Skip to main content

Alcoholism Psychology

Alcoholism Psychology is complex and I don't think that the psychiatrists working in the field of addiction are doing that good a job. Jane is seeing a psychiatrist at the moment and for the life of me I don't know what is happening as she won't tell me. It was my idea that she saw one to deal with the complex underlying reasons for her drinking which are in my humble opinion primarily her low self esteem, which results in depression.

I am convinced that she was neglected as a child by her parents. Her parents, I believe criticized her too much (her mother mainly). Jane heard too many arguments between her parents. This taught her to be argumentative. The excessive criticism of her caused her to believe that she was no good. It also made her defensive. She thinks that she was the cause of the parental arguments because she was no good.

Jane dislikes the world (so do I as it happens, but I love the natural world i.e. nature). This is not surprising as it has been hard for her carrying her burden. On our first date, she got drunk unknown to me (I couldn't tell) and said that if there was path that forked in front of her, one going to death and the other to life, she would choose the path to death (first date!).

I can't talk to her about the most important thing in her life by far - her alcoholism. This is because she becomes too defensive. She is still, to certain extent, in denial despite going to AA regularly at the moment. She drinks secretively, she drinks in the street and comes home with no evidence (meaning a bottle hidden in a bag). She knows that I have become good at finding bottles of booze.

Alcoholics Anon works by putting some discipline into a alcoholics life and some purpose combined with the support of others. It also gives a sense of making progress and doing something about the problem. That is the psychology of AA.

When there is an underlying problem that causes pain it will be expressed in some way (if it is not in drinking). If one took away the possibility of drinking the pain would be expressed in another way. Internal pain (meaning emotional and mental pain) has to be expressed.

Jane also takes laxatives as a kind of mindless crutch I suppose to look help her look thin and attractive. This is one small expression of internal pain. It is all rather mixed up.

Photo (modified as allowed under CC) copyright larryosan
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous14 January 2008 at 12:26

    Interesting use of my pic. It would be nice if you linked to my flickr account in the credit. Either way, use it in good health.

    larryosan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael Broad LLB, ARPS14 January 2008 at 22:18

    Thanks for the comment. I'll link it as you suggest.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Michael Broad LLB, ARPS14 January 2008 at 22:26

    To:larryosan, I've, linked to your Flickr account. And thanks for letting people like me use your photographs. There are some fine photographs on flickr and I when I saw yours and thought of my partner (fictionally called "Jane") the two kind of matched up. The scattered, broken and chaotic thought processes and the hostile input from the world. I blanked out your? (or the person's face) as it is the post is personally.

    Freddie

    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