The Dark Ages of Alcoholism/Addiction Treatment
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"dougwa" te...@earthlink.net
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/215596_firstperson14.html The Dark Ages of Alcoholism/Addiction Treatment As a long time time AA member (29 years), I read Byron Holocomb's article "Alcoholism is a character disorder" and Lee Somerstiens related article,"Alcoholism rips through all of society".
Somerstien has described what I call the AA "Party Line" .
For 50 years "Alcoholism Activists" have promoted the idea that Alcoholism is a "Disease". Most prominent was Marty Mann, an early AA . Mann founded the National Council on Alcoholism, through which she "educated" the general public about alcoholism and shaped the modern alcoholism movement .The treatment industry and AA in general have uncritically accepted the idea that alcoholism is a "disease".
What is less well known is that one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr.Robert Smith, did not believe that alcoholism is a disease: "Doc dwelt on the idea that this was an illness, but Doc was pretty frank with me. .....He pointed out that probably it was moral or spiritual illness, than it was a physical one"* We live in the dark ages of Alcoholism/addiction treatment. We have spawned a whole treatment industry that falsely believes and promulgates the "disease concept".But if not a disease or a genetic defect then what is alcoholism? What causes it?After all, it must have a cause.
Most treatment professionals would say it is "genetic",possibly an allergy, or,more honestly, that they don't know what causes it.
To understand the cause it is necessary to understand why the alcoholic drinks. Although he may say it is because he "likes" to drink,that is a lesser truth. The greater truth is he "likes" it because it relieves the pain of conscience.
Researchers are beginning to find some clues about this, and it has to do with what is commonly called post traumatic stress syndrome.
**The post-traumatic stress field generally considers drug abuse and alcoholism to be symptoms of stress caused by the underlying post-traumatic stress condition.
One form of post traumatic stress disorder is child abuse. Health Canada describes one of the consequences of child abuse to be : "chronic substance abuse/dependence".*** Alice Miller PHD has this to say about Alcoholism and child abuse: " Dis***ociated from the original cause, their feelings of anger, helplessness, despair, longing, anxiety, and pain will find expression in destructive acts against others.... or against themselves (drug addiction, alcoholism)**** People with PTSD are more likely than others with similar backgrounds to have alcohol use disorders both before and after being diagnosed with PTSD, and people with alcohol use disorders often also have PTSD.***** Sixty to eighty percent of Vietnam veterans seeking PTSD treatment have alcohol use disorders.****** Now you may be thinking, "Maybe that's true of some , but not everybody was abused ". And that is true. But my experience is that most alcoholics have been traumatized in varying fashions and degrees.
The thing they all have in common is that have hated as a result of trauma.
Let me say it plainly and simply. Hate and resentment is the root of alcoholism. And, yes, forgiveness is the cure. And that is an issue of character.
Ted W.
*P.219, The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd edition.
**Etiotropic Trauma Management by Jesse Collins *** The Consequences of Child Maltreatment: A Reference Guide for Health Practitioners . A Reference Guide for Health Practitioners was prepared by Jeff Latimer for the Family Violence Prevention Unit, Health Canada.
****"The Newly Recognized,shattering effects of Child Abuse,By Alice Miller *****National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet ****** Ibid.
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"F.H." connec...@verizon.net
This one made me laugh out loud. :)
Virtualoso neow...@sbcglobal.net
Ah, yes -- "the post-traumatic stress industry"... er, "field". Dark ages, indeed. Mere psychiadescriptions posing as so-called "disorders".
MUCH better replacement for the word "disease", even if these mere description "disorders" are ALSO commonly referred to as "illnesses".
The Age of Enlightment amounts to mincing the (***erted) key difference between "illness" and "disease"? Wow. Breakthrough!!!
But, even more importantly, it can at last detour and drive busine$$ to the PTSD Industry. Except, that would require bona fide, qualified psychiatrists. After all, they are the ONLY PERSONS able to properly "diagnose" or "treat" such things -- even if these things continue to turn out to be no more than mistaken, chimerical reifications.. And, with the supremacy of biopsychiatry it's SCIENTIFICALLY PROCLAIMED (as opposed to actually, manifestly proven at all) that: 1) There is not and never has been any "cure" for ANY major psychiatric "disorder". Best case is the mysterious "spontaneous remission". But that's usually a "disease" oriented term. Oops.
2) "Treatment" amounts to a perpetual "managing" of "symptoms" (specific description factors, usually inconvenient to a "patient" or other people).
3) The most pervasive "treatment" is manifestly powerful unproven or disproven brain drugs, on a remarkably ambiguous trial/error basis with no actual clinical premise for any of it, nor any method of genuinely clinically checking efficacy. Progress.
Thus, Enlightened Darwinian Biopsychiatry has trumped all those mere Doctors of Philtalkery by endrunning their $cam of pretending that their psycholo$haman gigs get any particular results for any particular thing. Drugged brains demonstrate MUCH more perceivable "results". Even if these apparently amount to some selectivity in disabling brain function in the medically induced addicts, while simultaneously causing them all the rather more medically established "side effects" which very well could be the actual "main effects".
And so, the eclipsing of the psychiaindustry in the wake of their dismal failure at substantiating their Dark Age exorcism rituals of "psychoanalysis" has been deftly salvaged via not only abandoning that voodoo, but also now strutting right over the psycholoversions of it, to re$tore the psychiatricks of the trade only possible with their MD: prescriptions. And being in bed with the Psychiaceutical Industry makes for a formidibly Powerful Team, if an unholy alliance.
By the way, those "researchers" mentioned above. And those "clues".
Sounds like they really just don't and can't, scientifically, know yet.
Right? Could they be PTSD Industry folks attempting to credify their gig, rather than truly objective researchers? Key question: who's paying them and for what?
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Tom twizz...@hotmail.com
It amazing how Ted W just keeps the breakthrough's coming one right after the other. While others wile away at which came 1st the egg or the chicken, Teddy continues to eat the egg for breakfast and saves the chicken for dinner.
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Virtualoso neow...@sbcglobal.net
Which displays the bizarrely self-referrential, loopy nature to the thing. "PTSD" is a mere description, pretending to identify a supposed "thing" via merely ***erting a set of descriptive factors amounts to that. So, by definition, "alcohol abuse disorders" are among those descriptive (cum "diagnostic") sets for PTSD itself. Well, NO WONDER, but that as far as it gets from actually proving a darn thing. And is a sorry fraud in terms of "science", much less "medical".
Other common symptoms found concurrent with, or thus also possibly definitive of, PTSD are habitual sleeping, chronic eating, and Excuse Fixation Behaviors.
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Kai Ruuska sobe...@luukku.com
dougwa kirjoitti: Sure. It's caused by the Devil. Or Momma.
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Kai "Come, muse, let us sing of rats!"
SeppDietr ...@comcast.net
Marty Mann was a notorious lesbian,she drank again later in life,whether or not she died sober I can't say.So much for that.
You are an idiot,it says several times in the Big Book that alcoholism is a 3 fold disease,physical,mental,and spiritual.Have you ever read it?
I don't care how long you've gone without a drink,you are suffering from the Bedevilments listed on page 52 in the Big Book.And further,just what gives you the right to talk down to alcoholics like you are on a moral hilltop?
"Sepp"
Virtualoso neow...@sbcglobal.net
Most everyone has that right. Alkies are lowlifes, no-nothings, defective, oft disgusting, demonstrably nutty, untrustworthy, debauching, louts. Even if good at it.
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Kai Ruuska sobe...@luukku.com
GaryE kirjoitti: Naw, couldn't be that. It's just plain silly to even suggest *drinking* *alcohol* could be a factor in causing alcoholism. The Devil sounds like a much more reasonable explanation. Or Momma, of course.
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Kai "Come, muse, let us sing of rats!"
SeppDietr ...@comcast.net
Queers like you belong behind bars where the alkies can give you the only thing that can straighten you out.In your case I imagine it would take two cocks,one in the *** and one in the mouth to satisfy you.Har,Har,--Har!
Just get caught again driving without your license and you may enjoy some down time in the CDC.
"Sepp"
"dougwa" te...@earthlink.net
CONSTITUITON TED
"Ron G" r...@network12.com
Many alcoholics believe wholehartedly in the Big Book and what is written there but I think that the 3 fold issue is opinion and not factual.
RonG
SeppDietr ...@comcast.net
You are a holier man than I.
"Sepp"
Virtualoso neow...@sbcglobal.net
Many folks hold an opinion that they don't agree nor accept AA and its basis. Old news. Some tiny few of these demonstrate the odd pursuit of going to the bother to tell AA members of this, though. For some reason.
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SeppDietr ...@comcast.net
Holier than thou Christianizers like dougwa who can't accept the fact that Jesus doesn't get mentioned in the Big Book and think it blasphemous that AA allows me to have a personal God.
"Sepp" [I am a very holy man]
"dougwa" te...@earthlink.net
Queers like you belong behind bars where the alkies can give you the only thing that can straighten you out.In your case I imagine it would take two cocks,one in the *** and one in the mouth to satisfy you.Har,Har,--Har!
Just get caught again driving without your license and you may enjoy some down time in the CDC.
"Sepp" The above is an example of how "Holy" Sepp is. He is a foul mouth crude rude person. And it wouldnt be hard for anyone to be holier than thou.
"Ron G" r...@network12.com
I think that it is valid from time to time to mention that the BB and it's writings are not absolute and not necessarily based in empirical fact. Too easy to become a thumper's thumper. Just ask GaryE RonG
Virtualoso neow...@sbcglobal.net
"Valid"? Uh, where does that come from? Empirical fact? Actually, it's mostly based in empirical fact. But what the heck is the premise or purpose of "mentioning" that things aren't "absolute" and to just whom, for what purpose?
Just trying to take care of folks you're imagining need that, or what?
He's the Grand Self-Appointed Scientismist Chest Thumper, ironically continuing to demonstrate exemplarily exactly that which he pretends to denounce. It's a riot.
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"dougwa" te...@earthlink.net
http://www.ongoingsupport.org.uk/ALICE%20MILLER%20ARTICLE.htm The Newly Recognized, Shattering Effects of Child Abuse
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