"Reinstatement after abstinence" is the technical term for almost immediate relapse to drinking at the same old extremely damaging levels if you try to start drinking again. For the purposes of translation it means the following:
Situation:You have become physically addicted to alcohol, and then spend a period of time completely dry from alcohol:
You may have spent over a year without drinking. One day, you are stressed, the sun is shining, and you see people relaxing and enjoying themselves in the pub garden. One drink cannot do any harm. In fact two drinks cannot do any harm. You are correct - they cannot. However, there is a problem here - your brain has at some time in the past become used to drinking at extremely high levels ("tolerance"). Your brain also has an extremely long memory.
All of us have a natural tendency to adapt to our environment. In this modern day world with its rapid changes, if we didn't have this natural tendency we would simply not survive. All animals have to adapt to their environment in order to survive, and human beings are no different. This ability to adapt is a good thing. Without it you and I would not be here today.
But in some cases, this automatic ability to adapt can lead to unwanted side-effects. In the specific example we are taking about at the moment (an environment full of alcohol) this adaptation will lead to an automatic, subconsciously motivated, return to alcoholic levels of drinking.
Why? Because the very fact that you have become physically addicted in the past means that you have changed - permanently. All addictive drugs (including alcohol) interact with the brain in order to cause some kind of pleasurable experience (such as getting drunk). As you drink more and more, your brain re-sets itself so that you get less and less drunk at a particular level of alcohol use. Eventually, your brain accepts that this level of drinking is now what it can expect every day, day-in, day-out. The nerves in the brain alter their response to alcohol. Effectively they try to function as though you were not drunk, even though you may have drunk large amounts.
Now this is great in the short-term. You can drink more and more without making a fool of yourself - adaptation.
The problem occurs when you stop drinking - the nerves in your brain are no longer used to this, and now send messages to your body telling you that something is very wrong - an emergency message is sent, and the body reacts accordingly - it gets ready to respond to an emergency. Your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up, you sweat in order to get rid of all the excess heat you will generate in fighting or fleeing, you tremor in fright etc.etc.. In the process of your body reacting to this, you experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
After several days, your body realises that in fact there is no emergency to deal with, and things return to normal - the withdrawal period is over.
However, your brain never forgets.
It has adapted to alcohol permanently.
However long you leave it (years in some cases), the next time you have a drink, your brain remembers the smell, the taste and the sensation of alcohol. Whereas before it took months and years for the adaptation to heavy alcohol use to occur, this time it immediately readjusts itself in less than a moment. As it readjusts, you will find yourself drinking more than you intended to. The next day your brain will send you messages to drink even more - simply because it remembers that this is how is was in the past. The brain never forgets addiction.
Within several days, you will be drinking as you were before. You will not have planned or intended to do this; and you will almost definitely feel devastated that this has happened to you. But it is beyond your personal control.
At some point along the line, if you are to overcome alcoholism, you will accept that this disease (alcoholism) is more powerful than you are - except in one case - that is that you decide never to drink alcohol again - ever. If you truly decide this, then you have beaten alcoholism. If you hanker after the idea of being able to drink again in months or years to come then you will relapse.
Now this permanent change in the brain only occurs if you have become physically addicted to alcohol. If you do not experience withdrawal symptoms on cessation of drinking, then your brain has not reached this point of permanent change. But, if you have become physically addicted at some point in the past, then it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to drink again without relapsing to damaging levels of alcohol use.
Of course many of you will give it a try - drinking again. And just a few will succeed in proving me wrong. I have known people who have done this - returned to healthy drinking when they have been physically addicted in the past.
May be you will need to try this out for yourself. After all someone has to win the lottery - it could be you. It really could be you, there is no way I can say it will not be. What I can say, without a doubt, is that the odds are stacked against you.
Just as many people play the lottery, many alcoholics try having just that one drink.
Next page .. Chapter Two - Conclusion
How To Enjoy Life Without Alcohol index
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