You Can Stop Drinking Now

There is a current theory among some doctors that are knowledgeable about alcoholism that alcoholism is caused by a traumatic experience in the alcoholic’s life when he or she was very young that caused them to feel they were in serious danger and caused the alcoholic to feel helpless.  This trauma created in the alcoholic the inability to process feelings and the inability to trust others. In other words, what caused the alcoholic to become addicted to alcohol is the same set of problems that make maintaining relationships difficult.

This trauma resulted in what’s called disassociation.  This is where you cut yourself off from your feelings and from others and isolate yourself at least on an emotional level.  The theory goes on to say that it was at the time of this trauma that you stopped developing the part of your brain that regulates emotions.

What’s the result? The alcoholic tends to have a hard time with relationships. You can’t trust someone else with your feelings and so cannot maintain a genuine relationship.  The alcoholic feels he or she is putting themselves in danger by exposing their feelings and risking further harm.

The alcoholic unknowingly looking for a solution to this problem actually sets the stage for addiction. Drinking makes life and challenges feel better. That along with the biological wiring to respond in a very positive way to substances makes addiction all but a sure thing.

So the alcoholic feels “messed up” and doesn’t understand why his or her relationships aren’t working out.  They use alcohol to regulate their emotions, i.e., they drink to handle emotions that are too big and too unpleasant for them.  And in relationships, since they have trust issues, some can experience feelings of great discomfort and panic when they feel a relationship is getting too intimate. 

The problem is that drinking to deal with emotions has left those emotions unchanged since you started using and drinking has impaired your emotional development.  That’s probably why there is a common phrase that you are at the emotional level you were at when you started using.  If you started using at the age of 14, allegedly that’s the emotional level you currently operate at.

This is one reason why alcoholics have such a hard time quitting. You no longer have the buffer to keep your feelings at bay and if you want success in your relationships, you have to learn to trust others again.  It takes courage to make that kind of beginning.