Alcohol abuse and alcoholism are two different things. The abuse of alcohol is most generally defined as the “use of alcoholic beverages to excess, either on individual occasions (“binge drinking”) or as a regular practice” (MedicineNet.com). I abused alcohol for many years before I ever became an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disease, alcohol abuse, from the definition, is a behavior. As a recovered alcoholic, I know how to treat alcoholism, so treating alcohol abuse or the term alcohol abuse treatment will take a little more work to look at.
From this perspective, to treat alcohol abuse, the goal would be to stop the behavior of abusing alcohol before it becomes the disease of alcoholism; if that’s the progression. Which in my case, it was. To stop the behavior of alcohol abuse, the consequences for the individual have to become greater than the apparent positive feelings or experiences they get from drinking. In my case, the negative consequences did not get bad until they got… well, really bad.
If I look back at my history of drinking, there were some occasions where alcohol abuse treatment may have worked. Times where my abuse of alcohol was causing me some problems, and had I stopped at that point, maybe I would not have become an alcoholic. It’s funny, as I’m writing this I don’t believe that statement. I do not believe anything could have ever prevented me from becoming an alcoholic. It is my belief I was born an alcoholic. But lets say there could have been a point at which I may have been able to perform some type of alcohol abuse treatment. Maybe if the consequences of my drinking had gotten to a more serious point, I may have sought some type of abuse treatment. But I’ll never know.
For me personally, I never suffered severe consequences for my drinking. Well, OK, lets define what I mean by severe. Severe would mean any circumstances that forced me to seek help. Just about the only thing that comes to mind is legal pressure due to Drunken Driving arrests or some other crime related to alcohol, which I was never involved in. What that said however, I still may not have seriously sought alcohol abuse treatment. I know many alcoholics in recovery who have received numerous DUI’s and faced severe legal consequences due to their drinking and that never stopped them. There no way to know if legal trouble would have stopped my alcohol abuse either.
Truth is, I had to get so severely depressed from alcohol depression that I considered suicide before I truly sought treatment for my alcoholism. Or at least went after recovery with the desperation needed to sustain any long-term sobriety.
In my opinion, alcohol abuse treatment would be treating someone who is abusing alcohol. So what does that mean? Well, it would help them see that where they’re heading is not a pleasant road to travel. Maybe it would be some type of preventative class or educational series about the effects and severe risks of alcoholism. Would this really work? Part of me wants to say its a waste of time and that most of the people who truly want to drink and abuse alcohol are going to do it anyway. But then the risk of not trying something is even greater.
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