Long ago I wrote an article titled: “How Can You Possibly Cure My Years of Alcohol Abuse in Just 5 Days?”

Periodically it occurs to me that it’s a question worth revisiting since most of you have probably subscribed since that article appeared and it is a concern many potential clients and their friends and family share. After all, “everyone knows” that you have to go off to rehab for 30 or 60 or 90 days. That’s what works.

Unhappily, “rehab” is a totally unregulated industry with no standards, oversight, accountability, or tracking. Anyone is free to make any claim they want without fear of needing to verify services, outcomes, staffing, or much of anything else. If a program in Minnesota or Malibu or Florida wants to claim an 80% “success” rate they are free to do so without fear of having to provide any proof to anyone – which is a good thing for them since their actual client success rate ranges between 5% and 15% depending on client demographics.

Still, we have all been brainwashed that residential rehab based on AA is what works. Not only that, it’s the only thing that works. The misuse of alcohol is a fatal progressive disease that can only be defeated by a life-long religious conversion to an abusive cult.

Really?

But none of us can totally escape the mythology that has saturated our culture and you can buy a lot of saturation with $35 BILLION a year in revenues.

The result of this is that a certain amount of “deprogramming” is a necessary part of leaving alcohol problems behind. This means learning what the research says about Ending Alcohol Abuse: What Works.

It also entails recognizing that you didn’t end up with a problem because you are dumb or diseased or morally bankrupt or doomed by an “alcoholic gene” that pervades your family history. Nor do you have an “allergy” or an “alcoholic personality.”

You developed a problem because alcohol works.

That’s right – alcohol works, bringing short-term relief from anxiety, boredom, loneliness, depression, unbalanced relationships and lives, abusive partners and families, and a host of other conditions. It’s socially sanctioned and promoted, as well as, perhaps, an ingrained part of our self-image and a habit that has become a cherished ritual. What’s not to like?

The important phrase is, “bringing short-term relief from” – it fixes nothing. Actually, it prevents any of these conditions and problems from being addressed, much less corrected. That’s what’s not to like.

But of course you are free to self-medicate your way through life, avoid the short-term discomfort that change entails, and doom yourself to the endless “what if” regrets of a life unlived.

But if you’d like the help that allows you to lead a life where self-medication is not only unnecessary but unwelcome, we’re happy to provide that short-term, stigma-free, empowering and confidential assistance.

As always, the call and the consultation are free, and the choice is yours.