Addictions affect more than just the abusers

April is Alcohol Awareness Month. Chemical dependency on both alcohol and other drugs costs billions of dollars a year in health care, lost production, accidents and absenteeism.

Many people reading today’s column have either had a personal experience with the tragedy of chemical dependency or know someone who has been involved with drugs or alcohol. Following is some information on alcohol and drug dependency:

• Dependency on chemical substances is an overpowering urge to repeat the experience of becoming intoxicated or “getting high.” This urge is overwhelming and recurrent and normally extends the individual’s strength or willpower to resist the urge or craving.

• Contrary to what many people believe, this urge to drink or use drugs becomes independent of and not related in a cause and effect manner to other aspects of our lives. The adages “they drink because they are sad” and “they drink because they are happy and want to celebrate” show how the urge to drink is unrelated to any one psychological problem or state of mind. The urge to enter into a chemically produced altered state of consciousness, therefore, can be triggered by a number of events surrounding the person.

• Once the person becomes chemically dependent, the urge to become intoxicated achieves a focal point in one’s life and most everything else evolves around this urge. This urge or craving becomes stronger than other healthy biological drives such as a need for food, sleep or even sexual needs. A person’s life is controlled by this one primary urge, that of becoming intoxicated and achieving an altered state of consciousness produced by chemicals.

• After a person has become chemically dependent this dependency or state of being “hooked” never leaves the individual. The disease is considered by most authorities to be incurable and the treatment goal becomes one of attempting to place the disease in remission. After a period of sobriety, the craving or urge to enter into a state of intoxication is lessened and the feeling of control may begin to return to the individual. However, the problem will always be there and resumes its place as an active disease, the primary and central focus of an individual’s whole being, as soon as the individual resumes the use of the chemical to which he or she is addicted.

• There are many who are not “dependent” on alcohol or other drugs who never-the-less have alcohol – drug problems. These chemical abusers also create problems for themselves and others, especially their families. They too often benefit from treatment.

Individuals in treatment programs hopefully learn how to cope with the recurrence of the desire and urge to resume taking alcohol or drugs. Their willingness to continue in an aftercare program, one that continues after active treatment is discontinued, is often the critical variable in remaining sober.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 2001