Skip to main content

Alcoholism Affects Mental Health

memory
by jef safi

Is it that alcoholism affects mental health or mental health creates alcoholism or both? It is both possibly but I don't think that you have to have mental health issues to be an alcoholic but sometimes alcoholics do have mental health problems.

One thing that is pretty well scientifically proven is that consistent heavy drinking affects health generally and also mental health. And at the moment I have real concerns for Jane because she seems to be suffering from memory loss and more...

I won't and can't go into detail obviously but it seems that alcoholics binge on and on without seeing health problems for years. OK, their lives are messed up but health can seem, sometimes, to remain intact until one day after it has crept up on them, ill health suddenly becomes apparent. And it is a bit of a shock. I have always thought that ethanol alcohol gradually breaks down the body. Think of George Best the footballer. At the end his body simply gave up.

The signs of memory loss, I think, can be slurred speech or not being able to find the word, even a well used and simple word. Our dictionary of words (in our heads) are part of our memory. If memory fails the power to recall words fails too and the person struggles to find the word, appearing stupid.

Alcoholism damages memory and when the damage is significant the person has signs of what seems like a mild stroke. That is my theory and it didn't come out of a text book so please don't quote it as gospel truth!

Alcoholism affects mental health over time and one day that fact is recognised and it is shocking. Today I am feeling down. I wonder if it is the feeling of doom hanging over the home with Jane's health? Maybe I have this all wrong. Maybe she is just drunk and fooling me again and again? I don't think so though. But I am feeling down. It all seems a bit hopeless tonight. Just found this video after I wrote this. So it is rare...OK.

Labels:

Comments

  1. The Recovering Banker25 June 2009 at 16:09

    Alcoholism is itself a major mental health problem. I view it as a localized form of insanity- removing the alcohol should remove the problem. Of course there may be other mental health issues, but in my (amateur) view they would be difficult to identify and treat whilst the alcoholism is still raging.

    Memory loss is a separate issue. Certainly my memory was bad when I was drunk. It can also be bad when I am tired. Note when I was drinking, I was often tired, often only getting 3 hrs sleep a night.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael Broad LLB, ARPS25 June 2009 at 22:39

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. andie53129 June 2009 at 13:32

    Have you ever read any of Doug Thorburn's books? You might get some deeper insights.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous29 June 2009 at 15:08

    Thanks Andie, I'll have a look.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5 July 2010 at 20:13

    I am going to be blunt and you will probably not like this, but I feel you might as well give Jane a gun and bullets. It would be a much quicker death. You're providing a means for her to continue drinking, and enabling her. Thus I feel you are hastening her death. An alcoholic will only stop drinking when the consequences of drinking are worse than the consequences of NOT drinking.

    I think that saying you're staying with Jane because a) you can't be alone and b) you can't find anyone else are actually incredibly selfish reasons to stay and continue to enable her.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd like to hear the experiences of both alcoholics and the victims of alcoholics, please.

Popular posts from this blog

Alcoholism Signs For Family

If a person regularly falls asleep just after breakfast she is possibly an alcoholic. This is because she has had more than a stiff drink early in the morning. Although, alcoholism signs for the family are hard to spot in my experience. What is my experience? It's being the partner and now (2008) a "live in partner" of an alcoholic for about 9 years. Update: I am still her partner but no longer living with her in 2024 which is 16 years after this page was first written! The first section of this article is by me based on experience. The second part is by Bing's Co-pilot after researching the internet. At the end of the article are some pointers as to whether the person in question is an alcoholic. When I first met Jane I didn't know that she was an alcoholic. At that moment in time I was an innocent to the world of alcoholism. It took me about 3 months to realize that she was an alcoholic. What lead me to this revelation? When I didn't know she was an alcohol
Post a Comment
Read more

Alcoholism and Death

photo copyright crowolf published under a creative commons license kindly granted. These 2 ignominiously go together - Alcoholism and Death . Just after Jane's mini-binge (believe me it was a very minor binge by her standards) of about 20 hours she felt, as usual, suicidal. Jane always feels huge remorse and regret after a binge. She feels bad about letting herself down and bad about messing me around (although it wasn't that bad to be honest - it did though mess up what could have been some time together, which we are lacking at the moment due to work). Jane really does genuinely feel suicidal after a binge. But I must say I don't think she'll ever do it. She hasn't got the courage - I know that sounds horrendously cruel etc etc but this blog is about the plain truth unvarnished. It takes courage to kill yourself and a lots of despair. Jane has the one but not the other. Anyway to get more positive. We had a little talk and I in my usual style, mentioned
67 comments
Read more

Alcoholism is a Disease

1904 Advertisement I have always wondered if alcoholism is a disease . Is this just some sort of idea someone dreamed up years ago as a method to make a buck. You know it could have been that way. People think diseases are either curable or that the symptoms can be controlled to an extent where the person can live pretty normally. The signal sent to alcoholics by the idea that alcoholism is a disease is, "I can be cured by a pill" or "there is hope". And they go off and search for a cure to this mysterious disease...... It may be a disease, though. What is the definition of "disease"? It is an abnormal condition that impairs bodily functions with accompanying symptoms (after Wikipedia). Or here is another definition: An alteration of the state of the body or parts of it interrupting normal function (mine after ThinkExist.com). These are broad definitions. We usually think of diseases as say a virus that infects us and causes illness; the common cold is t
28 comments
Read more