Alcohol Use Disorders - Taking Their Toll

Fermented beverages have been part of human culture and traditions for thousands of years. Altering our brains and achieving intoxication is pleasurable to most humans and some animals. Intoxication, like sex, is fun, or we wouldn't do it. Ron Siegel, who has studied the subject extensively, says we seek intoxication to experience something outside our normal experience and take "a holiday from reality". It goes deeper than that, though. When we are in pain, be it psychic or physical, we need something to calm and sedate us and when we are depressed or bored we seek stimulation. The observations of psychoanalyst Carl Jung influenced the founding of AA when he found that a patient's "craving for alcohol was the equivalent...of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness...the union with God."

Jung goes on "You see 'alcohol' in Latin is 'spiritus' ...use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as ...the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum." About 75% of people in the US consume alcohol and almost 25% report abuse or dependence problems. That means we all know and love someone affected by this illness. Men are 2-3 times more likely than women to have alcohol related problems and there is strong evidence of a genetic predisposition to alcohol dependence. Male children of alcoholic fathers are at greatest risk for being alcoholics themselves. Native Americans have a genetic susceptibility to alcoholism. Native Americans have the highest rates of alcohol-related deaths of all population groups in the US.

Costs of alcohol dependence and abuse in terms of violence, traffic accidents, lost productivity, illness and premature death are over $185 billion per years. Complications of chronic alcohol abuse are :

• gastritis, ulcers, esophagitis, hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatitis. All of these except cirrhosis can be reversible with alcohol abstinence
• peripheral neuropathy, dementia, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. Alcohol abstinence and vitamin therapy can improve these.
• high blood pressure, fast heart rate - both of which improve with alcohol abstinence
• macrocytosis, folate deficiency, splenic enlargement
• decreased testosterone levels in men, decreased libido, impotence, menstrual irregularities

The National Institute of Alcohol and Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) offers a wonderful guide for clinicians, Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much. The guide provides a clinical approach to assessment and treatment of at-risk drinking and alcohol use disorders. The key is to ask about drinking. Five or more drinks per day for men, four or more for women is an at-risk drinker, requiring further assessment. A referral to an addiction specialist may be indicated.

The important thing for family, friends, clinicians who are concerned about problem drinking is to talk to the person calmly and say "I am concerned that you have an alcohol use disorder. It is not a weakness, it is an illness. There are medications and treatment that can help you. If you would like me to help you get help, I would be happy to."

Addressing the problem, treating alcoholism, does not get to the root of chemical dependency - seeking to escape reality, seeking wholeness. That's not a medical problem, but some how we have to make it part of our lexicon of healing chemical dependency. Working with the individual and family to find alternative ways to find peace and wholeness - in church, in prayer, in ritual, in dance, in meditation - has to be part of treating the whole person.

Thank you yeimaya for use of photo of Rehearsal 15.

Labels: alcohol, chemical dependence disorders

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Women Who Drink More Increase Their Risk of Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the fifth most common form of cancer worldwide. Earlier this week, scientists at the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) in Barcelona, Spain shared findings that it makes no difference whether women drink beer, wine or spirits - it is the quantity of ethyl alcohol itself that is consumed (three or more servings daily) that increases the risk of breast cancer. Amazingly, the risk is almost equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day!

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente (right here in Oakland, CA) found that age and ethnicity did not make a difference but three drinks a day increased the risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer by 30%. One of the researchers, Dr. Klatsky, discussed the heart protection benefit of drinking red wine. He suggests that red wine decreases blood clotting and diabetes while raising HDL (the good cholesterol - are we all confused yet?) but that has nothing to do with breast cancer. Figuring out how much alcohol is best for you is just one more question for you to discuss with your doctor. Again, being an informed patient and partnering with your provider is your best bet for optimal health care.

• Other breast cancer news: there is significant racial disparity between black and white women with breast cancer. Black women are less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer but more likely to die from it. So far, researchers are at a loss to explain the disparity but all are troubled by it.
• Would you like to get your organization or group involved in Breast Cancer Awareness Month? The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation invites us to be Passionately Pink for the Cure, an exciting new fundraising campaign. Your group agrees to wear pink on a certain day or days and raise money for research for this disease that continues to devastate the lives of so many.
  
• What do we do when the going gets tough? Retail therapy! If that one glass of wine isn't cutting it for you, try shopping online and raise money to fund mammograms for women who can't afford them at The Breast Cancer Site. Don't know what to wear on your Passionately Pink for the Cure day? The Breast Cancer Site has some ideas...
  

Labels: alcohol, breast cancer, women

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