Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselling Thread

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I MUST agree with the Dr's Opinion

my one-of-three friends drinks excessively. hes done it since he was a teen, and personally i dont see how he can be changed. by me allone = NO way. by me + our other mutual friend = NO way. theres not a LOT of love or respect between us, we just go a long way, and we know each others well. its a strange friendship.

so far, me and the other guy, all we do is complain about how stupid and drunk he is, how he keeps up his drinking, and then we get stoned.

im not seeking to go out and help the guy. hes knee deep in other issues that need to be handled first, that i HAVE told him repeatedly to see to...
but what CAN be done?
talk doesnt help. "stop drinking." "this aint healthy for you." "look at all the trouble you get into." "liver." nothing helps, he "knows, he knows" and thats about it.

well, first of all, the 'other' issues in his life should not have priority over his drinking issues. Chances are most of them will be solved or well on their way to being solved by his not drinking.

Second of all, and this is the kicker, he has to WANT to get sober. If he hasn't had enough then there is nothing anyone can do other than locking him up, but that only gets him dry. If he doesn't want to get sober, he doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell.

Sobiety programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous only attract maybe one tenth of the alcoholics in the world, and only one tenth of that one tenth ever make it to their first 5 years. The odds aren't good. Alcoholism is deadly and insidious. It is like Diabetes, as you never get over it, you are always having to deal with it and you have to take steps to continually be on top if it.

If the dude would rather just "@#$!" it and not deal, all the talk, jail, court, mental institutions are not going to do anything for him but simply house his body.

sorry, we can't save 'em all.

yeah, thats what i thought.
hes always knee deep in issues, his drinking is on and off in intensity, but is always there.
even when he has quit daily guzzling down of booze, and "downgraded" to beer, he will still turn completely wacko when he gets drunk, which is what still surprises us.
its strange to actually watch it happen.
i got another alkie friend, but who seems to... "deal better" with it, maybe cus he lacks those extra mental illnesses... i dunno how to explain it, like he seems "better prepared" to be one :S his whole family are alkies, so even as kids, we suspected where he was headed

the other one on the other hand is mentally ill, and we all notice how his drinking messes him up a lot. his behaviour is a lot worse and more worrying than that of the speed-addict neighbors i had for a while :I

All of what you wrote is irrelevant to your claim that alcoholism is a disease. You've been sober for 24 years, good job, but that's hear-say and is irrelevant to your claim. Spirituality has nothing to do with your claim of alcoholism being a disease. Diseases don't have anything to do with the super natural, whether or not someone is spiritual, or their religious beliefs. Asking me a question on whether or not I have had good results by changing my behavior is irrelevant to your claim of alcoholism being a disease.

How is alcoholism a disease? How can someone determine if they have the alcoholism disease? There are no tests that can determine whether or not someone has this disease. Is it genetic? Probably not genetic, no one has proved there's an "alcoholism gene."

I'm under the impression that you attend 12-step meetings, right? What you wrote above is what 12-Step members typically believe, which is fine. Whatever works for them.

Anyways, have you ever been to Asperger's Syndrome Anonymous? There is such a thing. No one really goes, I'm guessing. The 12 steps in that program are basically the same as Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-steps, except the first step is admitting you're powerless over your Asperger's syndrome and cannot manage it.

Sinsboldly is right, the guy has to want to stop or see that his behavior is messing up his life. Nothing you can really do about it.

if I understand this correctly. He drinks, you complain about it, then get high in front of him. One could say you're being a hypocrite. Stoners tend not to mix well with alkies .

the problem is not being a 'hypocrite', the problem is there is no example to follow. Most people get over poison oak if they stop walking through the patch of it every day. The same with getting over the compultion to drink, if you don't have triggers around you all the time, it helps the situation. If you don't have healthful triggers then it continues the drink, drunk, regret, drink, drunk, regret cycle.

I just stumbled across this friend and was intrigued to find that others called it a solution to dealing with aspie symptoms. My roommate has informed me that I actually get weirder when I've been drinking and make guests more uncomfortable. I only feel more normal.

It would be a mistake to assume that drugs and alcohol are the sole cause of a person's condition. Members of your social group might even take the opportunity to treat you badly and then scapegoat you for your emotional reaction on the basis of your decision to use drugs.

I managed to quit smoking and have found a strategy for alcohol that really works for me. First, I'm honest with myself about how many beers I drink in a day. I'll mark it on the calendar each time: '2B.' '3B.' This allows me to at least see what I'm doing. Then, if I feel I've been drinking a lot, I underline the next few days and write 'NB' or write 'Comm: NB' (Commitment: No Beer) on the calendar.

I haven't broken a commitment since.

I agree its a behavior and not a disease. (I went to the jungles of South America and caught alcholism- That doesn't make any sense.) I'm not a doctor, but I am a long term drinker. I started when i was 15 and I'm now 40. I've been drinking for a decade longer then I've been sober. I know a little bit about the subject.

I can't speak for all cases. But many times this is not true. In my case it's not true. You can't judge others unless you have taken a walk in their shoes.


Yes. 100% true.


If you don't really care about life, then these health arguements are worthless.


Some don't want to be 'saved'. For some this is the less of two evils.

Some nights I down quite a few glasses of wine to dull the pain.

Even my Shrink admits that it is "self medicating" rather than being an "alcohol problem"

These days I don't even feel sick or have a hangover.

God knows what it is doing to my liver.

My point is this: Sometimes you feel overwhelmed. What are you going to to?

well i have relapsed again, and have had my face in the toliet almost all morning. basically this is like the 500 millionth time ive relapsed and now im just hanging out until i die. does this sound familiar? hey i feel an emo song comming up

Not easy! Dope used to just make me more inhibited than usual whilst drink allowed me to let go of inhibitions.
People commented that my personality changed radically when drinking......became very talkative and repetitive..... = very boring.
Using drink to selfmedicate was probably what I and countless others do/did. I thought I became more sociable and definately felt much more outgoing......the results being that my then lack of inhibition had non-sociable behaviour that was not "approved of" by so called "normal" social drinkers.
I did go to AA for some years and stopped drinking for 12 years. At this time I was a member of a dance group and all social activity revolved around dance rehearsals, performances and social dance outings. GREAT! NO NEED TO VERBALLY COMMUNICATE!
At this time it was not difficult to not drink alcohol even in the company of those who would have a few or a few too many.

Once the dance group folded and life moved on to other things I was once again confronted with SOCIALISING...... which meant relating verbally.....
At a family 40th party a cousin said" make sure you ask for the blue label champagne, it is the best" she knew about my "problem" and that I hadn't had any alcohol for 12 years.
IT was ME who asked for the champers and I drank it and about a thousand vinyards of grapes worth. I felt it helped me cope with being in the company of a "million" or more people I'd never met before. IT DIDN'T!

That was 12 years ago, and now after 12 years of drinking to "cope" with social situations I find that even a little wine watered down with sparkling mineral water or tonic will leave me exhausted for days. No I don't get a hangover per se as I probably was drinking equivalent of
maximum two standard drinks in the evening out.

Recently I asked myself " Do I want to attend social situations where I feel very uncomfortable or graciously bow out of such occasions"? My real friends will understand and the rest...... well !
There will be times where I'll feel obliged to attend for my partner's sake... but that will mean making a brief appearance. In a week's time we are going to a wedding of a cousin's child...I will go to the church and then go back to my inlaws to sleep. The others can go to the reception.... the loud music, incessant talking and bright lights will be too much ..and I don't want to be tempted to drink in the interest of my own happiness and that of others.

I KNOW IT WON'T BE EASY!

I started AA meetings in 1980, but didn't get sober until 1991 and have stayed sober ever since. But it was because of potential trouble with the law and realizing I wasn't passing out, I was blacking out and doing things I didn't remember and it scared me, not because of AA. I couldn't keep a sponsor more than three days so I tried to work the steps on my own while attending meetings.

The 12 step program spirituality eventually led me to a church where I experienced my first acceptance as an aspie in a real world setting. I got honest with them about being an aspie and could just be me without pretending and this alone might help. But this is also a relatively new find and not sure yet exactly how it will pan out over the long haul.

12 Step meetings served me well in role modeling "normal" behavior and that social acceptance was possible after socially unacceptable behavior, but no one there could accept me. Last fall an Overeaters Anonymous sponsor suggested I quit AA because the rejection caused so much anxiety it made me binge. He then turned around and did a 13th Step, trying to convince me the best way to overcome my childhood sexual abuse was to reenact it in a healthy setting.

I am now looking for a female OA sponsor by mail so I can let my written responses sit for three days and rewrite them before I send them out. Not sure whether to admit upfront whether I'm an aspie or not. Might benefit from any sponsorship I can get until I find somebody I feel comfortable enough with to explain it to.

I am so addicted to cafeine and sugar that I eat almost nothing else despite diabetes and sleep apnea that needs a tracheostomy that they refuse to do because my weight is so high it would kill me. Another five pounds and I'll stop breathing. But I can't stop eating the stuff even though I hate it and what it's doing to me. I am reading a lot that says it's normal to self-medicate ADHD with caffeine to the point of doing brain damage if it doesn't get diagnosed. I have all the signs but still struggle with finding someone to diagnose it and treat it.

Possible professional help is down the road, but bureaucracy works slowly and it might not work in time.

I can get addicted to absolutely anything. I think I'm addicted to this website. I spend all my time on it instead of doing all the daily living stuff and paperwork that can keep me out of the institutions I've been fighting off for a year.

Yes, there are ... and I hope nobody minds my jumping in here!

Personally, however, and since no medical doctor or any other human being can treat either part of it, I do not bother with viewing alcoholism as a disease.

How can someone determine whether s/he has alcoholism?

1) Try to never drink any more than two drinks per day (and with at least two hours in-between) and see what happens;
2) Try to quit altogether if the two-per-day limit proves to be impossible.

As an Aspie, I was a 24-year-old "sitting duck" for the effect I got from alcohol the very first time I ever drank it, and that experience immediately drove (or drew?) me into an obsession I was never able to overcome ... but today, that problem has since been removed.

Honestly I know little about it but I think the addiction/disease thing is a misunderstanding. All that's meant is addiction should be treated as though it were a disease not that it is actually a disease. It's a concept that's useful for treatment purposes but some people have taken it elsewhere for various reasons.