The Myth Of Controlled Drinking For The Alcoholic

he idea of controlled drinking has been getting a lot of press as of late; it seems to resurface every few years in a different form.

While there are announcements every few years that there is a new treatment in the works which will allow people to drink while eliminating the chance for addiction; as you know it’s not available yet, if indeed it ever will be.

Controlled drinking dates back to the 1930s. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous mentions it, saying essentially “The great delusion of every alcoholic is that one day he can drink again like a gentleman”.  Personally, I haven’t seen anything yet that can prevent alcohol or drug problems other than abstinence.

However, research continues into controlled drinking – but most of this research suffers from flawed methodology and reporting.  The results are also usually not reported quite as they are by the press; you can’t blame them, it does make a great story. The truth here is that no long term studies have shown controlled drinking to work for alcoholics. Now, of course those who are not dependent on alcohol can indeed cut down; but were are talking here about those who are genuinely addicted to alcohol.

If you have become dependent on alcohol, you cannot, repeat, cannot go back to simply drinking in moderation. Chemical dependency rewires your brain – you cannot simply use controlled drinking.

The myth of controlled drinking rests largely on the anecdotes about alcoholics who have managed to exercise the willpower necessary to stop drinking for a while. The reasoning is that if I can stop drinking for a month, then I can quit anytime and don’t have a drinking problem. Then these alcoholics go right back to drinking, convinced that they do not have a drinking problem. Believe me, when they stop, they’re just counting down to when they can start drinking again.

Another thing I hear (which makes me crazy, every time) is that if you aren’t ready to quit just yet, try cutting down and then quit altogether. As an addiction therapist, I know this doesn’t work. It’s like a doctor telling someone who just attempted suicide to try jumping off of a smaller building next time and work their way down.

It seems there is no escaping the fact that controlled drinking is nothing more than a myth which leads many alcoholics to delude themselves a little longer. If you want to quit using, the only way is to quit using.

Welcome back!

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Tagged as: alcohol, alcoholic, Alcoholism