Alcoholism: It Can't Be Me

[TONE] [MALE INTERVIEWEE 1]: Nobody wants to admit he's an alcoholic. Nobody wants to admit he drinks too much. That's the last thing in the world you want to do. [MALE INTERVIEWEE 2]: I didn't realize I had alcoholism. That was the furthest thing from my mind. I thought I was just going insane. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE 3]: When I reached to the point of the end of my drinking days, I had nothing left. Nothing. The clothes on my back. [SILENCE] [NARRATOR]: Alcoholism is the most commonly used social drug, and an estimated 10 million Americans are alcoholics. Alcoholism is a disease or allergy to alcohol that affects one out

of every ten people who drink. The only cure for the disease is to stop drinking. [COMMENTATOR 1]: Alcoholism is a condition where a person drinks, and that drinking causes problems -- and they keep on drinking. The alcoholic loses control. That means that the alcoholic doesn't know how much they're going to drink once they start drinking, and the alcoholic has a compulsion to drink. [NARRATOR]: Given two people who start out drinking the same, one may become an alcoholic, and the other may not. A combination of factors is involved in causing alcoholism. [COMMENTATOR 1]: If the biological parents are alcoholics, chances are that the offspring will have a four times greater chance of becoming alcoholic themselves. So people who have a family history of alcoholism, either in their parents or their grandparents or aunts and uncles or cousins, probably should not drink, because they are at much higher risk for developing the disease. [COMMENTATOR 2]: We suspect that

the permissive use of alcohol in society is a major factor in the development of alcoholism. It is a drug that is sold in almost every town, openly, condoned socially, utilized by all the heroes in the movies. So there are a lot of social factors involved in the development of alcoholism that interact with any genetic predisposition. [NARRATOR]: Alcohol is a drug. It can alter moods and cause changes in the body. And for some, it can become habit forming. [MALE INTERVIEWEE 4]: But it made me feel like a millionaire for a day, because I would spend money like it was going out of style. I'll buy all the ladies a drink -- not too many guys, but the ladies anyway. And it just gave me a fantasy of being something that I wasn't. [MALE INTERVIEWEE 5]: I was introduced to alcohol when I was a

teenager, and I started dating. I was raised in a fairly religious home, and when I started going with the girls that went to dances, I was too shy, and I thought everyone was looking at me. And I found after I had consumed alcohol, then I was able to get out there and dance, and it was easier. [MALE INTERVIEWEE 6]: You know, I was a full fledged alcoholic when I was 14. I went through hell for years. And it never- I never did stop, or attempt to stop, until I was about 28 years old. And there was big prices to pay in between 14 to 28. [NARRATOR]: Like any illness, alcoholism can possibly affect anyone. [COMMENTATOR 3]: I think what the statement -- that alcoholism is an equal opportunity disease -- refers to is that it is no respecter of people in any economic or social strata. Statistics have been compiled that show that very- that only about three percent of

the alcoholics in the United States today are on skid row. Most alcoholics work. Most alcoholics have families. [COMMENTATOR 1]: We have more teenage drug and alcohol abuse today than we have ever had at any time. We have more kids drinking and taking drugs at earlier ages, and we have more kids getting addicted. [COMMENTATOR 2]: And the housewife, especially, can keep her alcoholism so hidden in the home and have very few people know about it, and be a very quiet, secret drunk, and not get into treatment as quickly as a man might who goes out and gets a DWI and gets referred by the court. [COMMENTATOR 1]: People who may not have had much to drink at all during their lives at the time of retirement find boredom and loss as big things in their lives. And they turn to alcohol and lose control. The older person is much more physically susceptible to alcohol. [NARRATOR]: Alcoholism is one of the nation's major health

problems. Drinking alcoholics have a mortality rate five times greater than the general population. [COMMENTATOR 1]: About one fourth of alcoholics who die of their disease will die of liver disease. About a fourth will die of trauma -- accidents, drownings, automobile collisions, electrocutions. About a fourth will die of suicide or homicide. And about a fourth of alcoholics who die of their disease will die of a variety of medical conditions. [NARRATOR]: Alcoholics are also prone to other kinds of addiction. [COMMENTATOR 2]: This is by and large theoretical, but we do see this -- that an alcoholic can be taken off of alcohol and just substitute another drug for that alcohol, although

most alcoholics will have a preference for alcohol. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE 7]: Because I knew that the alcohol would cause me to become so depressed that I would become suicidal, which usually meant that I would end up in the hospital. Since I couldn't afford to do that very often, I'd usually just go with the pills. And then when I would start to drink, I'd stockpile the pills. And then I would use the pills and the alcohol to end up in the hospital to let people know that I did need help. On no, not really. [NARRATOR]: To justify their patterns of drinking, alcoholics use denial as their main defense mechanism. It's

possible for alcoholics to hide the disease from others, especially themselves, for a long time. Denial is the largest barrier an alcoholic must overcome to ever achieve sobriety. [COMMENTATOR 3]: An alcoholic will deny that alcohol has anything to do with the problems he has. An alcoholic will blame his wife, his job, the condition of the world, or any other thing other than alcohol. Alcohol is his only real, true friend. He knows, uh, he knows that alcohol will give him relief from the problems and the frustrations and the anxieties that he experiences. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE 3]: When I realized that I had a drinking problem was when I tried to quit drinking and couldn't. But denial -- denied that I could be an alcoholic or that I had a drinking problem -- kept me from searching and seeking help. [COMMENTATOR 4]: I think on the simplest level it's to justify the continuation of their drinking habits.

"As long as I can deny it, I can continue to drink" -- so the thinking goes. [NARRATOR]: Alcoholics may deny a problem exists. But sooner or later, various warning signs will emerge in their behavior to set them apart from the heavy drinker. Symptom: Frequent Use. [COMMENTATOR 1]: Turn those feelings off with the chemical itself. So you see, it becomes kind of like a cyclical process. The more the alcoholic drinks, the worse the alcoholic feels emotionally. The worse the alcoholic feels emotionally, the more the alcoholic will drink. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE 8]: You know it could be anything from being angry, to we won the game, we didn't win the game, it rained, it didn't rain. It didn't make any difference what it was in the end, because it didn't make any difference. You just drank, because you had to drink. [MALE INTERVIEWEE 1]: The last three years, probably real bad at the last six months,

I was to the point where nothing really mattered in my life. I could care less about anything -- my family, anything! Nothing mattered except the drinking. [NARRATOR]: Symptom: Poor Symptom: Poor self-image. I always had a poor self-image, and I think that is one of the reasons why I turned to alcohol and drugs is because that gave me a release and a chance to have an excuse for the way I felt about myself because the drugs and alcohol would bring out the hostility in me which I felt. [COMMENTOR] The gut issue with alcoholism that is it is a feeling disease. Alcoholics have guilt, they have remorse, they have buried anger. They

tend to be chronically depressed. [NARRATOR] Symptom: Ignoring responsibilities. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] Be on the weekends, after I get off work on Friday, I'd start drinking, and I would keep on you know, and even off into Sunday night. And come to work Mondays and be in bad shape, you know. Sometime I'd come to work and sometime I wouldn't. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] It affected my children really a great deal because I was an irresponsible mother. You know, and thing like in the morning when you were throwing up and they would walk by the bathroom and say, 'Oh, Mom's sick again.' You know, and that would just break my heart. [NARRATOR] Symptom: Frequent arguments [MALE INTERVIEWEE] Figure they had any right, at my house, my wife, when I got

married again here in Witchita, drinking had me fighting with her and somebody would call the police, and the first thing I'd do is be wanting to hit one of them, and they'd have to hit me, whoop--beat me, you know once they had to take me to the hospital to get some stitches in my head where they had to hit me with the flashlight in order to calm me down. [NARRATOR] Symptom: blackouts [silence] -you, over time, how did that develop? [MALE INTERVIEWEE] In Florida I was a teenage alchoholic. My problem never developed. First time I drank I got drunk and blacked out. I mean, I just always had a problem. My family was-- I come from a family of alchoholics. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] During this time I was having real bad blackouts. I would drink and I wouldn't know how I got home. People would be in the car with me and I'm driving them and they don't know.

[Talking Over] [NARRATOR] Alcohol affects each individual differently, but one thing alcoholics share is an uncontrollable habit that is adversely affecting their lives. After drinking for thirty years, Joe's a recovering alcoholic who's been sober for two and half years. Joe's drinking became severe after he retired from the Navy in 1971. His wife two daughters, and two sons were living at home when Joe was drinking heavily. Alcoholism is referred to as "the family disease." In Joe's case, his family were the ones who hurt the most with his drinking.

[FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] I wouldn't go any place because I thought something might happen here, and they would need me. So I barracaded myself, to where I would just look out the window every once in a while and see the outside and a lot of years went by and me just looking through a little window in very low self-esteem, very low. [MALE INTERVIEWEE] I was completely restricted from seeing my granddaughter. In fact my daughter called the police for kidnapping her at once time, that's how bad it got. My children did not want me to have my grandchildren. My children didn't want me around for one really, they had just about completely disowned me. [MALE INTERVIEWEE] There wasn't any togetherness in the family, there wasn't any family projects. It was always who could get out of the house the fastest, you know. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] I felt like I didn't have any friends and I was just real

lonely. And I think it was a lack of communication, of love, and of being together as a family. [COMMENTOR] Life has changed for Joe and his family since he stopped drinking. [MALE INTERIEWEE] Now I can wake up in the morning today with the piece the mind that I don't have to worry about what I did the night before, whether I run over somebody, whether I killed one of the kids, or what I did. I don't have to wake up with the shakes. I don't have to have that fear every morning to straighten myself out. [MALE INTERVIEWEE] We're together, we're acting as a family, we're participating as a family, we're getting involved in family projects, and find out a little bit more about each other that we hadn't found out when we were younger, because of the situation. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] It makes me feel real good that I am, that I was given another chance in life.

[NARRATOR] Joe's family is not unique. A 1982 Gallup poll poll asked the question, "Have you ever had a significant problem in your family because of drinking?" One-third of those interviewed answered yes. [COMMENTOR] I'll try, very often the children and the spouse pickup many of the very same symptoms that the alcoholic displays. The anger, the resentment, the excuses and we'll often find children making excuses for daddy's or mother's drinking for example, and a great deal of attention around how to make this a normal family when in fact we all know something is horribly wrong and we can't quite always put the finger on it. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] I thought there was something wrong with me, rather than the fact that

my father is an alcoholic, and all those years of living with it. Whether you know, the fact that that Dad didn't ever hit us, or throw us around, or anything like that. That didn't exist, but the fact that your relationships and communication were really off-track. That really affected me. [MALE INTERVIEWEE] If you can imagine what it would be like for someone who lives in your house, and who loves you very dearly, and you love very dearly, would lie to you every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year, for fifteen or twenty years, you can imagine what kind of an impact that would have on you emotionally. [FEMALE INTERVIEWEE] I didn't understand the behavior, and I wanted to believe that what he told me was true. He would say you know "I'm not gonna drink again,"or "I will be home tonight for dinner after work," and then he wouldn't show up and you know

I would know as soon as he was not there, as soon as he was late, that he was out drinking, but wanting to believe that he wasn't. Thinking there was probably something wrong with me that I couldn't trust what he said. [NARRATOR] Ironically the family can also do the most harm to the alcoholic. [COMMENTOR] Because the family of the alcoholic literally helps the alcoholic stay sick. They love them too much the wrong way. They get in jail, they bail them out. They are always trying to cover up and trying to create some semblance of a quote "normal" family household when there really is a very dysfunctional situation in that household. [MALE INTERVIEWEE] I'd say when we were about thirty years old or so, and drinking became a problem and I didn't understand alchoholism in any way, so we'd make excuses. We made excuses so we couldn't go to functions where you couldn't drink and we made excuses when it wasn't comfortable to get up, or when

I thought we would go to a place where we might drink too much. [NARRATOR] You won't find most alcoholics on skid row. They come from all walks of life, and alcoholism accounts for billions of dollars in lost productivity at all levels of the nation's workforce. Experts say drinking affects attitude and job performance. Causes employees to be absent and late more often, make more excuses, and miss deadlines. It impairs the working relationship. The other employees feel put upon somewhat, they have to cover for this other chap or gal. They have to do some of their work for them, carry them in effect. And usually they're extremely supportive of a coworker who goes in for treatment and comes back and carries their own burden. Sometimes the alcoholic can tragically enter the lives of people he

doesn't even know. One half of all traffic deaths are alcohol related, though not all drunk drivers are alcoholics. Most states have responded with tougher laws and stricter enforcement. The city of Wichita recently received federal funding to beef up the police department's attack on drunk driving. Drunk driving arrests have gone up four hundred percent since 1982. The least sentence under the law is 48 hours confinement, or 100 hours of community service, a fine of not less than 200 dollars. There's an 85 dollar evaluation fee, and the court costs. Also, the minimum sentence with respect to driver's license is a 90-day restriction of the licence. Then if that person is arrested and found guilty of subsequent D.U.I.s, the minimum sentence increases, proportionally. For some, court-ordered aversion programs may be

the first step toward treatment of alcoholism. People go into treatment because they get D.W.I.s, because they wreck cars and kill people, because they get arrested for some other purpose, maybe committing a crime, a fight in a bar, all kinds of things. A lot of people go into treatment because they got in trouble with the law and it was so severe that they didn't have a choice but to go into treatment. Sometimes this is court-ordered. In other words this person has been in enough trouble, alcohol-related trouble, the court says "You're going to go get your alcoholism treated or you're going to go to jail." [white noise] Anybody dealing with- The courts have the power to intervene when the alcoholic breaks the law

and before the problem gets out of hand the people who are closest to the alcoholic can also help. The first thing we would do is to tell a co-dependent to go to Al-Anon. And go to frequent meetings on a regular basis. We try to get the teenage children to go to Ala-teen, and we get the, we try to develop a communication pattern in the family where alcoholism can be openly talked about and an information base can be established, and start to get some realistic information that can hopefully attract a system to get the spouse into treatment in the near future. Self-help is a key for family members. The local chapter of alcoholics anonymous provides an excellent source for reading material to learn more about alcoholism. I had told him that I was going for help for myself, and that if he chose to that was fine, and that if he didn't then I would probably leave him. I probably wouldn't have, but it sounded good. And he came with me and the counselor that we saw arranged for him to go into treatment that day. Once armed with the facts, a

family member will be properly prepared to help the alcoholic when the time comes. It is important that people close to the, that they respect, love maybe that those people say to the alcoholic "You're drinking too much" or "I'm concerned about your drinking," "I'm worried about how much you drink," and give examples of how it interferes with their life. I was on the job one day, and my foreman told me I was wanted up in the front office. And when I got up there my two sisters were there. And I was really shocked. I had no idea what was going on. And then the confrontation came with my drinking pattern. And I was given a choice: either go to treatment and get some help, or you lose your job. So I chose treatment. Many employers now realize it's more cost effective to get an employee into treatment for alcoholism rather than fire the

person and train another. The purpose of any corporate alcoholism program is two fold. The first of course is humanitarian, and you want to assist other people to live a normal, healthy, happy life. The second purpose is self serving--its economic. And normal statistics say that the typical population has seven percent alcoholics, and that would mean we would have over a thousand alcoholics in our employ. And if we could reach half of those each year, rehabilitate seventy percent of those and improve their productivity a quarter, which is not unreasonable, we would improve our profit posture to the tune of three and a half million dollars. And if the employee's receptive to some type of help, we contact EMPAC, which is Employee Assistance Consultants, and have one of their counselors talk to the individual in a confidential interview to try and determine if they can what's the reason for the irregular performance or attitude problem.

Then the counselor and the employee decide what would be the best source of treatment, come back and discuss that with the company, and we attempt at that point to allow the person to have the time off to go resolve the problem. The union often works along with the management to help the alcoholic employee. The union has been extremely cooperative and our goal I think is a mutual goal and that's early identification. With early identification you get the problem corrected more quickly and you have a productive employee sooner. The threat of losing a job is enough incentive for some employees to stop drinking. Some companies are even finding a dramatic drop for insurance claims after an employee completes treatment for alcoholism. One family managed to rack up over thirty-two thousand dollars against their group insurance because of alcohol related illness and accidents. We did in fact confront the employee because of some irregularities in his job performance.

He then became involved in an alcohol treatment program, which costs a small amount of money in comparison to that, and six months later their entire family had less than a thousand dollars in medical bills. Since alcoholism is an illness, most major medical plans in the state of Kansas at least provide some coverage for treatment. Before entering treatment, it is advisable to find out exactly what the insurance policy will cover. The human devastation of alcoholism is staggering, and

so are the statistics. A recent report to the United States Senate Finance Committee put the economic cost of alcohol abuse in this country at one hundred twenty billion dollars. Each problem drinker costs society ten thousand dollars, and eighty five percent of the problem drinkers have not been through treatment. For society as a whole, treating alcoholism would cost less than not treating it. Professional treatment for alcoholism is available for people who can afford to pay any amount, all way down to those who can afford nothing. Aside from private major medical insurance programs, medicare, Medicaid, and some social service programs will help pay for alcoholism treatment. One type of treatment available is in-patient, where the alcoholic will stay in a hospital. In in-patient treatment, we begin by completely assessing the patient. That starts at a medical

nursing point of view and includes a complete physical examination and laboratory examinations, and detoxification. Detoxification means that we get the patient off of drugs altogether. In the hospital a patient and the alcoholism professionals draw up a treatment plan catered to the individual. Treatment can include counseling, therapy groups for the alcoholic in the family, and attendance at alcoholics anonymous meetings. Outpatient programs offer similar services to inpatient programs, except for the intensive medical care. However, the alcoholic is able to stay home or on the job while getting treatment. Another type of treatment is individual therapy with a trained professional. But treatment will make the difference, whether it's an inpatient, primary outpatient, outpatient, or whatever, but I would be quick to add that alcoholics anonymous is always included in all of the treatment programs that I know in the Midwest. Experts agree that alcoholics should attend some kind of self-help group such as alcoholics anonymous even after completing treatment.

Alcoholics anonymous is an informal fellowship. There are no dues. The members want to stay sober, and want to help others who come to them to achieve sobriety. Well, I think the support group is a critical part of why alcoholics anonymous is successful. AA members sit around and talk about their own recovery, they talk about how it was in terms of the pain involved, what happened in terms of how recovery began, and what it's like now in terms of the quality of life with sobriety and without the use of alcohol. Some people may go through treatment several times and not quit drinking. Others may never touch another drop after their first experience in treatment. The treatment center gave me an opportunity to learn a little bit more about alcoholism and what I could do for myself as far as the alcoholism goes. The first time I went through treatment through a treatment center, they gave me information that I didn't have before and, you know, I went back out and drank for another four years after that and I watched what they told me would happen

to my life, I watched it happen to me. And it hurt a lot. Recovery is a lifelong process. An alcoholic serious about maintaining sobriety should continue in some type of aftercare for a lifetime. Most of the relapses we see following treatment take place during the first six months. And that's a time of special intensity. That's when people have to work their aftercare program very hard, get to a lot of extra meetings. The longer a person is in recovery, the better their outcome. By the time a person has had two years of sobriety, chances are something like ninety percent they will have lifelong recovery. My life now, I find is very exciting because I am aware of what is going on around me. I'm aware of what I'm doing. I communicate with people. Even, I find that the girls look more beautiful now, you know, because I can see them with clear eyes. But the

recovery of my disease has helped me to be you know, to understand my disease and to know that I can have a better living, you know and be happy. I can't say it's all rosey and peachy but the turnaround has been so great that I'm amazed some days, at the happiness I feel in life today. For further information, consult the yellow pages under alcoholism information and treatment centers or call the alcoholics anonymous central office at three one six six eight four three six six one.