Alcohol & Hepatitis

Lack of Self-Esteem in Alcohol Recovery

“I’m sober; but when I look around at other people, I realise I just can’t measure up. I’m not pretty and I’m not smart. I feel like I’m always on the outside looking in.” It’s the nature of the alcoholic to feel inadequate. Sometimes they feel inferiority battling superiority (the ego). While alcoholics underestimate themselves, they usually overestimate others. Other people are happier, better looking, smarter, more successful, richer, and more talented. Alcoholics use alcohol to make themselves feel better and to numb feelings of inadequacy, inferiority and low self-worth. They use alcohol to substitute for good feelings about themselves; to cover up what they see as their inadequacies, to paint themselves a personality that they believe can't exist without this help, to turn themselves into someone else. Often they tear down others in order to elevate themselves on a false pedestal of superiority. Part of the work of recovery is to rebuild self-esteem, to learn to accept yourself as you are, and to know that what you are is good.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

What’s on Your Mind?

“I’ve been sober for nearly 6 weeks and my head still feels and acts like a can of worms. I can’t think straight. Can’t concentrate and it’s impossible to get anything done. My motivation has gone along with my friend, the bottle! They told me that sobriety would clear my head and relieve me of my depression. I’m still waiting.” Although you will wake up to what your body is saying in early recovery, you may feel your mind is not saying anything at all. A reasonable description of the recovering alcoholic at this stage is “muddled and befuddled.” That’s almost certainly how you will feel but your mind is likely to be so numb and out of focus that you won’t even realize how bad your mental state was until you’ve passed through it. Your emotions, too, may seem frozen at first. Eventually the fog will lift but won’t vanish completely. Your brain is, in fact, probably the slowest part of the body to recover from the ravages of alcohol dependency.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Lest You Forget: The Bad Old Days

We humans have a wonderful ability to block out bad memories. That ability allows a mother who has endured a gruelling forty-hour labor to cheerfully return to the delivery room two years later, ready to go through the same harrowing experience again. It allows a person who has had a disastrous marriage to try again, and again. Unfortunately, our selective memory allows alcoholics to forget how awful things were when they were drinking and to jump-start the whole process for the umpteenth time. The advice to “remember your last drink” is valuable, but it’s difficult to do. So that your bad memories will remain forever an incentive to remain sober, capture them in words, pictures, or both.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis Essential Reading

Autoimmune diseases

Individuals who are infected with the hepatitis C virus are significantly more likely to develop autoimmune disease. Infections are well known triggers of autoimmune disease in genetically susceptible individuals. Viral infections in particular are able to initiate an autoimmune disease in some people. This is particularly the case in chronic viral infections. If a virus hangs around inside the body, it chronically irritates and stimulates the immune system, and in time this can produce an autoimmune disease.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Maintaining Sobriety

A few of my patients pick up a drink after 6 months sobriety and it’s generally through complacency. You have to work just as hard over the next 6 months to solidify your recovery. The ones who relapse before they achieve one year sobriety usually are the cocky ones who ease up on their program. If you continue to work hard at your recovery during the second six months, you tremendously improve your chances of long term sobriety. Don’t make major decisions during the first year of recovery as they are often regretted in the second year. With your mind still muddy, you are more likely to act on impulse now than on careful consideration.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Women and Alcohol

Women’s drinking patterns are different from men’s – especially when it comes to the type of beverage, amounts and frequency. Women’s bodies also react differently to alcohol than men’s bodies. As a result, women face particular health risks and realities. Women should be aware of the health risks associated with drinking alcohol. Current statistics indicate that many women drink 2 standard drinks per day x 7 days a week and a greater percentage of these women are using larger glasses to subliminally counteract feelings of guilt that they are drinking more than they should. Women are drinking more than men because they have more stress today than previous generations of mothers.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Controlled Drinking

“My husband says that he’s heard that instead of abstaining completely, it’s possible for an alcoholic to return to controlled drinking after a while.” File this one under “Impossible Dreams.” Unfortunately for those alcoholics who are fatally attracted to the idea of “controlled drinking,” there isn’t much evidence to support it. Long term studies don’t hold out much hope.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Impatience in sobriety “I want a quick fix!”

Alcoholics tend to be impatient people anyway so progress in their sobriety seems agonisingly slow. However, by keeping a diary, alcoholics can keep tabs on how they are feeling on a day to day basis instead of generalising it in a moment of despair. They should start to feel better after 7 to 10 days, depending on their detox program. Eventually, by keeping a daily diary, they will see that they are starting to feel better, one day at a time. However, anyone can stop drinking; it’s staying stopped that is the problem.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Alcoholism

OCD is a highly destructive disorder that can overtake the life of an individual and keep him or her from enjoying many of life’s most rewarding activities. Twenty five percent of people who seek treatment for OCD also meet the criteria for a substance abuse disorder.

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Alcohol & Hepatitis

Alcohol is only a symptom of an underlying problem

Put down the drink and it will be a temporary solution to a complicated problem. Anyone can stop drinking, it’s staying “stopped” that 99% of alcohol dependent people find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Major depression and other mood disturbances are the most common psychiatric complaint among treatment seeking alcoholic patients affecting upwards of 80% of alcoholics at some point in their drinking careers. Bipolar disorder is the second most common disorder associated with alcohol dependence followed by personality disorders. So you can see that putting down the alcohol is not as easy as it appears.

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