Online Alcoholism & Addiction Counselling

This is the best account I’ve ever read of an alcoholic going through rehab and struggling with his subsequent recovery. It’s honest, compelling and darkly humorous.

It’s not for the faint hearted though – he graphically details his most debauched binges, his most horrific withdrawals and embarrassing bed-wetting episodes. But he balances this with some wonderfully insightful thoughts about the recovery process, about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and of course, about his time in a detox and rehab centre.

Augusten Burroughs is a very clever writer, and he engages you from the first page, by the end you feel like you know him inside out. If you’re struggling with alcohol, or you’re thinking about going through rehab, you seriously should read this first.

If you fancy a copy for yourself, here’s the page on Amazon.com where you can get it.

The charity Turning Point have released a report suggesting that 50% of all alcoholics and drug addicts suffer from mental illness, in the UK at least.

Unfortunately many people still associate the term ‘mental illness’ with considerable stigma – as it may conjure up images of psychosis. However the illnesses referred to here are primarily depression and anxiety.

The main point to consider from this is that alcoholics or drug addicts are struggling with addiction as a way to deal with their mental health. Alcohol or drug use often arises as a means of dealing with emotional problems, then from there they develop into additional problems in their own right.

Many alcoholics wonder why they have such a difficult time with alcohol, when others around them seem to cope with it more easily. The answer is often that they have other mental health problems which are not being dealt with.

The only way to beat alcoholism or addiction then is usually to find other ways to deal with depression or anxiety. Once those are having less of an impact on your emotional life, then the purely ‘habit’ element can be addressed.