Alcoholism: Working the 12-Steps

Alcoholism is a pervasive intruder in the lives of millions of people, either directly or indirectly. It is safely assumed that you know someone with a drinking problem.

Denial Is The Greatest Roadblock Towards Recovery

Denial prevents recovery and is the greatest roadblock towards sobriety. Coming out from denial can take years, or maybe never. Denial keeps the alcoholic, and those who love an alcoholic, believing they don’t have a problem and that they can stop drinking at anytime. But the truth is they can’t stop at anytime. If they could stop at anytime then there wouldn’t be a problem. If you can stop drinking at one or two drinks then show us, don’t tell us.

Most alcoholics, if they have the right divine guidance, can work the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and become sober for life and become better people through it all. AA is a great place to start for many alcoholics for mental and spiritual recovery. Some alcoholics have been known to go through the process of the 12-steps without ever stepping foot in a meeting hall, while others may wish to go to seven meetings in seven days. Overall healing and recovery depends on the individual and their personal circumstances.

How Can Alcoholic’s Anonymous Help?

AA helps the alcoholic come out from the clutches of denial and better understand who they are in relation to others and themselves. It helps them to grow out from self and grasp the concept of their Creator, which gives them faith and hope in God as well as in themselves. The community of AA helps the alcoholic to see that they are not alone in their addiction. They will meet others who are also working towards sobriety that they can identify themselves with and also receive encouragement from.

Having a problem with drinking does not mean you are a weak person, it means you have unresolved emotional issues that have not had a chance to heal. The 12-steps help you to dredge up the past and confront your demons head on with the support of your AA family or with the support of your home family or both. Once you work yourself through each step of AA it helps you to conquer the emotional aspects of addiction.

There is no rush to complete the steps. In fact take your time and make sure that you have actually completed a step before thinking you can move on with your life on life’s terms. Loved ones should be as supportive as possible as the alcoholic is trying to maintain sobriety. AA does not help with the physical addiction to alcohol -- this must been done at home through proper diet and exercise.

Alcoholic Is Not Who You Are

Alcoholic is not who you are, but is an affliction that has taken over your life, controlling the person God meant for you to be. You are a beautiful Child of God, even if you don’t believe in God. God still loves you. Because God loves you, you have the ability to totally defeat all aspects of alcoholism from your life. If you so choose, God will make you strong and give you the faith and courage to conquer alcoholism for good!

You have to decide, “Who you are”. Are you a person who originated from an oyster, monkey, or gorilla? Where did you come from? Are you just another body of the millions of bodies simply roaming the earth who have no set purpose for their life? If you have an attitude like this, you probably won’t get sober, or won’t be able to stay sober for very long. That’s the reality of addiction.

God has a purpose for you, whether you want to believe it or not.

Poor Diet Keeps The Alcoholic Craving Alcohol

“Study after study has demonstrated that the vast majority of alcoholics are hypoglycemic. In one conducted by J. Poulos, D. Stafford, and K. Carron, fifty outpatient alcoholics and fifty halfway-house alcoholics were compared with a control group of one hundred nurses and teenagers. Of the one hundred alcoholics, ninety-six proved to be hypoglycemic; only fourteen of the nonalcoholic controls were hypoglycemic. A three-year study by Robert Meiers, M.D., in Santa Cruz, California, found that more than 95 percent of alcoholics studied suffered from low blood sugar”

The addiction to alcohol, in the physical sense, is probably the hardest aspect of alcoholism to conquer. An alcoholic literally craves the sugar in the alcohol. The brain continually sends signals of needing a fix of sugar because the pancreas just isn’t doing its job properly. This malady has a lot to do with the eating lifestyle of the alcoholic.

All alcoholics are nutritionally deficient and most likely hypoglycemic. Have you ever noticed how usually an alcoholic will not eat sugar foods unless they can’t get an alcohol fix? That is because they are getting their cravings met through the sugar in the alcohol. Low blood sugar is the culprit. Clean up your diet and get sober!

The alcoholic absolutely needs to begin to eat a good daily diet of whole grains, fish, beans, legumes, and fresh fruits and vegetables. They need to replenish the minerals they have lost. This means no processed or refined sugar foods, whatsoever. If it is not whole and natural, simply don’t eat it. Once the body is well, the cravings for alcohol will subside considerably. But don’t take my word for it, try it and see for yourself.

How Alcoholism and Hypoglycemia Controls Body, Mind, and Spirit

Alcoholism is a health affliction of the mind, body and soul. Virtually anyone can become an alcoholic if they are around the conditions that breed addictive behavior such as alcoholism – that would be environmentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Alcoholism is an addiction that attaches itself to the body, mind, and spirit of its victims. Let’s take a look.

Physical Addiction To Alcohol

The physical addiction to alcohol is an operation that deals with how the pancreas processes sugar in the bloodstream. In the alcoholic/hypoglycemic individual the pancreas does not do a very efficient job in processing the sugars from the alcohol.

Here is how it works: The alcoholic literally craves his first few drinks of alcohol just for the sugar aspect of it. (If there is no alcohol around, he will most likely gorge out on sugar foods to curb his addiction). Once the alcoholic has had his first few drinks it depresses blood sugar levels even more (the pancreas is too overloaded to do its job efficiently)! So the alcoholic craves even more sugar to correct this low blood sugar state and the vicious cycle continues. Brain cells demand more alcohol to replace the lack of sugar. Hence, the alcoholic craves alcohol.

I am a recovered alcoholic of fifteen years and I have done extensive research into the effects of alcoholism on the body and can safely tell you that once diet is improved and hypoglycemia treated through proper diet, the physical addiction for alcohol will subside. When I was an alcoholic/hypoglycemic I would eat sweets and drink Pepsi all day if I didn’t have access to alcohol. I was an emotional basket case.

Poor diet is the culprit for physical addiction to alcohol. How do I know this? Because I have listened to my body and I corrected hypoglycemia and physical cravings for alcohol through diet. The best diet for the alcoholic, diabetic, hypoglycemic is a whole grain diet. Throw out all refined food products from your kitchen cupboards and go natural! Foods such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole grain pasta, beans, legumes, and oatmeal all work to stabilize and metabolize blood sugar levels, which gives the overloaded pancreas a break so it can start to do its job properly.

Whole grains are best because they are digested slowly into the body system resulting in an optimal environment for blood sugar levels – there is no spiking, no cravings, and no emotional and physical imbalances. Diet plays a huge role in how our brain works. With a whole grain, whole foods diet, the brain stops sending out signals for more alcohol or sugar.

To sum this up I am going to say that alcoholism could very well be a symptom of hypoglycemia. Not all people who have low blood sugar become alcoholics mainly because the rest of the triggers for alcoholism aren’t present in that individual.

Psychological Addiction To Alcohol

Now we come to the emotional and mental aspects of alcoholism. Alcoholics usually have emotional ups and downs, are easily agitated, suffer from anxiety and panic, have a low self esteem, and often feel depressed. These symptoms are because they have hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is as much an emotional affliction as it is physical. All of the above are symptoms of hypoglycemia or sugar overload syndrome.

Ninety-five percent of alcoholics have low blood sugar. But what happens when there is a change in diet? Is hypoglycemia cured? Yes! But understand, if I deliberately bang my head against the wall several times I’m going to have some bumps and bruises. In the same way if I deliberately eat a poor diet of refined food products my body and mind is going to let me know about it through a vitamin/mineral deficiency. We are in control of what we eat. Your doctor doesn’t care what you eat. If you don’t do anything about a poor diet your body will.

Most alcoholics have a difficult time managing their emotions or understanding reality. I truly thought I could not cope with life unless I was drinking. I was scared to death to stop drinking! And in a way this is very true for the alcoholic/hypoglycemic because they are so vitamin deficient that their brain works in puzzling ways. It can be a confusing, fearful, and anxious time for the alcoholic when they first get sober…until they begin to take care of their diet! Unless the alcoholic changes their eating habits they will never stay sober because the physical addiction to alcohol is the craving aspect of addiction. If you have ever been addicted to cigarettes than you know what I’m talking about.

Alcohol is the alcoholics best friend and losing their best friend may mean they will never be able to cope with life on life’s terms. Of course, the truth is all alcoholics who become truly sober (not dry drunk) emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually will look back on their alcoholic days and laugh because they truly can live without alcohol and NEVER CRAVE ALCOHOL OR SUGAR EVER AGAIN! Once diet is corrected and the alcoholic is sober for at least six months he’ll begin to realize that he can function just fine without alcohol.

Spiritual Addiction To Alcohol

Why does alcohol affect our spirituality? Alcohol for the alcoholic controls the mind. For the alcoholic “getting a fix” consumes and controls every aspect of their life. Even functioning alcoholics while at work are consumed with coming home or going to the bar and having a drink twenty or more times a day. There is no time in the thoughts for spirituality.

Although I can say that once the alcoholic realizes they do have a drinking problem they are more inclined to reach out to God for the help they need. But that certainly doesn’t mean they will all of a sudden be fixed of addiction. No. As you have learned this far, alcoholism is a physical and emotional affliction also, and all areas of alcoholism NEED TO BE HEALED before the alcoholic is safely healed from the cravings of alcohol.

Addiction keeps us from becoming the whole and complete person that God wants us to be. Potential becomes stunted because alcohol is in control of our ambition, goals, ideas, and dreams. Alcoholics simply do not realize how much of life they are missing out on.

I remember very clearly in my latter two years of alcoholism. I would try and feel God’s presence within me, and there were times when I believe I was ready to let “it” go and give “it” to God. But stubbornness, rebelliousness and poor health kept me on the road of addiction. In my bouts of sobriety I felt guilty and my low self-esteem was hard to deal with sober, plus I really craved alcohol so I continued to drink. Two years later I finally woke up one day and thought to my self, “this is not the right road for me.

Incidentally, all roads may be the right roads at the time for trials and tribulations that we go through and experience in life, but in the end only one road leads to God. This is where faith comes in to trust God with your life. If God created you then why won’t He save you? God loves you, even if you have been walking on your own road. God will save you if you ask Him to and believe that with all of your heart, mind and soul.

Emotionally the alcoholic needs to find out what his or her wounds are (past baggage) and give them to God. Spiritually this is how you fix the wounds. Everyone hurts and everyone suffers from time to time. Alcohol is not the way to not have to feel. We have to feel our feelings so we can move past the hurt and become better people. Jesus wants your burdens. He wants to make your life easier. Let God intervene in your life. Inner healing needs to take place within your emotional and spiritual life. This is where you hand over your life to God and just give up control of it. Give your life to God.

Alcoholics Are Special

Do you know why alcoholics are special? They are special because they have an uncanny ability to keep drinking alcohol even after the last person has left the party. You might be thinking, “That’s not special, that’s downright unhealthy.” Well, what do you think alcoholism is? Alcoholism is unhealthy in every form imaginable – physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.

Alcoholics have always been a minority of misfits, drinking all night long, hardly able to manage the next morning, until the next drink, and then starting all over again. I’m talking about myself here – I can’t speak for all alcoholics. I literally felt like a misfit when I was in the depths of addiction. Anyway, the repetition or vicious cycle is what makes an alcoholic an alcoholic. If he or she could stop at one or two drinks they wouldn’t be alcoholic, right?

Actually what makes an alcoholic special is the sensitivity of their hearts when they are sober. Notice I said, when they are sober. Through my own research, and asking former alcoholics, I’ve come to the conclusion that alcoholic’s have a high sensitivity level towards people and their feelings that exceeds that of non-alcoholics, in general. This is why sober alcoholics and drug addicts almost always find themselves in a serving type profession helping other people combat their addictions and personal problems.

Former alcoholics make exceptional caregivers counselors, advisers, nurses, and other health care providers. And to me, that is special because the world could always use more good, caring people to teach others what they know and to help them overcome what has trapped them from within. If you ever need addiction help – the first and foremost aspect to look for in the qualifications is if they were former addicts. Rest assured, they will know more about what you are going through than someone that has never been addicted before.