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Do you use alcohol or drugs to help you cope with your PTSD
symptoms?
If you do, you aren't
alone. Many, if not most, people with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome - PTSD have
tried to manage their symptoms by using substances. In fact, research on Vietnam
veterans with PTSD has found that almost 80% of veterans with PTSD have had
problems with drugs and/or alcohol at some point in their lives. The rates are
staggering in the civilian population, too.
If you have PTSD and are using drugs and alcohol, you may be
"self-medicating". Self-medicating means trying to treat your PTSD
symptoms on your own by using drugs or alcohol as a medicine. For example, you
might drink to help yourself sleep or to keep upsetting memories from coming to
mind. You might smoke marijuana to relax. You might use cocaine to feel
something instead of just feeling "numb". Drugs and alcohol sometimes do
influence emotional pain. At first they may provide you with some comfort and
relief. But, in the long run, drug and alcohol abuse and addiction result in a
whole new set of very serious problems. Self-medicating is definitely not a
long-term solution.
If you are relying on drugs and alcohol to manage your symptoms,
it is important that you get treatment. Substance abuse can create many serious
problems with your body, your mind, your finances, your relationships and,
sometimes most painfully of all, with your self-esteem. In treatment, you will
learn ways of coping with your PTSD symptoms and with your cravings for drugs
and alcohol. You may also be prescribed medication. This medication will help
reduce your PTSD symptoms but will not have all the negative long-term effects
of self-medicating with drugs and alcohol.
If you have decided to stop using substances, congratulations on
taking the first, and sometimes the hardest step, in your recovery! Getting
treatment is your next step:
- The first stage in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse is
detoxification. If you have been using heavily for many years it is very
important that you do this under medical supervision. Withdrawal from alcohol
can be life-threatening. In fact, withdrawal from almost all drugs can produce
symptoms that need to be monitored by a medical professional.
- After you have stopped using your drug, you need a treatment
program that will help you stay clean and sober. These kinds of programs are
called "rehabilitation" programs. Some are residential, meaning you live at the
program for a certain amount of time. Others are outpatient, meaning that you
live at home and come to meetings and individual therapy sessions at the
program. This part of your treatment should also help you figure out why you
used the drug in the first place. Your local VA, AA and NA all provide
rehabilitation programs. Your county mental health department may also provide
these services.
- It is very important that you receive PTSD treatment at the
same time from a counselor or therapist. This treatment will help you find new
ways to manage your PTSD symptoms without resorting to using drugs and
alcohol.
Don't be discouraged if you have to make several attempts at
treatment before you are able to stop using substances. Attempts to quit with
relapse are often a normal part of the process of recovery from substance use.
Very few people stay clean and sober for the rest of their lives after their
first treatment program. However, with help and determination, you can recover and heal from PTSD and
substance abuse.
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Drinking is considered by many to be
a harmless social activity. For some, however, it’s an entrapping addiction.
Life’s day-to-day activities lose their appeal as the alcoholic opts for the
numbing or euphoric effects of drink. Alcoholics — and their loved ones — suffer
mentally, relationally and physically. This chain-reaction dependency
disintegrates relationships, promotes violence and sends the alcoholic and his
family into a seemingly endless cycle of drunkenness, anger and despair. Many
addicts minimize the impact of their drinking and insist that their life — and
their habit — is under control. Though the disease may appear insurmountable,
change is possible with support from loved ones and
God.
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If You're an Alcoholic
by Lisa Brock
A drink or two now and
then may seem harmless. But for more than 10 percent of people in the United
States, drinking becomes alcohol abuse. Each of those alcoholics directly
affects the lives of six other people, especially the ones they love. Alcoholics
are more likely to make mistakes at work, commit a crime or injure a spouse or
child while under the influence of this intoxicating drug. Excessive use of
alcohol is a contributing factor in more than half of the homicides, suicides
and traffic accidents in our country. So as you begin to consider giving up
alcohol, consider this: How is your drinking affecting the people you love? And
what can you do to make their lives better?
Though at times it may seem
that alcoholism is a trap you can never escape, those who do fight the disease
are often successful. In order to learn to live without alcohol, you need to get
off to a good start:
- Find a self-help
organization. This disease is too difficult to fight on
your own. Finding a place where you can share your experiences with others who
will understand can help you to be more successful in your journey toward
sobriety.
- Develop a support
network. Alcoholics are more likely to beat their habit
if they have a strong group of friends and family members who help them see the
good in what they are doing. Let those close to you know what you are
endeavoring to do and ask for their help.
- Avoid people and places you associate
with drinking. Make some new friends who don’t drink and
spend your time with them after work or on weekends. Avoiding the temptation of
drinking will help you to beat it.
- Replace your dependence on alcohol with
new interests. Spend the time you would normally spend
at a bar or drinking at home on other projects that capture your interest.
Staying busy during those drinking times makes it easier to avoid
drinking.
- Exercise.
Besides the health benefits, regular exercise can give you a natural “high” to
replace your need for alcohol. And the better care you take of your body, the
less likely you are to want to pollute it with alcohol.
- Give up smoking, too. Ninety percent of alcoholics are smokers. Those who are the most
successful at staying sober are those who kick the cigarette habit at the same
time.
 Alcoholics
Anonymous
April is Alcohol Awareness
Month
When many people think of alcohol abusers, they
picture teenagers sneaking drinks before high school football games or at
unsupervised parties. However, alcohol abuse is prevalent within many
demographic groups in the United States. People who abuse alcohol can
be:
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Warning Signs of Alcohol Abuse
If you answer "yes" to any of the following questions, you may have a
problem with alcohol:
- Do you drink alone
when you feel angry or sad?
- Does your drinking
ever make you late for work?
- Does your drinking
worry your family?
- Do you ever drink
after telling yourself you won't?
- Do you ever forget
what you did while drinking?
- Do you get
headaches or have a hangover after drinking?
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- College students
who binge drink at local bars.
- Pregnant women who
drink and put their babies at risk for fetal alcohol syndrome.
- Professionals who
drink after a long day of work.
- Senior citizens who
drink out of loneliness.
To recognize the serious problem of alcohol abuse, April is
designated "Alcohol Awareness Month." April 6 marks the annual observance of
National Alcohol Screening Day (NASD) . At locations across the United States,
people can be screened-anonymously-to see if their drinking habits may be
risky.
Participants who come into a screening site on
April 6 will have the opportunity to view an educational presentation and pick
up educational materials, such as a questionnaire that screens for risky
drinking and dependence. People can also meet one-on-one with a health
professional to discuss any concerns. The screenings are free and
anonymous.
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Breaking the Cycle
by Archibald D. Hart, Ph.D.
How can an addictive
process be broken once it has begun? This is not easy, but it is possible. Here
are some suggestions:
- The addict should try to identify
whether the addiction is maintained by the drive of excitement seeking, tension
reduction, or both. The greater his or her understanding
of the dynamics of the addiction, the greater his or her ability to overcome
it.
- Addicts that are predominantly
excitement seekers should concentrate on being content with the “ordinary” and
developing an appetite for satisfaction rather than stimulation.
Thrill-seeking addicts need to learn how to be content
with ordinary activities and increase their appreciation for the “little” joys
of life. Overstimulation creates satiation. Therefore, overcoming an
excitement-seeking addiction involves learning how to live with less arousal and
allowing your body and mind to become accustomed to lowered
arousal.
- Tension reducers need to focus on
identifying their painful emotions more accurately and understanding how these
emotions lead to the addictive behaviors. The goal here
is to teach oneself how to confront pain head-on, with full engagement of
reality. In addition, because denial is such a powerful force, addicts need to
increase their awareness of their denial tendencies, undoing their tendency to
misinterpret, confuse the issue or split off their feelings from reality. Ask a
close friend or spouse to give honest feedback, for instance. Or build a small
support group of trusted friends with whom you can share your
tensions.
- Addicts should pay attention to the
trigger mechanisms that serve as stimulants to an addictive
cycle. Knowing the kind of circumstances that tend to
“kick off” addictive behavior means that the addict can either avoid the trigger
or formulate a plan for keeping the trigger from “working.”
- Addicts need to find alternative ways
of responding to their trigger mechanisms. This means
learning to deal with need in a more wholesome way. For instance, if boredom is
a trigger, the addict needs to learn some way of handling boredom without
resorting to the addictive behavior. If the trigger is depression, the addict
must seek help in discovering the underlying cause of the depression and
overcoming it. Suppressing depression is never a cure — it only prolongs the
depression.
- Parents need to recognize how to avoid
raising addiction-prone children. We know that children
of alcoholics might become alcoholics partly because they were raised with their
parents modeling addictive behavior to them. The same is true for the children
of workaholics, shopaholics, compulsive gamblers, and other process addicts.
Children learn what they see, and therefore many hidden addictions are passed on
from generation to generation with little thought to how this cycle might be
stopped.
- Because most addictions arise out of
the pleasure/pain axis of life (giving rise to either excitement-seeking or
tension-reducing addictions), parents can play a key role in shaping a healthy
approach to life. Teaching children how not to be so
stimulation — or excitement — bound is not difficult. All it takes is a little
forethought, some patience and a lot of personal example.
- Last, addicts must seek spiritual and
psychological healing. An addiction is a very complex
learned response involving the whole person — mind, body, and spirit. The longer
one has been controlled by it, the deeper it is entrenched. Lots of hard work is
needed to undo these complex connections of thought, nerve, and hormone. I
believe that God’s intervention is needed as well, whether He works through a
direct miracle (I have seen this happen) or through a more natural healing
process.
Addiction
Triggers
by Archibald Hart,
Ph.D.
The two major drives that
underlie the addictive process, excitement seeking and tension reduction, are
often “set off” by a particular starting stimulus. We can call this the “trigger
mechanism” for the addiction. It is the emotion or occurrence that starts a
given cycle of addictive behavior.
Let’s imagine that Dave, a fictitious salesman, is
generally bored with his job, but he loves to ski. Skiing is the only source of
real excitement in Dave’s life; he lives for the snow slopes and dreams about
nothing else. Clearly he is an addict because he neglects every other aspect of
his life.Now, say it is Friday morning. Dave usually spends Fridays in the
office writing up orders and processing his paperwork. This is a part of his job
he particularly hates. Every form, letter, and purchase order is like poison to
him; he even dislikes touching them.Dave checks his watch. Nine-thirty in the
morning. Still six and a half hours to go before quitting time. He tries to
concentrate, but the dull routine of his job acts as a stimulus for his
addictive need. Boredom is the trigger for his addiction craving. He wants to be
on the mountain. He wants to feel the cold chill of the wind and hear the swoosh
of the skis. He checks his watch again. Only 9:50. The more bored Dave becomes,
the more he craves his skiing fix. It’s going to be a long day!Trigger
mechanisms like Dave’s boredom begin the addictive craving for a given cycle of
need. They differ from person to person and from addictive behavior to addictive
behavior. Often the roots of these trigger mechanisms can be traced to
experiences we disliked as a child. Here are some common
triggers:
- anxiety
- isolation
- boredom
- depression
- crises
- sense of failure
- unmet sexual needs
- criticism
- selfish needs
The last of the above list,
selfish needs, is a major trigger for many addictions. Technically known as
“polarized narcissism,” it is usually found in people who have suffered from
early life disruption or damage and whose nurturance and dependency needs have
not been met. Such people often develop a deep desire for instant gratification.
They know where, when, and how they want it, and they want it now! For instance,
they demand instant and excessive affirmation for even small attempts at work or
in relationships. The needs of others never enter the picture. They are focused
only on their own needs.
There are many other possible triggers for addictive
behavior. In fact, anything that threatens failure,
rejection, or abandonment can become a stimulus for an
addiction cycle. Add to this the personality traits of passivity,
under-assertiveness, or dependency, and you have a powerful set of addictive
triggers.
Excerpted from Healing Life’s Hidden
Addictions by Dr. Archibald Hart, Copyright © 1990 Dr. Archibald Hart. Used by permission.
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Are You Troubled by Someone's Drinking?
Al-Anon Is for
You!
Millions of people are affected by the excessive drinking of
someone close. The following questions are designed to help you decide whether
or not you need Al-Anon:
- Do you worry about how much someone else
drinks?
- Do you have money problems because of someone else's
drinking?
- Do you tell lies to cover up for someone else's
drinking?
- Do you feel that if the drinker cared about you, he or she
would stop drinking to please you?
- Do you blame the drinker's behavior on his or her
companions?
- Are plans frequently upset or canceled or meals delayed
because of the drinker?
- Do you make threats, such as, "If you don't stop drinking,
I'll leave you"?
- Do you secretly try to smell the drinker's
breath?
- Are you afraid to upset someone for fear it will set off a
drinking bout?
- Have you been hurt or embarrassed by a drinker's
behavior?
- Are holidays and gatherings spoiled because of
drinking?
- Have you considered calling the police for help in fear of
abuse?
- Do you search for hidden alcohol?
- Do you every ride in a car with a driver who has been
drinking?
- Have you refused social invitations out of fear or
anxiety?
- Do you feel like a failure because you can't control the
drinking?
- Do you think that if the drinker stopped drinking, your
other problems would be solved?
- Do you ever threaten to hurt yourself to scare the
drinker?
- Do you feel angry, confused, or depressed most of the
time?
- Do you feel there is no one who understands your
problems?
If you have answered "Yes" to any of these questions,
Al-Anon or Alateen may help you. | |
