How do alcoholism treatment programs help those who struggle with alcohol addiction?  What is the method by which people actually recover from the disease of alcoholism?  Let’s take a look.

First of all, as a method of treating alcoholism, moderation programs are not held in high esteem.  Basically they do not really seem to work for “real” alcoholics, and if they do, then that is great!  Go and drink and be happy.  But for “real” alcoholics of the hopeless variety, there is no such thing as moderation….at least not consistently.  That is what defines their problem, and so no program can teach them how to moderate successfully.  If it can, then this is great news, and they should go be happy as a now “normal drinker.”  Real alcoholics need something more though.

That “something more” is an abstinence based program of recovery.  For example, Alcoholics Anonymous is an abstinence based program, where the premise is that you will stop drinking entirely.  It is my belief that for the true alcoholic, then total abstinence is the only way to go.  Alternative alcoholism treatment does exist, and is not dependent on a 12 step program, but these are generally abstinence based as well.

So how does a program actually work in a person’s life?  Well, alcoholism is a lifestyle disease.  It affects almost every part of a person’s life.  It affects them socially and who they hang around with.  It affects their physical body and my entice them to use other drugs or smoke cigarettes.  It affects the way that they deal with emotions and handle stress.  It affects their relationships with others.  It shuts them off from a spiritual connection.  And so on.

So an alcohol treatment program, if it is any good, needs to address all of these issues.  Some programs, such as AA, focus almost exclusively on the spiritual connection part, at the exclusion of almost everything else.  This can be helpful for some people but it does not really address all of the ways in which alcoholism affected the person.  In order to really recover, a holistic approach is needed that can help a person change in multiple ways.

For example, look around in a traditional 12 step meeting and you may find many people who are not using a holistic approach: they might smoke cigarettes, be in poor health, not exercise, not eat well, have messed up relationships, and so on.  Fixing all of these things should be part of their growth experience in recovery, especially if they want to avoid complacency in recovery and stay sober in the long run.