Development of Alcoholism - Early Stage

Every day in San Diego people are feeling confused and asking themselves why they drank an entire bottle, or 2, of wine. Some people have told their wife, husband, friend or child that they were not going to drink more than 2 small glasses. Or that they were going to quit drinking. Some people begin to justify this drinking episode with the thoughts that they changed their mind, or it wasn't that bad, or they could not have an alcohol problem because they do not drink in the morning, or before 5pm, or drink and drive.

How do we know if our drinking is a problem?

Many millions of people are social drinkers and many millions more are just crossing over the line from social drinking into the early stages of alcoholism, or the addiction to alcohol.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations.  They define this disease to be often progressive and fatal.  It is characterized by continuous or periodic impaired control over alcohol or drugs, preoccupation with drugs or alcohol, use of addictive substances despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial.

The time it takes from the early stage of the disease,  to the last stage of addiction, where there are severe medical, family or legal consequences ,varies between men and women.  Research has shown that men process the alcohol more quickly in their bodies, and the severe effects take an average of 15 years to show up.   Women, who process the alcohol more slowly, thereby staying in the body longer before it is discarded, the damage occurs within an average of 8 years.

SYMPTOMS OF THE EARLY STAGE
     --- An increase in alcohol tolerance.  It takes more than 2 standard drinks to obtain a change in mood.

     --- Drinking to calm nerves.  Alcohol or drugs become the favored way to reduce stress, quiet generalized anxiety and fears of the unknown in relation to work, family, finances, or health issues.

     --- Desire to continue when others stop.  The loss of control or impaired control begins to take over most drinking experiences.  The 2 standard drinks is many times not enough to feed the developing compulsion to drink larger amounts.

     --- Occasional memory lapses after heavy drinking.  Research has shown that after only a few drinks, the alcohol can produce impairments in memory that is detectable.  The degree of impairment is directly related to the amount of alcohol consumed.  When large amounts of alcohol are consumed quickly, as in a binge, the brain and body are overloaded and unable to metabolize the substance.  This is the beginning of the brain deficits that occur. Most notably the effects are seen  in the lack of ability to transfer new information from short term to long term storage, as in a blackout. 

     ---Secret irritation when your drinking is discussed.  Many people begin to feel some confusion and guilt about their drinking, and start to rationalize to themselves and others as to why they continue drinking.

Rationalizing, a thought distortion, is the beginning of the development of the psychological defense system of denial.  If there is no help requested by the person,  or an intervention by the family, workplace or legal system to point out the beginning of the problem of early stage alcoholism, the disease will progress.

Next - Part 2 of 3 - Development of Alcoholism - Middle Stage

Thanks for reading and passing along this information.

Judy Saalinger, Ph.D. MFT, CAS