Online Alcoholism & Addiction Counselling

You’ve made the decision to cut down on your drinking. At this point, you may be wondering “is there anything that I can take that could help me with my cravings?”

Currently a few drugs are popular for the treatment of alcoholism – Naltrexone, Acamprosate, and Disulfiram. None are always effective or appropriate.

Common side effects include diarrhoea, dyspepsia (indigestion), headache, nausea and vomiting, rash, and itching. More severe side effects have been associated with these drugs which cause suspicion as to whether they are doing more harm than good.

The pharmaceutical industry has little to offer for keeping alcoholics sober. Herbal medicines, on the other hand, have shown more promising and dramatic results. However, for profiteering reasons, it is not likely that drug companies or your doctor will provide herbal alternatives.

The herb Kudzu can cut consumption of alcohol in half perfectly safely without the side effects of drugs. It has been used to reduce drinking in China since 600 A.D. Scientists have found the herb to be effective in reducing alcohol intake in rats.

Recently, studies have shown evidence that Kudzu can reduce drinking in humans. Essentially, kudzu increases blood alcohol concentration so that people need less alcohol to feel its effects. People feel satisfied on fewer drinks.

So, where can you find some? David Lee, a chemist on the McLean Hospital research team did assays on a variety of kudzu herb extracts from stores and websites and found that many of these products contained less than 1 percent of active kudzu, and thus were ineffective. Higher concentrations are needed - around 30-40 percent of one of Kudzu’s active ingredients (puerarin) is advised. Please be aware that the Kudzu capsules available in Holland & Barrett are only 7%. The tincture they sell is of course alcohol based (all tinctures are), at roughly 60% alcohol.

We’ve reviewed a number of online Kudzu suppliers, and this is the best we could find:

BUY KUDZU ONLINE HERE

Or read some more information about Kudzu.

Alternatively you can try Liv.52 - a herbal supplement proven to protect the liver from the damaging effects of alcohol. It assists in the process of detoxification also, in that it speeds up the elimination of acetaldehyde (which means your hangovers won’t be quite so nasty).

If you are trying to cut down your alcohol use, even if you are mostly successful, there will inevitably be times when you will relapse and have a binge. Don’t be put off by this, you haven’t failed. What is important here is to learn from your mistakes and work out how you could do things differently next time.

What was it about that situation that caused you to drink more than you intended? Was it a particular trigger that you couldn’t avoid (birthdays or a bereavement for instance)? Or was it a trigger that has caught you out before? If so, you need to work out some different ways to deal with it.

Many relapses occur as a result of the beliefs you may hold about alcohol. For instance if you believe that you “can’t cope with these feelings” and so you “need a drink otherwise you’ll lose the plot”, or if you believe that the only way you can be sociable is after a drink, then obviously these beliefs will tend to make you relapse.

The beliefs you have about your cravings or urges will also determine how easy it is to avoid relapse. So again, if you believe that once you get a craving, it won’t go away until you have a drink, then every craving you get becomes very risky. Similarly, if you believe that you don’t have the mental strength to cope with your cravings, then of course you probably won’t. Your beliefs are self-fulfilling.

What you need to do now is find out what your beliefs are, and more importantly how accurate they are. This means testing out your beliefs by looking at the evidence. Most of our problems in life arise from inaccurate beliefs about ourselves and how the world works. But this is where you might need a counsellor or a therapist, because it’s very difficult to be objective and impartial about your own thoughts.

» Try this test to see what your negative beliefs about alcohol or drug use might be.

» Then try this one to examine what your beliefs about cravings are.

For most people with an addiction, their over use of alcohol or drugs has arisen from too many unpleasant emotions in their lives.

As such, understandably they yearn for the good feelings usually associated with positive life experiences. These feelings are immediately available through alcohol or drugs, so excessive use can take hold. As many an addict or alcoholic has said -

“I just wanted to feel normal…”

The important thing here is that most of the time addicts or alcoholics do not feel normal, they feel like something is wrong. Sometimes it’s because a part of their personality is not being expressed fully, they are suppressing a part of themselves which may have been buried for years, for so long they have probably forgotten it was a part of them.

What often happens though is that when high, or drunk, these suppressed or forgotten parts of us come out to play - sometimes this is enjoyable, and sometimes not. But the way people behave when they are intoxicated can be very informative. It can tell us a lot about the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the addiction.

These two aspects of an addict’s personality - ‘the straight’ and ‘the addictive’ are very often in conflict with each other. They don’t like the other part, they don’t trust them and they fear being overpowered by them.

To move forward, there has to be a truce. An acceptance and understanding of both parts of the self. You need to recognise what the positive qualities are about both. Then maybe some of the guilt and self-blame can subside…

» Read this related article on Addiction and Mental Health.

A report released recently by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University and the North West Public Health Observatory stated that the North of England particularly, is in the grip of dangerous levels of binge drinking.

18% of adults in England overall reported binge drinking (defined by them as more than double the recommended daily limit) more than once a week. Certain areas reported even higher levels - up to 27% in some major northern cities. This is not just a problem with young men - women are binge drinking far more than they used to.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis said:

“This alarming research shows why it was wrong of the government to unleash 24-hour drinking on all our towns and cities without a proper assessment of the consequences.”

This is a problem which seems to be getting worse. Realistically, what can be done about it? As we’ve said before, it is not just the responsibility of the government to advise against drinking, or of the health service to ‘mop-up’ the mess afterwards.

Some people point the finger at the alcohol industry which produces such cheap drinks now. But many countries in Europe have much cheaper alcohol than England, so why are we such a nation of drunkards?

For those of you who are drinking too much alcohol, but aren’t yet ready to change, here’s some useful health advice.

Alcohol is highly neurotoxic, meaning it directly destroys nerve cells - both those in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal chord), and those in the peripheral nervous system (the rest of the body).

Unfortunately nerve cells do not regrow as well as ordinary tissue, so such damage can be irreparable.

This can have a number of unpleasant effects, from peripheral neuropathy (pain, numbness or tingling, especially in the extremities), to atrophy of brain tissue.

In alcoholism particularly, this damage to brain tissue can cause a condition known as Korsakoff’s Syndrome. This is similar to Alzheimers, and is characterised by short-term memory loss and confabulation (making things up).

Fortunately though, some of this damage can be prevented with proper nutrition, or more easily, with vitamin supplements. Common vitamins called antioxidants can help the brain deal with the effects of alcohol by limiting the damage to nerve cells. These include the vitamins A, C and E plus the mineral Selenium. The vitamin Thiamine (B1) is also essential in preventing the onset of Korsakoff’s. They are all available in most health stores.

Of course taking vitamins won’t eliminate the toxic effects of alcohol, so don’t think that by popping a whopper mega-vitamin tablet every day you can magically drink as much as you like. It doesn’t work like that. But you might just lessen the damage a little.

» Nutrition and Mental Health
» The role of antioxidants in health