Frequently when I am teaching an alcohol class I ask students to reflect on their drinking. I want them to think about going beyond their historical drinking patterns, but look at their personal happiness at each stage as well. Has drinking improved your happiness over time?
What is Your Level of Happiness?
This sounds like an easy question, but is it easily answered? Don't forget this significant fact - alcoholic beverages are depressants. While some will feel a burst of energy when they have a drink or two, they will eventually come down as alcohol actually causes the central nervous system to slow down. Drinking over a long period of time will increase this effect and can cause irreversible damage to the central nervous system.
Chances are if you are reading this and you are a heavy drinker, you are not happy. While your alcohol consumption may not be the only reason for your lack of happiness, it surely isn't helping the situation.
Bumming You Out
it's worth repeating, alcohol is a depressant. Having instructed alcohol awareness classes, and having attended hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, I can tell you that excessive drinking is most assuredly a contributing factor to the big D - depression.
There is no pill that will remove an alcoholic's depression as it is driven by extremely negative emotions - anger, guilt and self-loathing. It's a inescapable cycle of bad feelings, continued drinking and very bad decisions.
Regardless of what the popular perception is, problem drinkers mostly don't deny their problem. Though they are able to justify their behavior too will suffer from alcoholism or have some other type of addiction. How do you think that makes them feel?
Relationships with Others are Vital
Do you have many people you feel intimate with? I don't mean superficially. I am talking about close personal contacts, friends and family, who you feel bonded to. Once again, the odds the more you are involved in drinking, the less people you are close to. I don't care how many people have friended you on Facebook; I am talking about in person interaction.
Daily phone contact voice-to-voice is a great way to bond people. Twitter and Facebook are superficial and provide only a tiny bit of positive emotional or psychological bonding with other people.
Personal relationships, building lasting physical, mental, spiritual and emotional ties is what being alive is all about. As alcoholism progresses it makes those who are involved with it disconnect themselves from real living falling into alcoholism induced psychological and emotional inertia.
Redeem Your Life and Redevelop Relationships
I encourage each of you who reads this to assess your relationships. Consider those people you feel close to now, were close with recently and have virtually lost contact with over the years.
If you were ever close to these people, and you have fond memories of them odds are they have similar thoughts and feelings about you. If you remember a happy time associating with them, or you made a strong personal bond at one point, there is definitely the spark to relight that connection fire.
Many heavy drinkers, who suffer from guilt and anger over their drinking problems and their life really end up with very low self-worth. Reconnecting with those who you felt positive about being around will not only help you see the good person you once were, but make you feel and believe you can again be a good person. And if you need help getting through your alcohol addiction, you should seriously consider alcohol awareness classes.
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