HOW ALCOHOL CAUSES MENTAL AND MORAL CHANGES

The transforming power or alcohol is marvelous, and often appalling. It seems to open a way of entrance into the soul for all classes of foolish, insane or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in contact with the brain, are able to hold possession. Men of the kindest nature when sober, act often like fiends when drunk. Crimes and outrages are committed, which shock and shame the perpetrators when the excitement of inebriation has passed away. Referring to this subject, Dr. Henry Munroe says:

"It appears from the experience of Mr. Fletcher, who has paid much attention to the cases of drunkards, from the remarks of Mr. Dunn, in his 'Medical Psychology,' and from observations of my own, that there is some analogy between our physical and psychical natures; for, as the physical part of us, when its power is at a low ebb, becomes susceptible of morbid influences which, in full vigor, would pass over it without effect, so when the psychical (synonymous with the  moral ) part of the brain has its healthy function disturbed and deranged by the introduction of a morbid poison like alcohol, the individual so circumstanced sinks in depravity, and "becomes the helpless subject of the forces of evil, "which are powerless against a nature free from the morbid influences of alcohol."

Different persons are affected in different ways by the same poison. Indulgence in alcoholic drinks may act upon one or more of the cerebral organs; and, as its necessary consequence, the manifestations of functional disturbance will follow in such of the mental powers as these organs subserve. If the indulgence be continued, then, either from deranged nutrition or organic lesion, manifestations formerly developed only during a fit of intoxication may become  permanent , and terminate in insanity or dypso-mania. M. Flourens first pointed out the fact that certain morbific agents, when introduced into the current of the circulation, tend to act  primarily  and  specially  on one nervous centre in preference to that of another, by virtue of some special elective affinity between such morbific agents and certain ganglia. Thus, in the tottering gait of the tipsy man, we see the influence of alcohol upon the functions of the  cerebellum  in the impairment of its power of co-ordinating the muscles.

Certain writers on diseases of the mind make especial allusion to that form of insanity termed 'dypsomania', in which a person has an unquenchable thirst for alcoholic drinks a tendency as decidedly maniacal as that of  homicidal mania ; or the uncontrollable desire to burn, termed  pyromania ; or to steal, called  kleptomania.

Homicidal mania.
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The different tendencies of homicidal mania in different individuals are often only nursed into action when the current of the blood has been poisoned with alcohol. I had a case of a person who, whenever his brain was so excited, told me that he experienced a most uncontrollable desire to kill or injure some one; so much so, that he could at times hardly restrain himself from the action, and was obliged to refrain from all stimulants, lest, in an unlucky moment, he might commit himself. Townley, who murdered the young lady of his affections, for which he was sentenced to be imprisoned in a lunatic asylum for life,  poisoned his brain with brandy  and soda-water before he committed the rash act. The brandy stimulated into action certain portions of the brain, which acquired such a power as to subjugate his will, and hurry him to the performance of a frightful deed, opposed alike to his better judgment and his ordinary desires.

As to pyromania , some years ago I knew a laboring man in a country village, who, whenever he had had a few glasses of ale at the public-house, would chuckle with delight at the thought of firing certain gentlemen's stacks. Yet, when his brain was free from the poison, a quieter, better-disposed man could not be. Unfortunately, he became addicted to habits of intoxication; and, one night, under alcoholic excitement, fired some stacks belonging to his employers, for which, he was sentenced for fifteen years to a penal settlement, where his brain would never again be alcoholically excited.

Kleptomania.
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Next, I will give an example of  kleptomania . I knew, many years ago, a very clever, industrious and talented young man, who told me that whenever he had been drinking, he could hardly withstand, the temptation of stealing anything that came in his way; but that these feelings never troubled him at other times. One afternoon, after he had been indulging with his fellow-workmen in drink, his will, unfortunately, was overpowered, and he took from the mansion where he was working some articles of worth, for which he was accused, and afterwards sentenced to a term of imprisonment. When set at liberty he had the good fortune to be placed among some kind-hearted persons, vulgarly called teetotallers ; and, from conscientious motives, signed the PLEDGE, now above twenty years ago. From that time to the present moment he has never experienced the overmastering desire which so often beset him in his drinking days to take that which was not his own. Moreover, no pretext on earth could now entice him to taste of any liquor containing alcohol, feeling that, under its influence, he might again fall its victim. He holds an influential position in the town where he resides.

I have known some ladies of good position in society, who, after a dinner or supper-party, and after having taken sundry glasses of wine, could not withstand the temptation of taking home any little article not their own, when the opportunity offered; and who, in their sober moments, have returned them, as if taken by mistake. We have many instances recorded in our police reports of gentlemen of position, under the influence of drink, committing thefts of the most paltry articles, afterwards returned to the owners by their friends, which can only be accounted for, psychologically, by the fact that the  will  had been for the time completely overpowered by the subtle influence of alcohol.

Loss of mental clearness.
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Alcohol, whether taken in large or small doses, immediately disturbs the natural functions of the mind and body, is now conceded by the most eminent physiologists. Dr. Brinton says: 'Mental acuteness, accuracy of conception, and delicacy of the senses, are all so far opposed by the action of alcohol, as that the maximum efforts of each are  incompatible  with the ingestion of any moderate quantity of fermented liquid. Indeed, there is scarcely any calling which demands skillful and exact effort of mind and body, or which requires the balanced exercise of many faculties, that does not illustrate this rule. The mathematician, the gambler, the metaphysician, the billiard-player, the author, the artist, the physician, would, if they could analyze their experience aright, generally concur in the statement, that  a single glass will often suffice to take , so to speak,  the edge off both mind and body , and to reduce their capacity to something below what is relatively their perfection of work.

A train was driven carelessly into one of the principal London stations, running into another train, killing, by the collision, six or seven persons, and injuring many others. From the evidence at the inquest, it appeared that the guard was reckoned sober, only he had had two glasses of ale with a friend at a previous station. Now, reasoning psychologically, these two glasses of ale had probably been instrumental in  taking off the edge  from his perceptions and prudence, and producing a carelessness or boldness of action which would not have occurred under the cooling, temperate influence of a beverage free from alcohol. Many persons have admitted to me that they were not the same after taking even one glass of ale or wine that they were before, and could not  thoroughly  trust themselves after they had taken this single glass.

Impairment of memory.
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An impairment of the memory is among the early symptoms of alcoholic derangement.

"This," says Dr. Richardson, "extends even to forgetfulness of the commonest things; to names of familiar persons, to dates, to duties of daily life. Strangely, too," he adds, "this failure, like that which indicates, in the aged, the era of second childishness and mere oblivion, does not extend to the things of the past, but is confined to events that are passing. On old memories the mind retains its power; on new ones it requires constant prompting and sustainment."

In this failure of memory nature gives a solemn warning that imminent peril is at hand. Well for the habitual drinker if he heed the warning. Should he not do so, symptoms of a more serious character will, in time, develop themselves, as the brain becomes more and more diseased, ending, it may be, in permanent insanity.

Mental and moral diseases.
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Of the mental and moral diseases which too often follow the regular drinking of alcohol, we have painful records in asylum reports, in medical testimony and in our daily observation and experience. These are so full and varied, and thrust so constantly on our attention, that the wonder is that men are not afraid to run the terrible risks involved even in what is called the moderate use of alcoholic beverages.

In 1872, a select committee of the House of Commons, appointed "to consider the best plan for the control and management of habitual drunkards," called upon some of the most eminent medical men in Great Britain to give their testimony in answer to a large number of questions, embracing every topic within the range of inquiry, from the pathology of inebriation to the practical usefulness of prohibitory laws. In this testimony much was said about the effect of alcoholic stimulation on the mental condition and moral character. One physician, Dr. James Crichton Brown, who, in ten years' experience as superintendent of lunatic asylums, has paid special attention to the relations of habitual drunkenness to insanity, having carefully examined five hundred cases, testified that alcohol, taken in excess, produced different forms of mental disease, of which he mentioned four classes: 1.  Mania a potu , or alcoholic mania. 2. The monomania of suspicion. 3. Chronic alcoholism, characterized by failure of the memory and power of judgment, with partial paralysis generally ending fatally. 4. Dypsomania, or an  irresistible  craving for alcoholic stimulants, occuring very frequently, paroxysmally, and with constant liability to periodical exacerbations, when the craving becomes altogether uncontrollable. Of this latter form of disease, he says: "This is invariably associated with a certain  impairment of the intellect, and of the affections and the moral powers ."

Dr. Alexander Peddie, a physician of over thirty-seven years' practice in Edinburgh, gave, in his evidence, many remarkable instances of the moral perversions that followed continued drinking.

Relation between insanity and drunkenness.
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Dr. John Nugent said that his experience of twenty-six years among lunatics, led him to believe that there is a very close relation between the results of the abuse of alcohol and insanity. The population of Ireland had decreased, he said, two millions in twenty-five years, but there was the same amount of insanity now that there was before. He attributed this, in a great measure, to indulgence in drink.

Dr. Arthur Mitchell, Commissioner of Lunacy for Scotland, testified that the excessive use of alcohol caused a large amount of the lunacy, crime and pauperism of that country. In some men, he said, habitual drinking leads to other diseases than insanity, because the effect is always in the direction of the proclivity, but it is certain that there are many in whom there is a clear proclivity to insanity,  who would escape that dreadful consummation but for drinking; excessive drinking in many persons determining the insanity to which they are, at any rate, predisposed . The children of drunkards, he further said, are in a larger proportion idiotic than other children, and in a larger proportion become themselves drunkards; they are also in a larger proportion liable to the ordinary forms of acquired insanity.

Dr. Winslow Forbes believed that in the habitual drunkard the whole nervous structure, and the brain especially, became poisoned by alcohol. All the mental symptoms which you see accompanying ordinary intoxication, he remarks, result from the poisonous effects of alcohol on the brain. It is the brain which is mainly effected. In temporary drunkenness, the brain becomes in an abnormal state of alimentation, and if this habit is persisted in for years, the nervous tissue itself becomes permeated with alcohol, and organic changes take place in the nervous tissues of the brain, producing  that frightful and dreadful chronic insanity which we see in lunatic asylums, traceable entirely to habits of intoxication . A large percentage of frightful mental and brain disturbances can, he declared, be traced to the drunkenness of parents.

Dr. D.G. Dodge, late of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, who, with. Dr. Joseph Parrish, gave testimony before the committee of the House of Commons, said, in one of his answers: "With the excessive use of alcohol, functional disorder will invariably appear, and no organ will be more seriously affected, and possibly impaired, than the brain.  This is shown in the inebriate by a weakened intellect, a general debility of the mental faculties , a partial or total loss of self-respect, and a departure of the power of self-command; all of which, acting together, place the victim at the mercy of a depraved and morbid appetite, and make him utterly powerless, by his own unaided efforts, to secure his recovery from the disease which is destroying him." And he adds: "I am of opinion that there is a "great similarity between inebriety and insanity.

"I am decidedly of opinion that the former has taken its place in the family of diseases as prominently as its twin-brother insanity; and, in my opinion, the day is not far distant when the pathology of the former will be as fully understood and as successfully treated as the latter, and even more successfully, since it is more within the reach and bounds of human control, which, wisely exercised and scientifically administered, may prevent curable inebriation from verging into possible incurable insanity."

General impairment of the faculties.
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Dr. Richardson, speaking of the action of alcohol on the mind, gives the following sad picture of its ravages:

"An analysis of the condition of the mind induced and maintained by the free daily use of alcohol as a drink, reveals a singular order of facts. The manifestation fails altogether to reveal the exaltation of any reasoning power in a useful or satisfactory direction. I have never met with an instance in which such a claim for alcohol has been made. On the contrary, confirmed alcoholics constantly say that for this or that work, requiring thought and attention, it is necessary to forego some of the usual potations in order to have a cool head for hard work.

"On the other side, the experience is overwhelmingly in favor of the observation that the use of "alcohol sells the reasoning powers, "make weak men and women the easy prey of the wicked and strong, and leads men and women who should know better into every grade of misery and vice. If, then, alcohol enfeebles the reason, what part of the mental constitution does it exalt and excite? It excites and exalts those animal, organic, emotional centres of mind which, in the dual nature of man, so often cross and oppose that pure and abstract reasoning nature which lifts man above the lower animals, and rightly exercised, little lower than the angels.

It excites man's worst passions.
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Exciting these animal centres, it lets loose all the passions, and gives them more or less of unlicensed dominion over the man. It excites anger, and when it does not lead to this extreme, it keeps the mind fretful, irritable, dissatisfied and captious.... And if I were to take you through all the passions, love, hate, lust, envy, avarice and pride, I should but show you that alcohol ministers to them all; that, paralyzing the reason, it takes from off these passions that fine adjustment of reason, which places man above the lower animals. From the beginning to the end of its influence it subdues reason and sets the passions free. The analogies, physical and mental, are perfect. That which loosens the tension of the vessels which feed the body with due order and precision, and, thereby, lets loose the heart to violent excess and unbridled motion, loosens, also, the reason and lets loose the passion. In both instances, heart and head are, for a time, out of harmony; their balance broken. The man descends closer and closer to the lower animals. From the angels he glides farther and farther away.

A sad and terrible picture.
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The  destructive  effects of alcohol on the human mind present, finally, the saddest picture of its influence. The most aesthetic artist can find no angel here. All is animal, and animal of the worst type. Memory irretrievably lost, words and very elements of speech forgotten or words displaced to have no meaning in them. Rage and anger persistent and mischievous, or remittent and impotent. Fear at every corner of life, distrust on every side, grief merged into blank despair, hopelessness into permanent melancholy. Surely no Pandemonium that ever poet dreamt of could equal that which would exist if all the drunkards of the world were driven into one mortal sphere.

As I have moved among those who are physically stricken with alcohol, and have detected under the various disguises of name the fatal diseases, the pains and penalties it imposes on the body, the picture has been sufficiently cruel. But even that picture pales, as I conjure up, without any stretch of imagination, the devastations which the same agent inflicts on the mind. Forty per cent., the learned Superintendent of Colney Hatch, Dr. Sheppard, tells us, of those who were brought into that asylum in 1876, were so brought because of the direct or indirect effects of alcohol. If the facts of all the asylums were collected with equal care, the same tale would, I fear, be told. What need we further to show the destructive action on the human mind? The Pandemonium of drunkards; the grand transformation scene of that pantomime of drink which commences with, moderation! Let it never more be forgotten by those who love their fellow-men until, through their efforts, it is closed forever." 

HOW ALCOHOL AFFECTS THE BRAIN.

I once had the unusual, though unhappy, opportunity of observing the same phenomenon in the brain structure of a man, who, in a paroxysm of alcoholic excitement, decapitated himself under the wheel of a railway carriage, and whose brain was instantaneously evolved from the skull by the crash. The brain itself, entire, was before me within three minutes after the death. It exhaled the odor of spirit most distinctly, and its membranes and minute structures were vascular in the extreme. It looked as if it had been recently injected with vermilion. The white matter of the cerebrum, studded with red points, could scarcely be distinguished, when it was incised, by its natural whiteness; and the pia-mater, or internal vascular membrane covering the brain, resembled a delicate web of coagulated red blood, so tensely were its fine vessels engorged.

I should add that this condition extended through both the larger and the smaller brain, the cerebrum and cerebellum, but was not so marked in the medulla or commencing portion of the spinal cord.

The spinal cord and nerves.
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The action of alcohol continued beyond the first stage, the function of the spinal cord is influenced. Through this part of the nervous system we are accustomed, in health, to perform automatic acts of a mechanical kind, which proceed systematically even when we are thinking or speaking on other subjects. Thus a skilled workman will continue his mechanical work perfectly, while his mind is bent on some other subject; and thus we all perform various acts in a purely automatic way, without calling in the aid of the higher centres, except something more than ordinary occurs to demand their service, upon which we think before we perform. Under alcohol, as the spinal centres become influenced, these pure automatic acts cease to be correctly carried on. That the hand may reach any object, or the foot be correctly planted, the higher intellectual centre must be invoked to make the proceeding secure. There follows quickly upon this a deficient power of co-ordination of muscular movement. The nervous control of certain of the muscles is lost, and the nervous stimulus is more or less enfeebled. The muscles of the lower lip in the human subject usually fail first of all, then the muscles of the lower limbs, and it is worthy of remark that the extensor muscles give way earlier than the flexors. The muscles themselves, by this time, are also failing in power; they respond more feebly than is natural to the nervous stimulus; they, too, are coming under the depressing influence of the paralyzing agent, their structure is temporarily deranged, and their contractile power reduced.

This modification of the animal functions under alcohol, marks the second degree of its action. In young subjects, there is now, usually, vomiting with faintness, followed by gradual relief from the burden of the poison.

Effect on the brain centres.
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The alcoholic spirit carried yet a further degree, the cerebral or brain centres become influenced; they are reduced in power, and the controlling influences of will and of judgment are lost. As these centres are unbalanced and thrown into chaos, the rational part of the nature of the man gives way before the emotional, passional or organic part. The reason is now off duty, or is fooling with duty, and all the mere animal instincts and sentiments are laid atrociously bare. The coward shows up more craven, the braggart more boastful, the cruel more merciless, the untruthful more false, the carnal more degraded. ' In vino veritas ' expresses, even, indeed, to physiological accuracy, the true condition. The reason, the emotions, the instincts, are all in a state of carnival, and in chaotic feebleness.

Finally, the action of the alcohol still extending, the superior brain centres are overpowered; the senses are beclouded, the voluntary muscular prostration is perfected, sensibility is lost, and the body lies a mere log, dead by all but one-fourth, on which alone its life hangs. The heart still remains true to its duty, and while it just lives it feeds the breathing power. And so the circulation and the respiration, in the otherwise inert mass, keeps the mass within the bare domain of life until the poison begins to pass away and the nervous centres to revive again. It is happy for the inebriate that, as a rule, the brain fails so long before the heart that he has neither the power nor the sense to continue his process of destruction up to the act of death of his circulation. Therefore he lives to die another day.

EFFECT OF ALCOHOL ON THE MEMBRANES.

The parts which first suffer from alcohol are those expansions of the body which the anatomists call the membranes. "The skin is a membranous envelope. Through the whole of the alimentary surface, from the lips downward, and through the bronchial passages to their minutest ramifications, extends the mucous membrane. The lungs, the heart, the liver, the kidneys are folded in delicate membranes, which can be stripped easily from these parts. If you take a portion of bone, you will find it easy to strip off from it a membranous sheath or covering; if you examine a joint, you will find both the head and the socket lined with membranes. The whole of the intestines are enveloped in a fine membrane called  peritoneum . All the muscles are enveloped in membranes, and the fasciculi, or bundles and fibres of muscles, have their membranous sheathing. The brain and spinal cord are enveloped in three membranes; one nearest to themselves, a pure vascular structure, a network of blood-vessels; another, a thin serous structure; a third, a strong fibrous structure. The eyeball is a structure of colloidal humors and membranes, and of nothing else. To complete the description, the minute structures of the vital organs are enrolled in membranous matter."

These membranes are the filters of the body. "In their absence there could be no building of structure, no solidification of tissue, nor organic mechanism. Passive themselves, they, nevertheless, separate all structures into their respective positions and adaptations."

Membranous deteriorations.
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In order to make perfectly clear to your mind the action and use of these membranous expansions, and the way in which alcohol deteriorates them, and obstructs their work, we quote again from Dr. Richardson:

"The animal receives from the vegetable world and from the earth the food and drink it requires for its sustenance and motion. It receives colloidal food for its muscles: combustible food for its motion; water for the solution of its various parts; salt for constructive and other physical purposes. These have all to be arranged in the body; and they are arranged by means of the membranous envelopes. Through these membranes nothing can pass that is not, for the time, in a state of aqueous solution, like water or soluble salts. Water passes freely through them, salts pass freely through them, but the constructive matter of the active parts that is colloidal does not pass; it is retained in them until it is chemically decomposed into the soluble type of matter. When we take for our food a portion of animal flesh, it is first resolved, in digestion, into a soluble fluid before it can be absorbed; in the blood it is resolved into the fluid colloidal condition; in the solids it is laid down within the membranes into new structure, and when it has played its part, it is digested again, if I may so say, into a crystalloidal soluble substance, ready to be carried away and replaced by addition of new matter, then it is dialysed or passed through, the membranes into the blood, and is disposed of in the excretions.

"See, then, what an all-important part these membranous structures play in the animal life. Upon their integrity all the silent work of the building up of the body depends. If these membranes are rendered too porous, and let out the colloidal fluids of the blood the albumen, for example the body so circumstanced, dies; dies as if it were slowly bled to death. If, on the contrary, they become condensed or thickened, or loaded with foreign material, then they fail to allow the natural fluids to pass through them. They fail to dialyse, and the result is, either an accumulation of the fluid in a closed cavity, or contraction of the substance inclosed within the membrane, or dryness of membrane in surfaces that ought to be freely lubricated and kept apart. In old age we see the effects of modification of membrane naturally induced; we see the fixed joint, the shrunken and feeble muscle, the dimmed eye, the deaf ear, the enfeebled nervous function.

"It may possibly seem, at first sight, that I am leading immediately away from the subject of the secondary action of alcohol. It is not so. I am leading directly to it. Upon all these membranous structures alcohol exerts a direct perversion of action. It produces in them a thickening, a shrinking and an inactivity that reduces their functional power. That they may work rapidly and equally, they require to be at all times charged with water to saturation. If, into contact with them, any agent is brought that deprives them of water, then is their work interfered with; they cease to separate the saline constituents properly; and, if the evil that is thus started, be allowed to continue, they contract upon their contained matter in whatever organ it may be situated, and condense it.

"In brief, under the prolonged influence of alcohol those changes which take place from it in the blood corpuscles, extend to the other organic parts, involving them in structural deteriorations, which are always dangerous, and are often ultimately fatal."

EFFECT OF ALCOHOL ON THE BLOOD.

Dr. Richardson, in his lectures on alcohol, given both in England and America, speaking of the action of this substance on the blood after passing from the stomach, says:

"Suppose, then, a certain measure of alcohol be taken into the stomach, it will be absorbed there, but, previous to absorption, it will have to undergo a proper degree of dilution with water, for there is this peculiarity respecting alcohol when it is separated by an animal membrane from a watery fluid like the blood, that it will not pass through the membrane until it has become charged, to a given point of dilution, with water. It is itself, in fact,  so greedy for water, it will pick it up from watery textures, and deprive them of it until, by its saturation, its power of reception is exhausted , after which it will diffuse into the current of circulating fluid."

It is this power of absorbing water from every texture with which alcoholic spirits comes in contact, that creates the burning thirst of those who freely indulge in its use. Its effect, when it reaches the circulation, is thus described by Dr. Richardson:

"As it passes through the circulation of the lungs it is exposed to the air, and some little of it, raised into vapor by the natural heat, is thrown off in expiration. If the quantity of it be large, this loss may be considerable, and the odor of the spirit may be detected in the expired breath. If the quantity be small, the loss will be comparatively little, as the spirit will be held in solution by the water in the blood. After it has passed through the lungs, and has been driven by the left heart over the arterial circuit, it passes into what is called the minute circulation, or the structural circulation of the organism. The arteries here extend into very small vessels, which are called arterioles, and from these infinitely small vessels spring the equally minute radicals or roots of the veins, which are ultimately to become the great rivers bearing the blood back to the heart. In its passage through this minute circulation the alcohol finds its way to every organ. To this brain, to these muscles, to these secreting or excreting organs, nay, even into this bony structure itself, it moves with the blood. In some of these parts which are not excreting, it remains for a time diffused, and in those parts where there is a large percentage of water, it remains longer than in other parts. From some organs which have an open tube for conveying fluids away, as the liver and kidneys, it is thrown out or eliminated, and in this way a portion of it is ultimately removed from the body. The rest passing round and round with the circulation, is probably decomposed and carried off in new forms of matter.

"When we know the course which the alcohol takes in its passage through the body, from the period of its absorption to that of its elimination, we are the better able to judge what physical changes it induces in the different organs and structures with which it comes in contact. It first reaches the blood; but, as a rule, the quantity of it that enters is insufficient to produce any material effect on that fluid. If, however, the dose taken be poisonous or semi-poisonous, then even the blood, rich as it is in water and it contains seven hundred and ninety parts in a thousand is affected. The alcohol is diffused through this water, and there it comes in contact with the other constituent parts, with the fibrine, that plastic substance which, when blood is drawn, clots and coagulates, and which is present in the proportion of from two to three parts in a thousand; with the albumen which exists in the proportion of seventy parts; with the salts which yield about ten parts; with the fatty matters; and lastly, with those minute, round bodies which float in myriads in the blood (which were discovered by the Dutch philosopher, Leuwenhock, as one of the first results of microscopical observation, about the middle of the seventeenth century), and which are called the blood globules or corpuscles. These last-named bodies are, in fact, cells; their discs, when natural, have a smooth outline, they are depressed in the centre, and they are red in color; the color of the blood being derived from them. We have discovered that there exist other corpuscles or cells in the blood in much smaller quantity, which are called white cells, and these different cells float in the blood-stream within the vessels. The red take the centre of the stream; the white lie externally near the sides of the vessels, moving less quickly. Our business is mainly with the red corpuscles. They perform the most important functions in the economy; they absorb, in great part, the oxygen which we inhale in breathing, and carry it to the extreme tissues of the body; they absorb, in great part, the carbonic acid gas which is produced in the combustion of the body in the extreme tissues, and bring that gas back to the lungs to be exchanged for oxygen there; in short, they are the vital instruments of the circulation.

"With all these parts of the blood, with the water, fibrine, albumen, salts, fatty matter and corpuscles, the alcohol comes in contact when it enters the blood, and, if it be in sufficient quantity, it produces disturbing action. I have watched this disturbance very carefully on the blood corpuscles; for, in some animals we can see these floating along during life, and we can also observe them from men who are under the effects of alcohol, by removing a speck of blood, and examining it with the microscope. The action of the alcohol, when it is observable, is varied. It may cause the corpuscles to run too closely together, and to adhere in rolls; it may modify their outline, making the clear-defined, smooth, outer edge irregular or crenate, or even starlike; it may change the round corpuscle into the oval form, or, in very extreme cases, it may produce what I may call a truncated form of corpuscles, in which the change is so great that if we did not trace it through all its stages, we should be puzzled to know whether the object looked at were indeed a blood-cell. All these changes are due to the action of the spirit upon the water contained in the corpuscles; upon the capacity of the spirit to extract water from them. During every stage of modification of corpuscles thus described, their function to absorb and fix gases is impaired, and when the aggregation of the cells, in masses, is great, other difficulties arise, for the cells, united together, pass less easily than they should through the minute vessels of the lungs and of the general circulation, and impede the current, by which local injury is produced.

"A further action upon the blood, instituted by alcohol in excess, is upon the fibrine or the plastic colloidal matter. On this the spirit may act in two different ways, according to the degree in which it affects the water that holds the fibrine in solution. It may fix the water with the fibrine, and thus destroy the power of coagulation; or it may extract the water so determinately as to produce coagulation." 

ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON INTERNAL ORGANS.

Action on the stomach.
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The action of alcohol on the stomach is extremely dangerous that it becomes unable to produce the natural digestive fluid in sufficient quantity and also fails to absorb the food which it may imperfectly digest. A condition marked by the sense of nausea emptiness, prostration and distention will always be faced by an alcoholic. This results in  a loathing for food and is teased with a craving for more drink. Thus there is engendered a permanent disorder which is called dyspepsia. The disastrous forms of confirmed indigestion originate by this practice.

How the liver gets affected.
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The organic deteriorations caused by the continued use of alcohol are often of a fatal character. The organ which most frequently undergoes structural changes from alcohol, is the liver. Normally, the liver has the capacity to hold active substances in its cellular parts. In instances of poisoning by various poisonous compounds, we analyse liver as if it were the central depot of the foreign matter. It is practically the same in respect to alcohol. The liver of an alcoholic is never free from the influence of alcohol and it is too often saturated with it. The minute membranous or capsular structure of the liver gets affected, preventing proper dialysis and free secretion. The liver becomes large due to the dilatation of its vessels, the surcharge of fluid matter and the thickening of tissue. This follows contraction of membrane and shrinking of the whole  organ in its cellular parts. Then the lower parts of the alcoholic becomes dropsical owing to the obstruction offered to the returning blood by the veins. The structure of the liver may be charged with fatty cells and undergo what is technically designated 'fatty liver'.

How the Kidneys deteriorate.
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The Kidneys also suffer due to the excessive consumption of alcohol. The vessels of Kidneys  lose elasticity and power of contraction. The minute structures in them go through fatty modification. Albumin from the blood easily passes through their membranes. This results in the body losing its power as if it were being run out of blood gradually.

Congestion of the lungs.
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Alcohol relaxes the vessels of the lungs easily as they are most exposed to the fluctuations of heat and cold. When subjected to the effects of a rapid variation in atmospheric temperature, they get readily congested. During severe winter seasons, the suddenly fatal congestions of lungs easily affects an alcoholic.

Alcohol weakens the heart.
--------------------------

Consumption of alcohol greatly affects the heart. The quality of the membraneous structures which cover and line the heart changes and are thickened, become cartilaginous or calcareous. Then the valves lose their suppleness and what is termed valvular disorder becomes permanent.  The structure of the the coats of the great blood-vessel leading from the heart share in the same changes of structure so that the vessel loses its  elasticity and its power to feed the heart by the recoil from its distention,  after the heart, by its stroke, has filled it with blood.

Again, the muscular structure of the heart fails owing to degenerative changes in its tissue. The elements of the muscular fibre are replaced by fatty cells or, if not so replaced, are themselves transferred into a modified muscular texture in which the power of contraction is greatly reduced.

Those who suffer from these organic deteriorations of the central and governing organ of the circulation of the blood learn the fact so insidiously, it hardly breaks upon them until the mischief is far advanced. They are conscious of a central failure of power from slight causes such as overexertion, trouble, broken rest or too long abstinence from food. They feel what they call a 'sinking' but they know that wine or some other stimulant will at once relieve the sensation. Thus they seek to relieve it until at last they discover that the remedy fails. The jaded, overworked, faithful heart will bear no more. it has run its course and the governor of the blood-streams broken. The current either overflows into the tissues gradually damming up the courses or under some slight shock or excess of motion ceases wholly at the centre.

Alcoholic Drinks and Health Issues

Alcohol is an important component of many element of several societies for many years. Many believe that alcoholic drinks have flourished gatherings, parties, and other social celebrations. A number of individuals believe that alcoholic drinks should be served in social gatherings to give enthusiasm to certain events. Alcohol is produced when vegetables, fruits, or grains are fermented. Fermentation is a process which uses yeast or bacteria to change sugars in these items into alcohol. This substance is also used as cleaners and antiseptics.
Alcohol is a depressant that can act as a sedative drug and may slow down the nervous system. In small doses, alcohol can help reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Alcohol however may do more harm than good if overused. People who overuse alcohol may feel confused and disoriented. Too much alcohol in body may affect the brain and lead to poor coordination, faulty judgment, slowed reflexes, distorted vision, memory lapses, blackouts. Alcohol can damage many organs in the body, it is absorbed directly in the bloodstream and raises the risk of acquiring life-threatening ailments like cancer. Extremely high doses of alcohol at one time can cause alcohol poisoning which can lead to coma or death.

Despite the adverse effects of alcohol, many individuals still engage in drinking this beverage for many reasons. Many teens and young people use alcohol because of curiosity, relax, fit in a crowd, and feel older. One of the reasons why many people are engaged in alcohol is the fact that from a very young age, children are exposed to advertising messages of alcohol. A number of advertisements of alcohol show people drinking alcohol enjoying life. While in reality, it is the exact opposite. Because alcohol damages the nervous system, drinking alcohol can may people do embarrassing things and look stupid acts like peeing on themselves or throwing up. Drinking alcohol may lead also develop bad breath and hangovers.

In addition to the health hazards of alcohol, studies show that almost many deaths among teens are alcohol-related. The use of greatly alcohol increases the possibility of teens and many individuals of being involved in car accidents, suicide or homicide.
Studies show that in every thirty minutes, someone dies from an alcohol related car accident. Driving while under the influence of alcohol can cause many health problems and affect body reactions while driving. People who are drunk may experience decreased amount of performance and judgment while driving. Drunk drivers are not the only ones who are in danger, these drivers may distribute danger to passengers, pedestrians, and other road users.

Alcohol disorders amplify suicide and risk, at least one-third if individuals who have committed suicide are alcohol dependent. In addition, suicide among alcoholics also seem to increase with age. A study released by Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research conclude that middle-aged and older alcoholics have higher risk to commit suicide than young adults who are alcoholics.
Consuming inappropriate amounts of alcohol puts individuals at risk for several health issues like cancer like cancer and diabetes. Alcohol may reduce the body's absorption of necessary nutrients. Many alcoholics do not partake in healthy diets, therefore further harming the body. The health effects of alcohol should not be taken for granted but should act as a reminder to drink alcoholic drinks in moderation.

Alcohol Treatment - Save Your Life

Alcoholism is not a problem that is exclusive to adults. Many teenagers find themselves addicted to alcohol even though the legal drinking age is twenty-one. The pressure to fit in with others and the pressure to be popular among peers may play a significant role in drug and alcohol abuse among this population. Eventually, many of these teens need to seek some sort of alcohol treatment to deal with the problem.

A significant number of adolescents between the ages of twelve and twenty are affected by alcohol abuse. When children this young begin abusing the substance there is a greater risk of developing a serious dependency that requires some sort of intervention and alcohol treatment to break the destructive pattern.

The problem can have serious ramifications on the adolescent’s development and future endeavors. The teen may find him self unable to function at school and he may have difficulty succeeding in his academic studies. It is crucial to diagnose and find alcohol treatment as soon as a problem is recognized.

Since the reasons behind substance abuse in teens are different than it is in adults, it is necessary to approach the adolescent differently. The reasons stem from different causes in teens than adults. Adults usually are trying to escape problems or relieve stress and anxiety. Teens are usually driven to drink through peer pressure. Alcohol treatment for teens is different than it is for adults because of the differing causes and developmental stages.

Alcohol treatment for teenagers should be age-appropriate and it should involve other family members as well. The family history of possible substance abuse may play a significant role in the cause of the abuse. The teen needs to consider his family history with the condition and the family needs to work together to achieve success.

Sometime alcohol treatment for teens requires a stay at a rehabilitation facility. This is required for the most severe cases. The success of the program hinges on the individual’s commitment to his own recovery. Professionals work with the teen around the clock to help him through the crisis.

Self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon and Alateen are very viable options for a teenager who needs alcohol treatment. The self-help groups are valuable because it gives the teens an opportunity to look up to positive role models and it serves as a kind-of support community. Hopefully, with early intervention, the teens can find a new outlook on their problems.

Alcohol and Drug Treatment

You find it everywhere, very often it's even a sign of "coolness" or a sign of quality life style. But you know...

Do you like an occasional beer, or maybe a sip of wine? It's no big deal in moderation. We all love to kick back with a fine wine or frosty brew. However, too many individuals take this perk to a whole new level. How much alcohol is too much? Well, if you don't know, then you might want to do a reality check. Don't make the mistake of becoming complacent with your social life. Too many college kids do this with drinking and partying. Suddenly they're downing a case a night just to stay satisfied. It's time to be aware, people. You have to control how much you drink and how often. If you don't, then you just may end up in an alcohol and drug treatment program. Sound good? I doubt it.

It's frightening how many people end up in such programs.

Back in high school I watched a number of kids drink like it was no big thing. Where were they getting all those booze? I mean come on; someone had to be supplying it to them. They were clearly underage at the time. Regardless of their source, they were chugging like there was no tomorrow. Some teens just think this is the only way to have fun. It works as an escapism I guess. It's their vehicle to a less stressful realm. Unfortunately it's not healthy. People need to focus their energy on more legal and safer routes to a good time. No one wants to end up in an alcohol and drug treatment program. Speaking of alcohol and drug treatment programs, a close friend of mine was in one. I met him about seven years back, while working at a video store. It took me a while to realize that he was only 20 years old. This shocked me when I found out because he was always carrying cases of beer in his car. He told me once that he drinks around 20 beers each night. I thought to myself, "God, this kid's an alcoholic, and he's not even old enough to buy it." That's nuts! However, there are many people out there in the same condition. Eventually he acquired the assistance of an alcohol and drug treatment program. These days he is alcohol free.

Do you or someone you love need the assistance of an alcohol and drug treatment program? If so, you can hop online now and find the answers you're looking for. There are alcohol and drug treatment centers in your area. Get that much-needed help today. This is your future we're talking about here.

You can beat alcoholism!

Alcohol - Is there a comparison with hard drugs?

Alcohol is addictive. You will find many people who will argue with this statement, but alcohol fits all the definitions of a harmful and addictive drug;

1. You need to take more and more of it to get the same effect
2. Your body becomes physically dependent on alcohol.
3. People die from alcohol abuse

An alcoholic is someone who has become physically dependent on alcohol. Alcoholism is permanent, it can not be cured. An ex-alcoholic is simply one who has not had alcohol for a long time. If the "ex"-alcoholic has one drink they are hooked again and have to go through the whole drying out process again.

Alcoholism treatment centers allow the alcoholic to live in a supportive and alcohol free environment while giving up the drug. Psychological advice is available and group therapy sessions help many recovering alcoholics.

Alcoholics Anonymous are one group that holds support meetings for alcoholics. AA has groups in most towns and cities in most countries and many recovering alcoholics find the group sessions to be an essential part of STAYING a recovered alcoholic.

Given the toxic nature of alcohol, if the substance was discovered today, it would never be licensed as a drug or food. It is only the entrenched nature of the alcohol industry and the fact that so many jobs depend on it that make it politically unacceptable to ban alcohol. Does this sound similar to the excuses made by opium producing countries? Would there be pressure to legalize the opium if it was grown in USA, because of the jobs dependant on the crop?

Perhaps western governments need to grasp the nettle of alcohol before prosecuting the war on drugs abroad. Alcohol kills many more people on a daily basis than die of drug related crime or addiction.

Drug trafficking causes crime, as addicts try to get money to pay for their supply – Political issue

Alcohol abuse causes deaths of innocents by drunk drivers. Isn’t this a political issue, too?

Addiction Treatment Centers for Substance Abuse

There are many different types of addiction treatment or detox centers and each of them will have a different function and role in the detox process.  There will usually be a medical doctor present for each detox procedure that takes place in the detox center.  A medial staff is there to assist the addict in rapidly detoxing from the substance of abuse and to make the process as pain free as possible.  When a person enters a detox center they are usually doing so under the advice of their doctor.  Most detox centers will only take a patient that has been referred by a medical doctor.

An addiction treatment center is available for a variety of substance abuse problems.  These problems can include alcohol addiction, narcotic abuse, and chemical dependency.
Many times a person will enter a detox center and have multiple addictions that need to be dealt with.  In these circumstances a detox center will usually deal with all of the addictions so that the person can cleanse their body of all toxic substances at one time.

The more addiction that a person has when they enter a detox center the longer it will take for the substance of abuse to be flushed from the body and the more counseling and therapy a person will need once the detox center has helped them through the withdrawal of their addiction.

The Internet is a great resource for finding the best addiction treatment centers. In your search, you should focus on finding those centers with high success rates for treatment completion and long-term drug freedom. It's also important to find addiction treatment centers that have 24-hour supervision over their members. Remember: You want your loved ones to have their freedom, but drug addicts have typically not build up the self-control that's necessary to quit cold turkey.

Addiction in Any Form is Abnormal

“Psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice” – is the medical definition of the term addiction. An addiction is an uncontrollably strong longing for something -  an abnormal kinky obsession for things.  A person with an addiction is called an addict.

Addiction is in fact a hydra-headed concept having different facets.  Medical researches and studies have divulged that every individual to some extent has an addiction.  People who have an uncanny pining or obsession for anything, are indeed addicted.  Medical studies have also revealed other forms of addiction besides alcohol, nicotine and drugs.

According to the medical community, generally there are two forms of addiction.  First there is the physical addiction, or physical dependence and psychological addiction. The second type is called pseudo-addiction.

Physical dependence: An addiction in which the addict becomes physically dependent on intoxicating substances or drugs.  People dependent on tobacco or smoking suffer from nicotine addiction.  Dipsomaniac people suffer from alcohol addiction.

Drug addiction literally means addiction to certain drugs.  A drug addiction is an extreme state of addiction resulting from drug abuse.  Drug abuse is a common practice where hard drugs are abused – for example cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, opiates (heroin, morphine and codeine) and laxatives - drugs derived from narcotics. There is a debate over the idea that freely-sold substances like alcohol and nicotine should be classified as hard drugs, as the both are linked with high mortality rates.

Psychological addiction: The term literally means getting psychologically addicted to certain things or practices. Sometimes there are people who are highly obsessed with practices like gambling, food, sex, pornography, computer, work, shopping, spending etc.  Therefore as absurd as this may sound, these people actually do in fact suffer from gambling addiction, food addiction, sex addiction, porn addiction, computer addiction, work addiction, shopping addiction, and spending addiction respectively.  People addicted to food consumption are highly preoccupied with overeating and overeating is food addiction. These people are sometimes mockingly dubbed as “food alcoholic”.  Narcissism is also a form of addiction.

Pseudo-addiction is the state in which a patient manifests drug-seeking behavior similar to psychological addiction; however, the patient experiences genuine pain or other symptoms in such cases.  Normal behavior is resumed as soon as the pain has subsided.

The physical dependence on a substance such as drug addiction, nicotine addiction and alcohol addiction can sadly often have direly fatal results.

An addiction in any form is the sign of an abnormality that requires immediate treatment. An addiction is a disorder, but it is treatable. There are numerous addiction help centers or rehabilitation centers providing addiction treatment, all over the world.  Standard drug addiction treatment may include behavioral therapy, medication therapy, or a combination of both.

People experiencing any symptoms of addiction should go forward for treatment before their addiction becomes significantly advanced.

Recovery From Addictions, Part 3

In Part 1 of this series of articles, I defined substance and process addictions, and described the four major false beliefs that underlie most addictions:

1. I can’t handle my pain.
2. I am unworthy and unlovable.
3. Others are my source of love.
4. I can have control over how others feel about me and treat me.

Part 2 was about the first of these beliefs – learning how to handle pain. This article addresses the second and third beliefs – “I am unworthy and unlovable” and “Others are my source of love.”

As small children, most of us decided that it was our fault when we didn’t get the love we needed. We decided that there must be something basically and intrinsically wrong with us that caused our parents or other caregivers to not love us or to abuse us. Since we were too small to give ourselves the love and attention we needed, we were naturally dependent upon others for our survival. Deciding it was our fault that we were not being loved gave us the feeling of control: we could change ourselves and become the “right” way in order to get the love we needed. We put aside our wonderful essence and developed our ego/wounded self to try to have control over getting love and avoiding pain. We went about trying to get the love we needed from others.

The problem is we became addicted to trying to get love from others and never learned that we can, as adults, access love directly from our Source.

Are you operating from the false belief that you can’t do this for yourself – that you can’t access the love you need directly from your Source? Do you believe that you are somehow defective and that the Source of love that is God will not come to fill you with love, peace and joy? Do you believe that you were born flawed and are therefore undeserving of receiving love from your Source? If you are operating from any of these false beliefs, then it is likely that you are still looking outside yourself for a dependable source of love.

If you could see love, you would see that we live in a universe of love – that it is all around you as well as within you. Your feeling self – your inner child – needs that love to survive and thrive. It is everywhere, yet your Child may be starving for love.

When you don’t know how to access the love that is always available to you, and you believe that it won’t be there for you anyway because you don’t deserve it, it is likely that you will turn to outside sources. You might use food as a substitute for love, or alcohol or drugs. You might use things – toys, clothes, objects – as substitutes for love. Or, you might think that another person needs to be your dependable source of love – that you need sex or attention or approval to fill the empty place within that needs love. You might sense that love exists within that other person, and you might believe that he or she has more ability to access love and bring it to you than you have. Many of the people I work with tell me that they cannot love themselves as well as someone else can, so they keep trying to get someone else to take responsibility for their feelings and needs. They keep trying to hand over their inner child to someone else, thus creating inner abandonment.

The inner abandonment that comes from using substances, things, activities or people as your source of love is the real source of your pain. As long as you are making something or someone outside yourself your dependable source of love, you will be creating - through your self-abandonment - the very pain you are trying so hard to avoid.

As children, our parents were supposed to bring us love from our Source. As adults, we are supposed to be doing this for ourselves. But when our parents didn’t show us how to do it for ourselves because they were not doing it for themselves or for us, we never learned how access our true Source of love. Without this access, you will remain stuck in your addictions, trying to fill the inner emptiness that can only be filled with love from your Source.

In the next section of this series, I will explore the ways you might be attempting to get others to fill you – coming from the false belief, “I can have control over how others feel about me and treat me,” and in the final section, I will show you how to access love from your Source.

Recovery From Addictions, Part 2

(This is Part 2 of a 5-part series on addiction).

In Part 1 of this series of articles, I defined substance and process addictions, and described the four major false beliefs that underlie most addictions:

1. I can’t handle my pain.
2. I am unworthy and unlovable.
3. Others are my source of love.
4. I can have control over how others feel about me and treat me.

This article addresses the first of these beliefs, and goes into the process of learning to manage your pain. Learning to manage pain is essential if you are going to move out of addictive behavior, since the intent of most addictive behavior is to avoid pain, coming from the belief that you cannot handle your pain.

Small children have few skills in managing pain. Parents are supposed to be there to help them with painful situations. Loving parents help children with pain by lovingly holding them, acknowledging their pain, hearing their pain, and soothing them in various ways, such “kissing it and making it better” when there is a cut or scrape, and being in compassion for difficult situations. Compassion toward a hurting child helps the child move through the pain and move on.

However, many adults had parents who, not only did not help them with their pain, but were the cause of the pain. When parents abandon children with physical, emotional, and sexual abuse or neglect, children are on their own regarding handling their pain. They are not receiving help and they have no role model for managing pain. When this is the case, addictions become the way to manage pain. Children learn early to eat, drink or take drugs to manage their pain. They learn early to numb out or act out with destructive or self-destructive behavior to avoid their pain. They may even learn to block out emotional pain by inflicting physical pain on themselves, such as cutting themselves.

In order to move beyond destructive and self-destructive behavior, you need to be in a process of developing a loving inner parent - a loving adult self - capable of giving your hurting inner child what he or she never received as you were growing up. The loving Adult is who we are when we are connected with a powerful spiritual source of love, strength and wisdom.

Your inner child is your feeling self. When you are experiencing the unbearable pain of rejection, loneliness, aloneness and abandonment and the unbearable terror of helplessness, it means that you are that child, with no inner adult to help you handle these terrible feelings. As an alone and terrified child, you will reach for whatever addiction has worked to sooth or block out the pain.

The reason the 12-Step programs have worked so well is because they help people to open to a spiritual source of strength. Without this source of strength, there is no way to manage the pain without the addictions.

We teach a Six-Step process, called Inner Bonding, which works very well along with the 12-Steps to help people in recovery from addictions. (See www.innerbonding.com for a free course). The key to recovery is to create a loving and powerful inner adult self, capable of connecting with a spiritual Source of love and compassion. The loving adult learns to bring to your hurting child all the love and compassion you didn’t receive as a child.

Love and compassion are not feelings that are generated from within the body. These feelings are the essence of what God/Higher Power is. God is love, compassion, peace, truth and joy. When you open to learning about what is loving to yourself, with a personal source of spiritual Guidance, you will begin to be able to bring through the love and compassion that you need.

Love and compassion is what you need when you are hurting. Substance and process addictions do not fill the place within that needs love and compassion. Addictions merely block out the pain of the inner abandonment you feel when you are not giving yourself the love and compassion you need. The needed love and compassion is not going to come from another person. No matter how much you wish that someone could give to you what you didn’t get as a child, it is not going to happen. You need to learn how to give it to yourself. When you do, you will be well on your way to recovery from your addictions.

Learning how to heal core shame and give yourself the love and compassion you need to recover from your addictions is the focus of the remaining articles in this series.

Recovery From Addictions: Part 1

(This is Part 1 of a 5-part series on addiction).

Just about everyone in our society is addicted to something.  Addictions can take many forms:

SUBSTANCE ADDICTIONS: addiction to alcohol, recreational drugs, prescription meds, caffeine, nicotine, food, sugar, carbohydrates.

PROCESS ADDICTIONS: addiction to love, connection, caretaking, anger, resistance, withdrawal, and to activities such as:

    •     TV
    •     Computer/internet
    •     Busyness
    •     Gossiping
    •     Sports
    •     Exercise
    •     Sleep
    •     Work
    •     Making money
    •     Spending money
    •     Gambling
    •     Sex, masturbation, pornography
    •     Shopping
    •     Accumulating things
    •     Worry
    •     Obsessive thinking (ruminating)
    •     Self-criticism
    •     Talking a lot
    •     Talking on the telephone a lot
    •     Reading
•     Gathering information (if only I know enough I will feel safe)
    •     Meditation
    •     Religion
    •     Crime
    •     Danger
•     Cutting themselves
    •     Glamour, beautifying

We can use anything as a way of avoiding feelings and avoiding taking responsibility for our painful feelings. Whenever we engage in an activity with the intention of avoiding our feelings, we are using that activity as an addiction. We can watch TV to relax and enjoy our favorite programs, or we can watch TV to avoid our feelings. We can meditate to connect with Spirit and center ourselves, or we can meditate to bliss out and avoid responsibility for our feelings. We can read to enjoy and learn, or read to escape. Anything can be an addiction, depending upon our intention.

For example, when your intention is to take loving care of yourself and your work is something you really enjoy, then working is not being used as an addiction. But when the intent is to get approval or avoid painful feelings, then work is being used as an addiction. The same is true for most of the above behaviors – they can be addictions or not, depending upon your intent.

All of us have a wounded part of us – our wounded self or ego self – that has been programmed with many false beliefs through our growing-up years. There are four common false beliefs that underlie most addictions:

1. I can’t handle my pain.
2. I am unworthy and unlovable.
3. Others are my source of love.
4. I can have control over how others feel about me and treat me.

I CAN’T HANDLE MY PAIN

While this was true when we were small, it is not true as adults, yet many people operate as if it is true. When you believe that you are incapable of handling pain – especially the deep pain of loneliness and helplessness – then you will find many addictive ways to avoid feeling your pain. All of us are capable of learning how to manage painful feelings in ways that support our highest good, rather behaving in addictive ways that hurt us.

Anything you do to avoid taking responsibility for managing your pain is self-abandonment, which creates even more pain - the deep pain of aloneness. Whether you abandon yourself to substances, processes or people, your inner child – which is your feeling self - will feel abandoned by your choice to avoid responsibility for your feelings. If you had an actual child who was in pain, and you got drunk instead of being there for that child, he or she would be in even more pain from the abandonment. It is exactly the same on the inner level. Addictive behavior is an abandonment of self and causes the very pain you are trying to avoid.

I AM UNWORTHY AND UNLOVABLE

When you did not receive the love you needed as a small child, you might have concluded that the reason you were not loved was because you were bad, flawed, defective, unworthy, unlovable, or unimportant. This is core shame – the false belief that there is essentially something wrong with you. When you adopt this belief, you become cut off from your Source, believing that you are unworthy of being loved by a Higher Power.  

OTHERS ARE MY SOURCE OF LOVE

You will become addicted to attention, approval, love, sex, or connection when you believe that another person needs to be your dependable source of love. In this case, you will be abandoning your inner child to another person, which causes as much pain as abandoning yourself to a substance. Until you learn to tap into a Higher Power as your source of love, you will continue to be addicted to people as your source of love.

I CAN HAVE CONTROL OVER HOW OTHERS FEEL ABOUT ME AND TREAT ME

If you believe you can control others’ feelings and behavior, you will become addicted to various ways of trying to control, such as anger, judgment, blame, or people-pleasing. When you believe you can’t handle your pain and that others are your source of love, then you want control over getting that love. This is the cause of the codependency that underlies most relationship problems.

There is a way to heal from addictions. The rest of the articles in this series will address the process of recovery from addictions.

Alcohol Rehab: How Rehab Centers Help Addiction Recovery

Alcohol addiction is a serious disease. Not only can it tear a family apart and lead to financial ruin, it can also lead to the premature death of the alcoholic. Therefore, it is vital for person suffering from this disease to find help immediately. Without help, it is nearly impossible for a person with an alcohol addiction to recover and return to a normal, healthy life.

* Choosing the Right Alcohol Rehab Center

An alcohol rehab center is the best source for a person ...

Alcohol addiction is a serious disease. Not only can it tear a family apart and lead to financial ruin, it can also lead to the premature death of the alcoholic. Therefore, it is vital for person suffering from this disease to find help immediately. Without help, it is nearly impossible for a person with an alcohol addiction to recover and return to a normal, healthy life.

* Choosing the Right Alcohol Rehab Center

An alcohol rehab center is the best source for a person looking for assistance with addiction recovery. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the type of rehab center best suited to the individual's needs.

There are two forms of help a person with an alcohol addiction can receive from a rehab center: inpatient and outpatient. With inpatient treatment, the patient remains on the premises of the alcohol rehab center. Outpatient treatment, on the other hand, permits the individual to continue with his or her regular life while still reporting to the rehab center for assistance and guidance. The majority of alcohol rehab centers offer both forms of treatment.

* The Support of an Alcohol Rehab Center

Regardless of the type of program the person with an alcohol addiction follows, the basics of alcohol rehab remain the same. In all cases, the addiction and other difficulties the patient faces are kept confidential. In addition, the rehab center will also include five primary components: a medical evaluation, a psychological evaluation, therapy, detox, and extended care.

* The Medical Evaluation

The medical evaluation conducted by the alcohol rehab center is meant to help the staff identify any physical problems the person with an alcohol addiction may have. Often, these physical problems are actually caused by the alcohol addiction. Problems with the liver, for example, may have developed as a result of the addiction. After medical problems have been identified, the staff of the rehab center can work toward making the patient physically healthy once more.

Improving the patient's physical health is an important component of addiction recovery. This is because it takes a holistic approach to get an addict back on the road toward recovery. This includes taking care of the patient's physical, mental, and emotional health. Without this three-pronged approach, the patient is more likely to fail in the process of addiction recovery.

* The Psychological Evaluation

The psychological evaluation also provides the staff of the rehab center with volumes of important information about the patient. The psychological evaluation helps the team better understand the patient. In addition, the team of specialists can determine whether the person suffering from alcohol addiction is also struggling from certain psychological problems. For example, it is common for a person suffering from alcohol addiction to also suffer from depression. If this is the case, the program developed to assist the patient will also include a plan to address this issue.

* Therapy

Generally, an alcohol rehab center will provide both group and individual therapy to its patients. The group therapy is designed to give the person with an alcohol addiction support from others who are experiencing the same difficulties. Being able to share in the struggles with those who can truly understand often makes the process easier for a patient to deal with.

Nonetheless, individual counseling is also critical to addiction recovery. Having the opportunity to work one-on-one with a counselor helps the patient work through his or her own individual conflicts. Through individual therapy, the patient can come to terms with his or her addiction and work through ways to resolve it by setting individual goals.

* Detoxification

In addition the medical and physical evaluations, patients of alcohol rehab centers generally undergo a 24-hour medically supervised detoxification and withdrawal period. During this period, the patient is forced to go without alcohol. For many patients coping with alcohol addiction, this may be the longest time they have gone without alcohol in many years.

The detoxification period is difficult for the person suffering from alcohol addiction because it is accompanied by extreme withdrawal symptoms. These symptoms take their toll on the patient both physically and mentally. For this reason, an alcohol rehab center also provides close patient monitoring and assistance during this period.

* Extended Care

Extended care, which is also sometimes referred to as aftercare, is vital to the success of addiction recovery. Through an extended care program, the patient continues to receive support and assistance from the alcohol rehab center after being released from the more intensive alcohol rehab program.

Extended care programs are designed to help monitor the patient's success in alcohol addiction recovery. To do this appropriately, the program staff watch over the patient to be sure he or she is utilizing the new skills gained during rehab. For instance, the extended care specialist may work with the patient to be sure he or she is staying away from specific crowds of people that encourage drinking. Or, the extended care specialist may check to be sure the patient is utilizing appropriate resistance skills. Without a strong extended care program, it is easy for the patient to fall back into the cycle of abuse.