical consequences of heavy alcohol use. Alcoholic women develop cirrhosis, nerve or heart muscle damage after fewer years of heavy drinking than do men

Remember to reward yourself as time goes on!. The money you spent on liquor should be used to spoil yourself to something! Remember life’s simple pleasures and things you have lost sight of.

In closing, here are some quotes and book recommendations that have comforted me in my struggles.

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.”- Epicurus

“I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice.” -Abraham Lincoln

The following are quotes from a motivational author of self-help and new thought books. Her name is Louise Hay and she has authored two books that I would highly recommend - “You Can Heal Your Life”, and “The Power Is Within You”.

“Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the main keys to positive changes in every area of our lives.”

“You are the power in your world! You get to have whatever you choose to think!”

“The point of power is always in the present moment.”

“Every thought we think is creating our future.”

There is a book by The Dalai Lama, called “The Art of Happiness”, which I also highly recommend. Here are some quotes of his I like:

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

“It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.”

“So many of the problems and troubles we run into are created by our mistaking for permanent that which is actually impermanent.”

Well YES, I am going to rehab, even though I feel I can teach some of the classes there, since I’ve been to treatment so many times. My longest sobriety came from me wanting it more than anything I’d ever wanted in the world. And I did it on my own and for a couple years It lasted bountifully. Then I threw it all down the drain when I relapsed.

I am insane. In fact it was Albert Einstein who defined the word insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Quicksand has one again surrounded me in all directions.

Anyone who has followed me knows that I am NOT a fan of Alcoholics Anonymous, However, there are parts of the Big Book that have really gotten to me and Bill W. was quite a man. My favorite quote of his is also my biggest dilemma.

“The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.”

It haunts me to think that I might have these thoughts 20 years from now. And I do believe that if a hell exists, it’s here on earth because I have been there, and am back there now.

A few weeks ago, I would have fought tooth and nail to not enter treatment again, but
my depression had worsened, and I lack the coping skills to deal with my alcoholism alone at this point.

My mission is to be sober again. That’s why I am choosing to go back to rehab. You learn something new everyday, and I don’t doubt I will during the course of the next four months I have disrupted my brain chemistry once more by choosing to drink again, and I know it takes time to heal that damage.

For me It’s time for peace, it’s time for reflection, and time to move forward to a higher quality of life. This will be my retreat. I know I am strong enough to fight. I have a thirst for returning to good health, and a desire to be free again. I will step into those treatment center doors a broken and wounded person, but I have ambition and confidence on my side, and I shall walk out of those doors flourishing.

Wish me luck, the only thing I am waiting on is an extension to my medical insurance to be able to pay for the long term care.

I will keep in touch until I leave.

“Just like moons and like suns, with the certainty of tides

–Maya Angelou

But I am a firm believer that my alcoholism is a symptom of my mental illness.

Afterwards, I Spent 12 days in a behavioral health hospital to do some intense trauma therapy for my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The treatment is called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). It is a psychotherapy treatment used to alleviate the depression and agony associated with traumatic memories. It was recommended to me for my anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, and insomnia. It’s a procedure where Eye movements are used to occupy the person’s attention to an external stimulus, while the person is simultaneously concentrating on internal distressing memories.

As with any form of psychotherapy, there may be a temporary increase in distress. The
side effects can include unresolved memories brought to your attention, nightmares, and extreme feelings of sadness might emerge after treatment. At the end of EMDR therapy, they hope for the outcome of new healthy responses to the trauma.

I’d like to hear from anyone out there who has also tried this treatment, and how it did or didn’t work out for you.

Since I so recently participated, I am unsure of my results just yet…but will blog more later about it.

Just wanted everyone to remember:

Nobody chooses to be an alcoholic.

This is a brieef explanation of the disease by Lisa Frederiksen, author of “If You Loved Me, You’d Stop! What You Really Need To Know When Your Loved One Drinks Too Much.”

Her book combines the most current brain research on alcoholism and alcohol abuse with her own decades-long experience in dealing with these family problems. By explaining this research from the perspective of someone who has personally survived the ravages of a loved one’s drinking, Ms. Frederiksen offers fresh hope for the more than 50 percent of Americans (and the one in four children) who have a family member with a drinking problem. Though it is a slim volume at less than 120 pages, this book nevertheless addresses a host of issues surrounding alcoholism and alcohol abuse, including co-addictions, dual diagnosis, codependency, and, importantly, the characteristics that distinguish alcoholism from alcohol abuse.

This is part three of three from the series The Eyes of Nye, with guest Dr. Drew.

This is part two of three.
Alcoholism and drug addiction is a chronic relapsing brain disease.

PART ONE OF THREE … Bill Nye and Dr. Drew discuss alcoholism as a disease. Good for families of alcoholics to watch.

When my dependence on alcohol reached a level of debilitation and agony, my family had me involuntary committed to an alcohol treatment program. Since I was being mandated for treatment, it of course meant participation in Alcoholics Anonymous. It really didn’t matter what rehab they sent me to, data proved that somewhere around 95 percent of existing treatment programs adhere to the 12 step method, including places like The Betty Ford Center.

I was desperate to learn how to live sober, and I was ready to give AA my best shot. Like many others I was promptly turned off by the religious structure of it. Six of the twelve steps involve surrendering, confessing, and seeking God’s will. I am agnostic, but being required to participate, I still put forth the effort and energy to try and make the program work.

So the group taught me the first step, that I was to believe that I was powerless over alcohol. Yep, powerless, which I wasn’t sure I believed, but was able to make it through the step.

The meetings were decent at first. I liked the feeling of camaraderie, meeting people who knew just what it felt like to be me. After the initial feeling of acceptance though , I began to notice when certain people in recovery took their five minutes to speak, you’d never know what kind of negativity might come out of their mouths. Words would be thrown around like hopelessness, unhappiness, relapse, sadness, anger, and depression. People would tell their stories and feel the need to speak much about the past and use statements like, “I used to drink a half gallon of vodka a day.”, or “‘I miss watching football without my beer.” This send triggers out all over the place.

Step two and three, “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity’, and ‘Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to God as we understood him.’ I was stuck right there and couldn’t imagine moving on with these steps that outright went against my own belief system. I am passionate of my free will, and believe I am an independent decision maker. Why would I need to give that up?

I made my decision accordingly, and AA was just too religious for me personally. Even though AA continues to contend that their program is one of spirituality, everything points to the opposite. Other members used to tell me that I just needed a higher power…that’s all. And that higher power could be anything to me, a rock, a feather, or even a door nob. Well, I’m sorry, to me that was absurd. And come on now? Typically the Serenity Prayer or the Lord’s Prayer close almost every meeting . Alcoholics Anonymous thinks the answer to all problems in addiction would be to follow the twelve steps, read The Big Book (which might as well be the bible), and get a sponsor.

I’ve been to hundreds of different meetings, closed and open meetings, big book studies, and speaker meetings, so I am just as familiar as most. I read the Big Book many times and AA tells us, “Nobody can do it alone.” when the statistical truth is that most do.

I did.

What about the real statistics on recovery?? They are not easy to find, but in my own research, I’ve established that AA and treatment programs which include 12 step study, have abut a 3-5% success rate. Are you kidding me? I was amazed by those figures and what a complete waste of time. But hell, repeat business is the best business there is, right? Most alcoholics have to go to several treatment centers before they finally find whatever way leads them back to a normal life.

AA itself was not reported to be a religion, but it was found to contain enough religious components, that many courts in different states have ruled that parolees, inmates, people on probation, or involuntary commitments cannot be sentenced to attend AA as a punishment. It is a violation of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of our Constitution!

Alcoholics Anonymous has made it’s way into social services, welfare, and our health care system. In some states the penalty for resisting AA participation can be imprisonment, loss of welfare or health care benefits, and even death for those in need of a liver transplant that won’t get one because they don’t follow particular treatment options.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a group movement that has created the addiction treatment industry. Forget about the little baskets passed around in meetings, where people throw in a dollar or two every visit. Let’s focus on the donations that are sent strait to AA’s General Service Office, which is unlike the individual groups, making profit and even maintaining a small paid staff.

Self-supporting through their own contributions? That’s funny. According to AA Annual Reports, if Alcoholics Anonymous had to survive on the donations from its members only, there would be NO AA. The revenues come mainly from commercially run alcohol rehabilitation programs. Those rehab and treatment programs pay Alcoholics Anonymous for printed materials such as The Big Book. AA would love you to believe it is not out for profit, but based on its own yearly report, the bulk of the annual proceeds come from the profitable friendship with alcohol rehabilitation programs.

Believe me, for the average person the typical amount is about $1500.00 a day for in-patient alcohol abuse treatment. For them to allege that it is self supporting through its own contributions seems to me like F-R-A-U-D. Although it appears that anyone reporting on the failure of treatment programs not working is a huge economic threat to our treatment centers and health care.

Can you believe that people who attended AA and were taught to believe that they are powerless over alcohol, did five times as much binge drinking as those with no education in powerlessness??

If AA works for you, more power to ya’. If you’ve only been to treatment once and have a success story, congratulations!

In my experience in over five rehabs, of course in-patient treatment doesn’t work. Think about it, you are on a locked hospital unit with absolutely no access to alcohol, or drugs. You learn some cognitive behavioral therapy, and any may have a mental health check. But the whole time you’re there, your body and mind is waiting for the day that it can jump back into the real world for another drink. NOW THAT is dangerous.

I would never recommend a treatment facility that lasts longer than 30 days. Because I believe if you are or were a low down dirty alcoholic like me, you will need detox, and some time away from the availability of liquor. Other than that don’t waste you time, money, and hope.

Now don’t shoot the messenger. I am just getting the information out there. I write my blogs based on my own opinions, observations and research.

If AA works for you, more power to ya! If you’ve only been to treatment only once and have a success story, congratulations!

The debate is open…

That’s right! If you’re an alcoholic you have drunk dialed before, admit it!
With so much texting and emailing lately, it’s a whole new ball game!