Chapter Three: Are you ready to act now?

If you have read Chapters One and Two of this information manual and come to a conclusion about the main questions asked (1.Are you physically addicted alcohol? 2. Do you plan to become abstinent from alcohol or to continue to drink?) you will have made the necessary decisions in order to form a basic plan for how to proceed. I will discuss the various routes forward in later chapters.

However, for the moment, there is a final 3rd main question to ask:

MAIN QUESTION 3:
ARE YOU READY TO ACT NOW?

Now that might seem like an obvious question with an obvious answer - "Of course I am, I wouldn't be reading this if I wasn't ready to do something about it." Well yes, you may well be ready, and the fact that you are still reading bodes well. To have searched for and found this book, and to still be reading by Chapter Three demonstrates that you are taking this seriously and have a commitment to addressing the problems you are experiencing.

Having said this, in my NHS practice, I see many patients who think they are ready, but who I know are 99.9% likely to relapse to drinking either immediately after detox or within a matter of weeks. How do I know this? Because I've seen it happen again and again and again. These are not people who are uncertain about whether or not they need help, and they are not people who are uncommitted. These are people who are honestly motivated to stop drinking - they are experiencing serious and multiple problems due to alcohol, and they want these problems to go away. So why do they return to drinking? Where does it all go wrong?

There are a multitude of technical explanations for relapse to alcohol occurring, and I will touch on some of these below. But for the moment, they can really be summarised in one simple statement. You must remind yourself of this statement constantly, again and again and again:

"THE DETOX IS THE EASY BIT - STAYING OFF IS MUCH HARDER"

And again:

"THE DETOX IS THE EASY BIT - STAYING OFF IS MUCH HARDER"

And again:

"THE DETOX IS THE EASY BIT - STAYING OFF IS MUCH HARDER"

The bad news is that its all too easy to convince yourself that all your problems will be over once you've managed to stop drinking. I'm sorry to bring you this news, but the truth is that to stay off the drink (or to stay drinking within healthy limits) is very hard work - and its hard work for a long, long time. By this I do NOT mean physically hard work - the detox takes care of that - and if the detox is carried out professionally it will be a painless experience throughout. I do mean mentally hard work.

If you can answer yes to ALL of the 10 questions below, then you are most likely ready right now to go ahead and prepare to implement your plan. If you cannot honestly answer yes to all these questions, then I suggest that you think very hard indeed before progressing further at this stage*. Read the remainder of this chapter carefully, and then take some time out to think about it all a little more. Come back to this chapter and read it again when you think you may be ready. Now, if you don't follow this advice that's fine by me, and of course some people always prove me wrong; and when they do that's great - one - because they're leading healthy lives again, and - two - because they've beaten the odds that are stacked against them. And, in a way, this is all about beating the odds. The more of these questions you can honestly tick off, the more likely I think you are to beat alcoholism in the long term.

Part of my role as a doctor specialising in alcoholism is to help people to lower those odds against them as much as possible before proceeding with their plan. That way more people succeed and less fail in the longer term. There are three main things I consider:

1. How determined is the person to follow this through in the long term?
2. How realistic is this person in terms of what its going to involve?
3. How does the person relate to him/herself and others?

So, here are the questions I suggest that you should ask of yourself before continuing to read this book. If you can tick yes to all of them, then proceed further. If you cannot, please think hard before progressing.

* There are some circumstances when you should try to proceed straight to detox, even if you have not prepared for this. See Part III of this book for more information on this.

Next page .. Chapter Three - Ten Questions

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