The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The presumption that alcoholism stems from an underlying emotional disorder reasonably suggests that once the “problem” is uncovered and dealt with in therapy, alcoholics should be able to drink moderately like everybody else.

AA is full of people who have tested the waters or are testing this theory without success. Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. Researchers (people who don’t have a drinking history), have also attempted to show that alcoholics can be taught to drink moderately.

In 1973, California psychologists Mark and Linda Sobell reported on a study in which they used behaviour modification techniques to train twenty alcoholic men as social drinkers. The Sobells had followed the men for two years and reported that 85% were “drinking moderately or not at all.” Later, these statistics were proved to be untrue.

The results made headlines around the world and why not? They contradicted established AA wisdom, psychologists, counsellors and psychiatrists who knew that alcoholism was a disease and could not be cured.

They suggested that alcoholism was a psychological disorder that could be treated and cured with behavioural therapy.  “Whoopee” said all the alcoholics!   Many of these men died as a direct result of returning to alcohol.

Ten years later, another team of researchers decided to take a second look at how the twenty men were doing. Their findings were shocking. Nineteen of the twenty men never drank moderately; the other subject volunteer had been mistakenly classified as an alcoholic and shouldn’t have been in the study.

Contrary to the Sobells’ claims, records showed that most of the men had been re-hospitalised for alcoholism within one year of discharge from the research project.

The harm that this worldwide report did cannot be measured. For years, many alcoholics believed the distorted results and tried to become social drinkers.

There were numerous court cases against the Sobells with families suing them for giving false hope to their loved ones who either died from alcoholism or committed suicide. Even now, most alcoholics want to believe that controlled drinking is possible.

I just ask my patients if they can control their diarrhoea and their answer is silence…………

It proves that there is “little cause for optimism about the likelihood of an evolution to long-term, stable, moderate drinking among alcoholics.”

Take the alcohol out of the fruitcake and you still have the fruitcake as alcohol is only a symptom of an underlying problem.

What can be done?  Help is only a phone call away. With the assistance of supplements, counselling, exercise and good nutrition, alcoholism can be put into remission, but never cured. Total abstinence is required to start the journey of recovery followed by counselling. The brain chemistry must be functional.

When it comes to feeling mentally and emotionally switched on, we have to have the correct brain chemistry – get it wrong and you will never achieve the feeling of wellbeing that you crave. The alcoholic has a predisposition to a depleted dopamine neurotransmitter – the centre of satisfaction in the brain.

What can we do about it? 

Tyrosine Mood Food is necessary for the manufacture of dopamine and noradrenaline, which are required for concentration, alertness, memory and a happy stable mood.

Magnesium Ultra Potent is the great relaxer and is assists in the reduction of stress, nervous tension, anxiety and sleeplessness.

LivaTone Plus supports liver function and metabolism and supports phase 1 and phase 2 detoxification pathways, ensuring optimum detoxification of many toxic substances, including alcohol.

 

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.