Alcohol is More Addictive than You Think

There is an idea that if someone goes to rehab for alcohol addiction, the problem must’ve been bad. How bad does something have to be for you to have to go to rehab to get sober and stay in recovery? This is a dated mindset. While not everyone needs to visit our outpatient alcohol rehab in Nashville TN, it’s important to recognize the importance of the recovery mindset, which everyone can benefit from. The recovery mindset is about examining one’s relationship to substance use and what drives us to consume. In the realm of addiction and addiction treatment, this is of course used to prevent relapse and help those with SUDs stay in recovery. However, this mindset is also helpful to people who may not

Most People Who Drink Have a Low Level Alcohol Addiction

For every person that is addicted to substances such as alcohol and choose to go to an alcohol rehab program for it, there are 10 more people who should go but don’t take that critical first step. Furthermore, there are 100 people more than those 10 who have problematic drinking habits but they aren’t enough to completely turn their life upside down. However, just because a habit isn’t uprooting your life and creating largely disruptive problems, doesn’t mean your use doesn’t fall into problematic territory. A person can abstain for 6 days of the week, and have double or triple the number of “standard drinks“, yet still suffer from the ill-effects of problematic drinking behaviors. A person who binges one day of the week as opposed to drinking several drinks a day is no better better or worse.

The reason why we began this article discussing the usefulness of the recovery mindset was to underscore that recovery isn’t just about getting clean from a substance use, it’s also about deeply understanding our need to self-medicate and why we wish the best for us but continually undertake self-destructive courses of action.

These are themes that everyone struggles with, not just those who are suffering particularly from substance abuse.

The main perpetrator of this combination of self-medication and self-destructive behaviors is alcohol.

The Prevalence of Alcohol Usage

According to the NSDUH (National Survey on Drug use and Health,

• 6 percent of people aged 18 and older in 2019 have self-reported drinking alcohol at least once in their life. So, more than 3/4s of the population will try alcohol at some point—many of them before they turn 18.
• Binge drinking was reported to have been indulged in by 25.8 percent of people 18 and older within the past month of the report date.
• An estimated 95,000 people die from alcohol-related causes annually

It’s important to remember, these statistics are not what they seem. 95,000 people dying from alcohol related causes annually doesn’t simply mean people who have drank alcohol to the point of alcohol poisoning. It means alcohol was a factor in their death—so that can mean trips and falls, drunken fights, drunk driving accidents, or health complications as a result of alcohol use.

So, for so many to be suffering from the ill-effects of overconsumption of alcohol, consider what that says about the number of people who suffer from everyday negative effects from alcohol usage that they brush off. When it comes to addiction, it is notoriously a slippery slope.

When do you say someone’s predilection for drinking alcohol has turned into a full-blown problem? Substance use disorders, like many things, lie on a spectrum.

The Alcohol Addiction and Social Acceptance

Alcohol is a substance that has been well known for hundreds of years to be not only addictive, but the downfall of many men and women. That’s not to say that a person can’t responsibly enjoy alcohol and some of the marginal benefits it can bring when strictly referring to moderate use, but the pervasiveness of it would have you believe that the substance wasn’t routinely in the list of top 5 most addictive substances in the world—it is.

Alcohol use in moderation has been shown to be fairly well tolerated—though not an excuse to start drinking if you don’t. However, that quickly turns around and the negative effects of alcohol consumption rear their head in both short term and long term scenarios.

This post is about bringing awareness to the addictiveness of alcohol, a level of addictiveness that may surprise people who feel they don’t have much of an issue. Consider that alcohol is one of the substances that, from withdrawal of, you can die.

The body quickly becomes dependent on alcohol, and cravings are or can be intensely physiological. The mild version of that is somewhat sinister, where if you are accustomed to having a few drinks a week, the absence of won’t be felt necessarily in withdrawal form, but you will notice quite suspiciously how often the thought of having a drink might cross your mind during this period of abstinence.

This shows the relationship between the physiological desires of the body and how intertwined they are with our mental state. We think our mind and body are often separate, but they are deeply interconnected—of course.

How to Know if Your Drinking Has Become a Problem – Do You Suffer from from Alcohol Addiction

Denial is something everyone experiences. No one wants to admit that they’re not in control. The purpose of this article is to propose that for many, they believe themselves to be in control of their alcohol consumption, and yet all signs point to otherwise.

Here are a few sign posts that will help you examine your consumption of alcohol and its place in your life:

1. Can you take a break when you want? No, really. Can you? Everyone says I can stop anytime I want, it’s one of the most common lies we tell ourselves, to the point of believing ourselves. The only way to know if you can stop drinking is to actually stop. Give yourself a week, two-weeks of no casual drinking, and you can observe how your mind tries to make all kinds of rationalizations and excuses to drink. These are some of the first things we hear from people who visit us for alcohol rehab in Nashville TN.
2. Are you capable of socializing without alcohol? Alcohol is dubbed the social lubricant for a reason. It gets people talking, it gets people looser and more willing to break out of their comfort zone with even just a single drink. This ability of alcohol is often used as a crutch. People build up their social circles around drinking and then harmful drinking habits become significantly harder to break out of it because they are socially entrenched. If every social get together is an occasion to test your willpower, it’s likely a losing battle. Even worse, some individuals when they choose to undergo a period of sobriety may come to realize that they don’t like their friends very much. It sounds harsh, but ask yourself if you would hang out with X person if you were both sober.
3. Are You Hurting Your Health? When we think about the health complications of alcoholism, we consider conditions such as liver damage and cirrhosis, cognitive impairment of long-term alcohol abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, etc. However, what about the effects of alcohol misuse on a smaller scale? Alcohol use effects our health, stamina, ability to achieve deep sleep. Have you skipped a workout because you were hungover? Have you dropped the ball on an important work project because you were going out on weekends and getting drunk? These are all common examples of alcohol having a negative impact on a person’s life but people seldom think they should cut back. They may even discover that stopping is harder than they think.

Alcohol Rehab Nashville TN

Going to an alcohol rehab is something everyone who is struggling with their alcohol consumption should consider. If you or a loved one are suffering from attachment to alcohol, even just a few hours of outpatient treatment a week or month can be hugely beneficial. No one develops an addiction or habit to drinking alcohol without there being some psychological reason behind it. Therapy can be greatly beneficial to understanding why you or someone you know has turned to self-medicating with alcohol.

At Southeast Addiction, we offer, among many things, a place to go for those seeking a qualified alcohol addiction rehab in Nashville TN. Contact us today at (770)-818-4325 to speak to a representative today.