Online Alcoholism & Addiction Counselling

A lot of people consume alcohol as a way to manage stress. How often this is effective as a coping strategy probably decreases as the amount you drink increases. But although alcohol doesn’t really work as a long-term way of handling stressful situations, it does provide relief in the short term. And this is where the problem starts.

Our tendency to consider short-term effects in preference to longer term ones is visible in many areas of our lives. But why can we not more easily use the negative consequences of alcohol in helping us decide how much to drink?

People use the word “stress” quite a lot, but what does it really mean? Do we all use the word to mean the same thing? Everyone perceives different things to be stressful, but a few aspects of our experience are probably universal.

The first aspect is that a feeling of stress arises when we believe situations in our lives require more of us than we are able to give in terms of emotional or mental energy. We become depleted, and our decision-making abilities seem to lessen along with this.

Another aspect of stress is that we encounter events which trigger the ‘fight or flight’ reaction inherited from our ancestors. When we sense threat, or the possibility of emotional pain ahead, or any outcome that might make us anxious at some level, adrenaline is produced to prime our bodies to take action and our blood pressure goes up.

Of course not many stressful situations require physical responses these days, we have to deal with most events through more subtle behaviours than running away or fighting. And yet consumption of alcohol does seem to allow us to effectively ‘run away’ doesn’t it? Maybe this explains it’s popularity.

How is it then that some people seem to manage stress better than others? Is it just their resilience? More likely it depends on our beliefs about ourselves, our estimation of our ability to handle the events in our lives, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we can effectively deal with events, there may be less urge to run away from them, and hence perhaps less urge to drink. If you are drinking less, then undoubtedly your capacity to respond to stress is improved.

We all make mistakes from time to time, it’s inevitable. But how you react to them can make a big difference to your self esteem.

What do you tend to say to yourself when you make a mistake? If you have a judgemental inner voice that says something like “I’m so stupid, I always make a mess of things” or, “why did you do that again, you’re so useless”, then of course you’ll feel bad about yourself as a result.

If you have many of these self-criticisms happening regularly, it tends to lower your opinion of yourself, and can lead to depression, and from there to drinking more.

Similarly, how you respond to your alcohol consumption has an impact on how you feel about yourself. If you drink more than you intended one night, you might judge yourself for it, saying something like “you’re such a loser, you got drunk again”. The consequences of such a thought are probably feelings of hopelessness and low self esteem. Contrast that with a different reaction to getting drunk, like “I wish I hadn’t done that again, I really need to work out what’s going wrong” – there’s no judgement or self-criticism in that, and you’re more likely to feel hope that you can change.

This is just one small example, but the important point is to listen out for the content of your inner voice, and notice when it’s being harsh or critical, then stop to consider what you could say to yourself instead that would be more understanding and caring.

And before you reject this idea, saying “but that’s just how I am”, these self-statements are not a fixed part of your personality, they are just habitual, so they can be changed.

You can start by making yourself more aware of what you habitually tend to say to yourself. Write it down when you notice you’re being self-critical, then you can begin to challenge such thoughts when they pop up next time, maybe something like “hang on a second, I’m not useless, I just made a mistake, that’s all”. No judgement, no labelling yourself as faulty, just an acknowledgement of human error, and maybe some forgiveness too.

As if you needed another excuse to have a drink. Now researchers in Spain have conducted a study of 40 000 people and found that those who drank alcohol regularly tended to have a lower risk of a heart attack than those who were teetotal (particularly for men over the age of 40). And the more you drink, the greater the protective effect.

Don’t forget of course that all the other health risks still apply – so you might not have a heart attack, you’ll just get liver cirrhosis instead, or pancreatitis, a stroke perhaps, or you could develop diabetes, or stomach cancer. So don’t take this as an excuse to have a drink after all.

The Independent

A Research Study, posted on behalf of the University of Essex.

· How does somebody develop an addiction?
· Are there childhood experiences that make it more likely that someone will develop such difficulties?
· Do those with such difficulties have different kinds of influential child experiences?

You can help us research and answer these questions. If you are over 18 and feel you have some difficulties with compulsive use of alcohol, drugs, sex or gambling then you are invited to follow this link and complete the online survey. It should take approximately 20 minutes to complete. Hopefully you will find the questions interesting, whilst adding to the literature on compulsive behaviours to inform professionals in the future.

Please click here to read more, to participate in the study click “Answer the Questions” at the bottom of that page.

Thank you for your help.

A recent research study published in the Lancet has demonstrated the effectiveness of online psychological counselling for mental health problems. The study followed a group receiving therapy over typed internet chat (or instant messaging), and found it more than doubled their chance of successful recovery from depression when compared to a control group just taking anti-depressants.

The study director Dr David Kessler said these results are comparable with those seen in face to face therapies. Clearly, some people find it useful to write down their thoughts as a way of talking through them.

If you think you might want to give it a try to help with your alcohol problems, get in touch with us here.

Many of you will say that you need a drink in order to sleep, that alcohol actually helps you sleep better. While it may be true that drinking will get you off to sleep quicker, unfortunately the quality of your sleep will be much worse overall.

Alcohol inhibits the brain from entering REM stage sleep, which is when we do most of our dreaming, and prolongs the initial stage of deeper sleep. So when you wake up, you will probably not have dreamt enough – and dreaming is an essential component of sleeping. That or you wake up early once the alcohol has worn off.

Alcohol also inhibits your kidneys from absorbing water, so you tend to urinate more, and end up dehydrated. This further disrupts the quality of your sleep, and often produces a headache by morning. As such you end up feeling tired and unable to concentrate for the rest of the day. If you drink every evening, then you may be chronically sleep deprived, even though you might sleep all night, the quality of your sleep is not what it should be.

Making the transition to drinking less is often marked by a difficulty in falling asleep however, so you’ll have to readjust to dropping off naturally again. Getting regular, strenuous exercise is a good idea then – if you’re physically tired you’re much more likely to be able to sleep without needing your usual ‘knock-out drops’.

An important factor in solving your problems with alcohol is talking to other people who understand what you’re going through, who won’t judge you for it, and who will genuinely share their experience without just trotting out the old clichés about drinking. I’m sure you’ve heard these many times from friends or family, like – “oh you don’t need to worry about it, you don’t have a drink first thing in the morning do you”, or “I don’t understand why you can’t just have a couple like I do” etc.

Of course most people immediately think of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings when they consider getting support from a group of people with drink problems. But again, many people are intimidated by the doctrine of AA, as the 12-step model it follows has certain expectations for you to fit into (though not all AA meetings strictly adhere to these principles). Similarly, some people are so uncomfortable and embarrassed about their drinking that they don’t want to admit it face to face with others, even if they are strangers.

Luckily there is now the option of communicating online, where the computer screen can grant you that cloak of anonymity (much like a catholic confessional, but without the “forgive me Father…”). As such you can exchange comments with others on any of the posts on this site, or more effectively you can join our alcohol support forum – day or night there will always be a wide range of people logged on who can give you feedback, support or advice about your drinking and an idea of how to make some changes. Check it out and if you like what you see, register for an account (free of course).

According to figures released today by the NHS:

• 1 in 4 adults are drinking at hazardous levels,
• 1 in 10 men are on the verge of alcoholism,
• 1 in 6 women drink at levels sufficient to damage their liver or lead to depression,
• 1 in 10 men and 1 in 25 women are approaching alcohol dependence (admittedly rather vague terminology).

We have to ask ourselves why people in the UK seem to be developing more problems with alcohol, and what can be done about it. The cost to the health service alone is staggering – presently some £2.7 billion. That’s before we even consider the personal and social costs involved.

Although it may seem like ‘just a habit’, you are making a choice to have a drink each and every time. That choice involves many components – your beliefs about alcohol and yourself, your thoughts (your inner dialogue), your feelings and your behaviour.

Your wish to not drink so much (because you can recognize the negative consequences) will translate into action depending on your motivations. Partly you are motivated to have a drink because its pleasurable, it helps you relax etc, and at the same time you’re motivated not to drink because you know about all those negative consequences. So you’re in a dilemma. The strength of your different motivations will determine how easy you find it to choose not to have a drink.

Lets take an example to illustrate this – there is something happening at work which you find very stressful, so you get home feeling frustrated and edgy. You believe the stress at work is not going away soon, and perhaps you also blame yourself for some aspect of the situation. You have a belief that you can’t handle this stress well naturally, and you believe that alcohol removes it very effectively. So you want a drink. But of course you know you shouldn’t, because you’ll be hungover again tomorrow, and that will leave you feeling worse. So your inner dialogue, your thoughts, might be something like – “well I haven’t had a drink for a couple of days, so I deserve it.” or – “I just don’t want to feel stressed like this, I want this feeling to stop NOW”.

However, emotional pain and difficult feelings are a part of life, there’s no escaping them, but alcohol deals with them so effectively, that its easy to develop a reliance on it to take away all your painful feelings. In order to cut down or stop drinking therefore, you have to accept that painful feelings must be dealt with sober, just as you are. You can deal with life, but you are choosing not to experience discomfort, because it can so easily be tranquillised with alcohol.

Its a common thing to drink because you feel “I can’t cope” – but what does that actually mean? Whatever is happening in our lives, however painful it is – we get through it, we survive, and that is coping. So the belief that we can’t cope makes us give up trying, give up hope. And again, alcohol is there to take away that hopeless feeling, to take us to that dream-world where things are fluffy and safe.

To get through life being generally sober, we have to accept that painful feelings can be handled naturally. Not rubbed out, but acknowledged, truly felt. You’re stressed? So see how it feels for it to just subside naturally with time. You feel bored? So just sit with that and examine what it really means to you. What could you actually do to remedy that feeling? Again, explore it and see what needs or thoughts are associated with the feeling. Then you might realise a different solution or two, whatever they might be.

Or perhaps you just don’t think you’re a particularly valuable person? Any mistake, any difficult situation can be attributed to your own failure or lack of some quality. Again, alcohol makes you feel good about yourself, temporarily anyway. And then it bites back with a vengeance. So to an extent, the solution might also be about healing that relationship with yourself. Your beliefs about yourself can often be a sort of self-constructed fiction. That constant inner commentator is so detached from the world, in many ways. So you may believe yourself to be inadequate because that’s how you’ve been affected by life, but of course its a subjective opinion, its not a fact, just a viewpoint.

The point here is to make yourself aware of the various elements that make up your drinking habits, then you can try to solve each part, rather than just relying on will power to not drink, which as you’ve probably discovered by now, isn’t that effective.

Do you need to give up drinking completely if you have a problem with alcohol? There are conflicting opinions on this. The AA approach says that abstinence is the only way that works for sure.

But being abstinent is no guarantee against a relapse, and some would say that it is just avoiding the problem, not dealing with it. So how about learning some new habits around alcohol instead – because you have learnt how you behave towards alcohol already, so surely those habits can be changed?

Giving up for a while could be a useful exercise though – it doesn’t have to be forever. In fact the thought of it being a lifetime commitment prevents some people from even contemplating a period of sobriety. Why not try a month of no drinking at all, just to see how it feels? Then if you can manage that ok, you can decide whether to keep going with it, or not, the choice is yours.

The difficulty with cutting down of course is that all your best intentions tend to dissolve after the first few drinks – so a self-imposed limit is easily ignored with a slightly inebriated justification (‘oh I’ll do it tomorrow instead’, ‘I had a really hard day today, I deserve another one’, ‘oh he’s opened another bottle, it would be rude of me to refuse’ etc.)

Delaying the time you allow yourself to start drinking is one way to make cutting down easier. If you have less time for drinking, then perhaps you’ll drink less quantity (that’s the theory). A drinking diary can also help you keep track of how much you’ve actually had over the week.

How much you drink also tends to be a product of how much alcohol you purchase. So one obvious step is to not buy quite so much. Make sure you don’t keep any drink in the house – just buy it as you need it. That way the choice to drink has to be a conscious decision. Don’t forget, for this to really work you’ll need your partner to agree on the plan, so they don’t buy any either, unless you both decide to.

There’s a third option too – a combination of cutting down and giving up – just staying sober for a day or two at a time every week. It’s better than nothing, and you’re getting used to dealing with life without drinking. Try and plan which days you’re going to do it in advance, and plan to do something else incompatible with drinking perhaps. But be careful of the trap of rewarding yourself for your two days of sobriety with, you guessed it, a binge!