Healing The Underlying Causes of Alcohol & Drug Addiction
Alcohol and drugs are not the problems; they are what people are using to help themselves cope with the problems. Those problems always have both physical and psychological components - anything from anemia, hypoglycemia, or a sluggish thyroid to attention deficient disorder, brain-wave pattern imbalances, or deep emotional pain. You will be reading later about the steps to recovery that address these causes, but foundational to them all is this key premise: when the underlying problems are discovered and cured, the need for alcohol or drugs disappears.
I would like to see the word alcoholism eliminated from the English language as well as the labels alcoholic and addict. There is a stigma attached to them. The word alcoholism alone has a whole world of grim meaning attached to it. We've been inundated with studies of alcoholism, theories about alcoholism, lectures about alcoholism, stories of alcoholism, and essays on alcoholism, when all that has really happened is that people have become dependent on alcohol to cope with their underlying conditions.
Alcohol is just a quick and easy way to change ordinary, everyday reality from unbearable to bearable. All it takes is a short trip to the liquor store and a few drinks. People who are dependent are merely using alcohol as a crutch to get through the day. Yet doctors and scientists are still treating "alcoholism" as if it is the problem, when it has nothing at all to do with the problem. They might as well be studying "scratchism" for people who have a chronic itch.
Suppose you had a chronic itch and scratched it regularly throughout the day. Would you have "scratchism?" Would you be a "scratchaholic?" Of course not. What if you had a constant headache, and to cope with it you took aspirin several times each day. Would you suffer from "aspirinism," and would you be called an "aspirinaholic"? More important, if you sought help for treatment of those ailments, would you be treated for "scratchism" or "aspirinism"? Of course not; you would be treated for the underlying conditions that led you to scratch or use aspirin - perhaps poison ivy or stress.
All Dependency Is a Symptom, Not a Problem
Reading this book will open your mind to new ways of thinking that will cause you to see your dependency, and perhaps your entire life, in a whole new light. It will help you understand that all dependency is a symptom, not a problem. Seeing your dependency in that new light will enable you to heal yourself more quickly and more effectively than ever before - and permanently.
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