Addiction Recovery Articles

After years of careful study, they hold life and death in their hands every day; no one understands the miracle or the frailty of the human body as well as physicians. That should make it all the more shocking to learn that up to 15 percent of U.S. surgeons may have problems with alcohol abuse, according to a 2012 study published in the Archives of Surgery.

While we all have different journeys in recovery, most will agree that accountability is a crucial component when it comes to staying clean and sober. Once we admit we want to rebuild our lives—whether it’s to a close friend, a family member or all our followers on Instagram—it becomes a lot harder to just pick up a drink or pop a pill.

Addiction is addiction. That’s a fundamental principle to grasp when differentiating between different types of habits. In modern culture, drug use is generally stigmatized and alcohol use is generally socially acceptable—however, the two behaviors are often intertwined, particularly in the lives of recovering drug addicts.

By Danielle StewartWhile we all have different journeys in recovery, most will agree that accountability is a crucial component when it comes to staying clean and sober. Once we admit we want to rebuild our lives—whether it’s to a close friend, a family member or all our followers on Instagram—it becomes a lot harder to just pick up a drink or pop a pill.

When someone wakes up after a night of drinking and feels dehydrated, nauseous and achy, we label this a hangover – a side effect of drinking too much. When an alcoholic or dependent drinker wakes up after a night of drinking, he or she will have different symptoms, due to drinking what their brain perceives as too little.

Misconceptions abound about what a person should do to help an alcoholic friend. Many feel they can make the person stop drinking by shaming them, disposing of their alcohol, hiding their money, or getting them arrested. Others think that if they simply love them enough, the person will stop on their own. None of these methods are particularly effective for truly helping an alcoholic.

There are a couple questions I get a lot when people find out I work at a treatment center. The first is how to tell if you are an alcoholic, which I covered in a previous blog. The second is whether binge drinking is the same thing as alcoholism, or if it is just harmless fun. That brings up the difference between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence.

Recovery is ongoing; it isn’t achieved in a short, 30-day period. Addiction is classified as a chronic illness, and relapse is an unfortunate reality that the recovery community actively works to prevent through various methods. One such method of fending off relapse is monitoring programs.

My brother came home from a 12-month stay in rehab. My confidant, my jokester, my BFF is back! His year in rehab seems to have passed in the blink of an eye, but in the moment it seemed like every minute without his free spirit in our home took a lifetime to pass.In the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed my anxiety has doubled, no, scratch that, it’s tripled without him.

I often wonder how I was so blind to the fact that I was an alcoholic. Looking back, all of the signs were there.My life was out of control; once I had my first drink of the day, I had little-to-no control over the amount I drank. All bets were off. And when I truly wanted to stop drinking, I couldn’t.The tricky part there is that I thought I had a choice in it all.