Excerpts "Under The Influence"

[leviathon]

I am going to have to purchase this book, reading these excerpts makes it clear that there is a lot in this book that I need to read. I identified with almost every excerpt immediately, some it took a second read... but the identity was there.

I grew up in an alcoholic home. I have lived with it and seen my family members struggle with it. This book is clearly providing a much greater understanding for me.

Thank you for sharing. Levi

[CarolD]

"Under The Influence"
has so much more information than these excerpts.

And there is a sequel..
"Beyond The Influence"

Both are carried by Amazon.

GreenTea...
Thank you again for this valuable thread!

[wandergrrl777]

Wow, I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this thread. I didn't realize how much anxiety I still have about blackouts. In my first 2 mos. or so of being sober, I would wake up and shoot straight up out of bed.."WHAT DID I DO!?!" "WHAT HAPPENED!?!" Gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching..terror.

I don't still wake up this way, but reading over the excerpts and reading all of your experiences (so similar to my own)..I feel the anxiety. I'm actually glad the fear is still in me. It's hard to face, but in a way..it kinda' helps.

Thanks GreenTea! I think I'll head out to get this book today!
-Moni

[CarolD]

Good for you Moni!

[GreenTea]

Thank you so much everyone! It makes me feel very warm inside seeing how well-received this thread has been. I'm so utterly glad that it seems to be helping people.

Don't forget to thank Carol for making it a sticky. Without that, not nearly as many people would be reading it. Carol also asked me to make sure I include the information on blackouts. Thanks again Carol!

We Are Not Alone!

[leviathon]

I remember the blackouts and the not knowing after the fact and the anxiety it brought on... I am sure glad that I don't deal with that anymore. Recovery is a much happier place to be.

Levi

[GettinSober]

A great read indeed and I too shall be purchasing both books.

I only seem to suffer blackouts with regards to the last 30 minutes to an hour of an evening. Mostly the details are sketchy and I have to really try and remember how I got to bed. Thank goodness I haven't had some of the worse blackouts described. I'm hoping I have caught myself in time?

[The Persian]

Thank you so much for putting all of this out there, I am floored by the information. I had a general idea of how Alcohol affects our system but to have it spelled out so well is an incredible resource.

I (as well) do not understand why I don't have liver damage.

There have been periods where I suspected I was in the later stages but it all seemed to vanish when I stopped. For example horrible stomach pains after eating ANYTHING & everything I ate passing right through me within about 20 minutes.

It would stop within a day or so of sobriety, like clockwork.

The first time it happened I thought I had a stomach virus or something, but had no fever nor did I feel sick, until I ate something. I stopped it stopped. As soon as I started heavily, about a week or two later it began again.

You really made an impression on me with this thread, thank you so much.


Jay

[HolyQow]

I have this book, and did not find it that good....until I started reading it on here....and with everyones comments added to it, it makes things so much clearer.

(My husband is the A in my life.) The thing that I find most amazing, is that the blackouts actually scare alcoholics?? I was always under the impression that an alcoholic wanted to drink until they couldn't remember. Interesting stuff, thanks.

[GreenTea]

Originally Posted by HolyQow

I was always under the impression that an alcoholic wanted to drink until they couldn't remember

No... We drank because we wanted the pain to go away or to feel human again. And then we drank because we had no other choice. At least it was that way with me.

[Broccoli]

Maintenance drinking is not gluttony or irresponsible drinking, but a protective device whereby the alcoholic delays the drop in BAL... By drinking continuously but never overdrinking, he attempts to hold on to the benefits of drinking while forestalling the penalties.

I am also really glad I finally got around to reading this thread. I have been sitting here feeling a little guilty that perhaps I should not be commenting when, comparatively, I don't really drink that much. I come home from work and proceed to have just enough to maintain the buzz and then I stop. Until it wears off. Then I have some more. Up to a bottle of wine a night.

I thought that perhaps I am 'normal' after all - even though I have done this almost every night for years (more on 'non-school' nights). The above quote from this excellent book has made me realise that, in fact, I am not 'normal' - simply perhaps lucky to have caught myself just in time. Especially as, even though I always denied that 'it would happen to me', alcoholism runs in my family.

Thankyou thankyou thankyou. Thankyou so much. Thank goodness for this place. XXX

[koruptdata]

WOW. I'm buying this book. This is amazing, there's not a thing in this thread that I haven't experienced - and yet I never knew there was such a detailed explanation out there for the experiences that an alcoholic goes through. It's truly sad that I'm still fighting through this - 10 years ago, I never would've thought I'd be where I'm at today.

[teej]

Green Tea,
I just wanted to thank you for this thread. I am going to buy this book next time I go to town.

tj

[hope3]

Hi Greentea, I read these exerpts awhile ago, and then bought the
book, read it once, and some parts twice.

I am now reading "Beyond the Influence" and it is fantastic.....

What reading these books did for me.
Helped me build confidence and self esteem, because I thought I was a bad, screwed up person with my drinking. But understanding it as an addiction has given me back confidence, so that I can fight it.

Has made it easier for me to say I am an alcoholic.
Why, Because before this book, admitting I'm an alcholic would have been
admitting I'm a loser, psychologically screwed up loser.

Which I'm not, just am an alcoholic.
Now a recovering alcoholic.......Love to all (((((((hope3))))))

[CarolD]

"Under The Influence" by Dr. James Milam
and Katharine Ketcham

Bantam published it in paperback too.

" Beyond The Influence" by Ketcham and ?
is the sequel and probably easier to find.

Amazon.com usually has both.

Thanks for asking!

[yorkiegal]

Originally Posted by GreenTea

I don't know sometimes which is worse... Waking up not remembering what happened and having to glean it all from everyone around you, (they all remember, and they all know that you don't). Or waking up, and after a few minutes, recalling something really bad that did happen, (yes, now that you remember the nightmare, it really was for real -- welcome back to life!). -shudder-.

Wow...this is really interesting stuff - blackouts were happening quite a bit to me and when I would ~kinda~ enquire abouit what happened the night before I got the sense that people didn't actually realize how drunk I was - maybe I wasn't as drunk as I thought I was, but the poison was affecting me that bad that it was causing me to blackout, many times it was through the week just sitting at home with my kids and husband. Wow...this is just making me shake my head. Each time I think I get the urge to drink I read something online that re-inforces my resolve.

[Mickey_SOS]

Today is the First day of the rest of my life!!
Thank Googleness I found this site with "support alcoholism recovery".
Greentea: Thank you for having the foresight to include such valuable information.
Everyone else: Thank You. Your insights are going to be priceless assets in my road to recovery.


(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•

[cyberwolf]

Thanks to CarolD for pointing me in this direction, its scary to know what exactly I have been doing to my body with a sustained attack over all those years!! Able to drink so much more than my friends and still walk talk and laugh while they are "legless" I go to my bed feeling "fine" then the next day my hangovers are terrible and they seem to be fine.....I could never understand how or why that was but after reading this GREAT thread I now understand a bit better.

Thanks

[GrouchoTheCat]

I have now read about 2/3rds of this book and highly reccommend it it to anyone who is interested in alcoholism.

Ted

[Mick HK]

There are parts of the book which criticise AA's partial focus on the faults of the alcoholic - the fearless moral inventory etc. This book advocates a wholly physical explanation of alcoholism and a wholly physical cure (nutritional approaches etc) although it also recommends a structured programme of recovery and recommends AA as the most successful. How do people reconcile the disease model with the 'personal weakness' ideas which partially underpin AA's approach?

[CarolD]

Well..I finally quit drinking after reading the physical and mental
explanations offered by Under The influence.

I had been in AA 4 years. and not staying sober for long.
I needed to know WHY I was an alcoholic.

I do still use AA to continue to grow personally in recovery
and God to connect to spiritual joy!

For 18+ years I have had no conflict in using all 3.

Welcome to o the newcomers to our SR Alcoholism Forum
Please come on down to the main discussion page and share!

[GreenTea]

Originally Posted by wander1971

There are parts of the book which criticise AA's partial focus on the faults of the alcoholic - the fearless moral inventory etc. This book advocates a wholly physical explanation of alcoholism and a wholly physical cure (nutritional approaches etc) although it also recommends a structured programme of recovery and recommends AA as the most successful. How do people reconcile the disease model with the 'personal weakness' ideas which partially underpin AA's approach?

Personally, I find no conflict. The two complement each other well, in my opinion.

The physiological perspective advocated by the book only takes you so far. "When the hardware isn't broken and is running right, then suddenly the software starts to work a whole lot better".

You have to remember the devastation that occurs as described by the book. The damage happens on not just a physical level, but on a physiological one as well. The deterioration occurs physically, mentally, emotionally, and yes, spiritually too.

Simply "getting off the sauce" is only the start. Repairing the physical damage is the next step, (and hopefully it still is repairable). At that point you're left with life staring you in the face (like it always was) and you have few tools with which to cope. Psychologically a peson is a mess from the roller coaster ride through hell that they've been putting themself through, and if you were like me, then you were left emotionally bankrupt and spiritually wretched.

What coping skills a person had are either underdeveloped or very rusty through lack of use. I know for me its true that I was turning to alcohol instead of facing my life or its problems. As this progressed, I turned to alcohol more and more, until alcohol became my primary "coping mechanism".

For me, I think a lot of the mental obsession after the physical detox and withdrawal (those horrid first thirty days), was based on the "familiarity" and the "ease of use" of alcohol as a coping mechanism. It was a lot easier (and more fun in the short term) to just go get drunk again instead of facing things. It finally hit the point where I was doing that four to five times a week. Sure I knew something was wrong and that I was trapped in a beer bottle, but by then I simply did not care.

Back to your question, my point is that simply not using alcohol is only the start. In AA-speak, this state of being physically sober, but emotionally all raw, psychologically twisted, and spiritually empty is known as being a "dry drunk". About the only thing that's changed at that point is that you aren't using alcohol -- you're still feeling, thinking, and behaving like a drunk.

On occassion, people have heard me say the following... My psychological issues are what got me STARTED on my drinking career. But it was the developed alcoholism that KEPT me in my drinking career. Further, the alcoholism also perpetuated and magnified my psychological issues which gave me an excuse FOR the drinking career.

Note that I originally turned to alcohol as a way of coping with my life. I don't KNOW that once I started I was immediately an early stage alcoholic or if that came later after I had been at it for a little while -- the threshold is set differently for everybody, I think... for some its very low, for some its very high, for most its somewhere in the middle.

Once I DID become an alcoholic though, then the reason I drank had little if nothing to do with my life issues. At that point, I drank simply because I WANTED to drink. I drank because it was fun. I drank because I was a drinker. I drank because I felt good. I drank because I felt bad. I drank because it was a day of the week that ended in "Y". This is how I spent most of my drinking career (middle stage) and protecting that "right to drink" was very important.

Note too that the disease hid behind my psychological and life issues, using them, feeding them, shaping them, sometimes even creating them, causing them to grow so that I wouldn't notice how prevalent the alcoholism had become. Even when I did finally notice, I was so mentally, emotionally and spiritually messed up that I didn't even care anymore.

As the disease progressed, the craving effects became stronger. No where in my life is this more true than during those final two months when I was locked into that death spiral with alcohol. I had progressed to the start of the late, deteriorative stage.

All during that time of my drinking career, I was turning more and more to alcohol as a coping mechanism. This is a result of the disease aspect. As the craving effects increase, you exercise your use of alcohol more and more, until it *becomes* your primary coping "skill" and the others fall to the wayside. "Alcohol ruled my life" and "the bottle was drinking me".

The physiological perspective alone won't provide you with the coping skills needed to face your life. It can explain what is going on physically, help you to stop the deterioration and repair it, provide some relief mentally and even help to stabilize your emotions to an extent. But it won't teach you how to deal with those emotions once you start feeling them again! And it won't teach you how to cope with life on life's terms. Understanding the physiology helps you to understand what is going on, and how you got to where you're at, but it is ONLY A START! It gives you a fighting chance.

If you'll notice, in the 12 Steps, alcohol is only mentioned once. Read the Steps carefully and you'll see that its outlining a set of skills for coping with life. Its a guide for how to change from being a dry drunk to being a fully functioning, healthy human being as God intended you to be. Leading a sober, healthy, happy, satisfying life in accordance with God's Will is not only the goal, but its also the reward. Furthermore, its also the process -- leading your life that way makes its easier TO lead your life that way, because you become better at it with practice, (as with anything else).

Its been said, "...first I replaced God with Ego... then I replaced Ego with Alcohol..." ... Replacing the alcohol with ego gets you back to being a dry drunk again. Replacing ego with God gets you to being sober, healthy and happy.

The "character flaws" that you're refering to aren't a case of "...here are the reasons I used to drink..." I KNOW why I used to drink. I drank because I am an alcoholic. "Under The Influence" describes the mechanisms of that for me very well, especially as regards the progressive nature of the disease. It does an excellent job for me of explaining the why and how of where I found myself -- the steady decline over time, the denial, the personality disintegration, craving, PAWS, psychological and emotional roller-coaster, etc.

The character flaws, in my mind anyway, fall into two categories... First there are the ones that were there before I started my drinking career. Seeking a way to cope with these flaws and their effects, I tried alcohol as a method. They didn't "make me drink" -- they only caused me to seek ways of coping with them. I found alcohol and it was good, so I adopted it as a coping mechanism.

You can guess how well that worked out. Even after years of practice -- in some cases really intense focused practice -- alcohol wasn't very effective as a coping mechanism for them. Now that I'm no longer using alcohol, those particular flaws are still there, and they still need to be dealt with, (although by now they may have grown some).

The other category of flaws are those I've picked up along the way. Gifts of my alcoholism, they have been left behind like so much discarded camouflage. They are the results of increased dependency and chemical tolerance, unprocessed emotions, and skewed thought patterns resulting from the deterioration and disintegration brought on by the disease. They too need to be dealt with and unlearned. The amends are about cleaning up the damage, setting things right and moving on with forgiveness.

There's a reason people use the term "soul sick". My disease left me with a large spiritual hole in my heart and in my life. My personal relationship with my Higher Power -- God -- fills that hole and heals it.

My response has gone a lot longer than I had intended -- I didn't mean for this to be such a long post. I hope it make sense.

For me there's no conflict about it whatsoever. "Under The Influence" helped me to see what was going on with my life. It helped me to recognize and understand what was happening and what the disease was doing to me, and what to expect when I stopped using. It really clarified for me my relationship with alcohol and brought home for me the fact that the disease will always do its best to try to kill me, no matter what, all the while whispering into my ear how much of a good friend it is, (talk about a snare).

AA takes it from there. "...So you've stopped using alcohol... NOW what are you going to do? Sit there in your misery, bleeding over everyone while chewing on those white knuckles?"

You don't have to. There is a better way. And you are NOT alone!

[CarolD]

Forward we go.sde by side

[GrouchoTheCat]

Thought I would post this here . Hope you don't mind Green Tea.

This is the definition presented on page 46 of "Beyond the Influence", Katherine Ketcham and William F. Asbury (with others). Printed in 2000.

Quote

Alcoholism is a progressive neurological disease strongly influenced by genetic vunerability. Inherited or acquired abnormalities in brain chemistry create an altered response to alcohol which in turn causes a wide array of physical, psychological, and behavioral problems. Although environmental and social factors will influence the progression and expression of the dease, they are not in any sense causes of addictive drinking.
Alcoholism is caused by biochemical/neurophysiological abnormalities that are passed down from one generation to the next or, in some cases, acquired through heavy or prolonged drinking.

_

[catch-22]

thanks for the brilliant post, GreenTea. I just ordered my copy of 'Beyond the Influence'. At moment, paradoxically, I'm enjoying the withdrawal symptoms. Headache and shivers... as somebody said in another thread, it's like being on a high. It's probably just the thought of being able to fight the disease. For some reason (actually, I know why... brain turned into jelly...), I never investigated the reasons for getting addicted and the physiological aspect of it.

Catch