Alcohol Support Groups

What are Alcohol Support Groups like?

The 12-step program is the most common and successful of the Alcohol Support Groups.

There are an abundance of web sites and books written about the addiction programs, and we’ll share a few of them with you to give you a broader base of understanding and point you to a few excellence resources.

The 12-Step program is steeped in tradition and firmly supported by spiritual truth, give us all a model of humanity that points us to a better life, a stronger relationship with our neighbors, and an eternal loving relationship with the one who made us.

As you look through Alcohol Support Groups, think of them as a process. Like a path you walk on to go from A to Z, only you must take all of the steps and go through each in order, otherwise the path does not lead to your final destination. You go at your own pace and move forward as you see fit.

Along the way, remember that these steps were written by people just like you, who needed help and had the courage to accept the help. Regardless of your addiction, 12-Step offers improvement for the human condition.Enjoy your reading.

Maybe you like Rev. Buchman and Bill Wilson will go through a spiritual experience of your own. If you do, please share it with us.

Alcohol Support Groups ARE 12-Step Programs

Please review each step and try to either begin following them yourself or enroll in a local program. Let’s take a look at the steps. You will see quickly that the process includes others and that we are not meant to go through this alone.

My drinking causes me to be depressed and I’m thinking of suicide.

Those feelings are a by-product of drinking and addiction. Once the substance has nestled itself in the brain, our ability to reason, our ability to choose, our ability to even feel emotion, is impaired. What you may be experiencing as depression is drug induced. Suicide is not the answer.

A person gripped by alcohol addiction cares nothing about his/per personal health and well being, they care about the drug, they care a drinking and nothing else matters.

If they are concerned, or frightened by their condition, they may not be able to properly think through the situation for themselves. The drug has impeded everything. The help available is not considered. The choice of suicide is a terrible tragedy, leaving behind despair for those who love and care for the addict.

Get help! Go to your doctor and tell him/her the truth about what you are experiencing. What you think is reality may not be reality at all, so give yourself a chance. Allow yourself to receive help. There is hope. There is always hope.

If you are a friend or family member and observing this “depression” we encourage you to seek advice from an addiction therapist. Frequently an intervention is necessary to help the addicted person get the help he/she needs. The fog of addiction prevents an otherwise obvious and intelligent decision to get help. Take the lead and make something happen.

Statistics show that 50% of all suicide attempts involved drugs or alcohol and that 25% of successful suicides were among drug and alcohol abusers. This is especially true of users under 30 years of age.

For young people 15-24, it’s the third leading cause of death. Even for children 5-14, it’s the fifth leading cause of death. Of the teens who commit suicide, 50% of them were drug or alcohol users.

Suicide is not a good choice. It is the wrong solution to a preventable problem. People are too precious to lose. There is help and there is hope.
For more Alcohol Support Groups Questions please click

Prescription Drug Addiction

After completing 4 years at the University of Northern Colorado
for my Bachelor of Science in 1990, 1 year at Johns Hopkins University
for my Masters in Health Science in 1996, and 2 ½ years into my Ph.D. in
respiratory medicine at the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia
Commonwealth University in 1996-98, I thought I had complete control of
my life.

Specifically, my career in aerosol respiratory
medicine. I had published my first paper in a respectable peer reviewed
medical journal (Chest) when I was 27. Several months after that, I
presented the paper at a medical conference in Garmisch-Partenkirchen,
Germany. It was one of 9 trips I would take to Germany to consult with a
medical company established in Starnberg, Germany.

By the time
I was in my second year of my Ph.D. I had published/presented 54
medical papers, published 6 peer reviewed medical papers, was
contributing author on one book, owned and operated my own consulting
company in respiratory medicine, developed a patent for respiratory
devices, and was progressing successfully in my Ph.D.

I was 31
years old and I was proud of my accomplishments and my continuing
success in respiratory medicine. But, that was all about to change.
Addiction would enter my life and take away from me my possessions, my
profession, my loved ones, and my sanity.

My pathway to
addiction started when I made an appointment to see a doctor, for
migraine headaches. I put great trust in him due to the fact that he
was the medical schools doctor and was responsible for taking care of
the students enrolled in the medical school programs. In a time frame
of 7.9 months I was prescribed 6,647 controlled substance pills.

I
had pills to help me stay awake and study, pills for helping me sleep,
pills for anxiety, and pills for pain. I knew about addiction but I
thought I was too intelligent to become addicted.

Anyway, these
pills were provided to me by the schools doctor who said he had taken
pills when he was in medical school to help him succeed. My ignorance
would cause me to lose almost a decade of my life and would bring me
close to death many times as a result of my severe drug addiction.

Although
the doctor lost his medical license for over prescribing controlled
substances and not monitoring that prescribing, it was too late for me.
I had to drop out of my Ph.D. program due to my addiction. He lost his
license 3 months after I dropped out of the program.

At this
point in my life, I had to confront and accept some very disturbing
facts: I no longer was pursuing the goal I had been following for the
past 15 years, I was severely addicted to prescription drugs, the doctor
who had been prescribing me the drugs had his medical license revoked,
and the main focus of my life was to obtain drugs. I was, in essence,
trapped in the severity of my addiction. For the first time I had lost
complete control over my life.

My
first of numerous addiction related detrimental events came when I was
presenting a medical paper at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Before
my lecture I forged a prescription on my computer and proceeded to the
pharmacy to have it filled.

Since the prescription was for
Demerol, the pharmacy called the doctor and verified the prescription
was forged. The police were waiting for me (at the conference lecture
hall) to finish my lecture and when I did they handcuffed and arrested
me.

I was taken out in front of all my colleagues and
conference members and taken to jail. Needless to say I was immediately
fired from my job as a senior aerosol scientist for a prominent German
company established in the United States.

For many years I was
doctor shopping. I would acquire my drugs in many ways: the internet,
hospital emergency rooms, forged prescriptions, clinics, private
doctors, and in other countries. I would stay employed by various
companies because of my experience in respiratory medicine. But, I
would ultimately get fired when my drug addiction interfered with the
quality of my work.

Eventually, word of my addiction became
known to my colleagues and the respiratory medicine industry. From that
point on, I was not called upon to lecture, to consult, or in any way
work in the respiratory medicine industry. I was, for all intents and
purposes, “blackballed” from my profession. It has taken great effort
to restore my reputation and I still encounter numerous ‘roadblocks’ to
this very day.

My future is still somewhat unknown. I do know
that I am very thrilled and inspired living life as a sober individual.
And, for the first the first time in 9 years I have a sense of
self-confidence and respect for myself.

This confidence reminds
me that I can do anything I put my mind to. For this reason I have
enrolled and been accepted to complete my doctorate in public health.
My dissertation concentrates on prescription addiction in today’s
society.

It has been a long, arduous, and self-revealing
journey through my 9 years of addiction to recovery. Unfortunately
along the way I became deceitful, dishonest, unreliable, and
untrustworthy. On the other hand I can proclaim that through my
adversity came great prosperity. My experiences will allow me to
empathize and help countless others starting down or already on their
own pathway from addiction to recovery.

A New Life

by: Ned Wicker

You have been on a long and difficult road, but you are
overcoming. I am proud of you for having the courage to face yourself
and the conviction to see it through. Reading your story, I kept
thinking of high level professional people that I know, people just like
you, who are living two lives.

On the one hand, they are
respected professionals, but on the other hand, their lives have been
torn apart by one thing or another. While your professional
circumstances are changed, you are living one life now and can look
forward to new challenges and opportunities.

Your education and
personal experiences all count to make you an effective change agent
for others who are suffering. You are a survivor.