Beyond the Influence: Understanding and Defeating Alcoholism

by Katherine Ketcham, William F. Asbury, Mel Schulstad, Arthur P. Ciaramicoli

Overview

This invaluable work will contribute much to the battle against our number one disease."
—from the Foreword by George McGovern, former senator and author of Terry: My Daughter's Life-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a disease. It's time we started treating it like one.

Science has offered undisputed proof that alcoholism is a disease rather than a weakness of character, yet millions of alcoholics continue to suffer due to inappropriate treatment.  Now the co-author of the modern classic Under the Influence has teamed up with prominent alcoholism experts to provide new answers to this national epidemic.

Based on the latest scientific research, Beyond the Influence clearly explains the neurological nature of the disease and reveals why some people drink addictively and others do not.  It also spells out what needs to be done to treat alcoholism, including:
Steps to take for an intervention
How to find the right treatment program
Which psychological approaches work best
Why spirituality is essential to recovery
New insights into relapse prevention
What you should know about diet, exercise, and nontraditional treatments such as acupuncture
Provocative and eye-opening, compelling and compassionate, Beyond the Influence is not only a message of hope for alcoholics—it is a blueprint for saving lives.

BEYOND THE INFLUENCE explains that alcoholism is a disease of the body, not a weakness of character. Drawing on the latest scientific studies, the authors present new research on the central role of genetics and neurotransmitters in addiction. Continuing where the prior book left off, it also includes:

Steps for diagnosis and intervention, plus ways to prevent relapses
Various treatment models, including inpatient and out-patient programs and a review of new drug treatments
The most effective types of psychological counseling
The critical role of nutrition
Non-traditional healing methods for recovery
The importance of a spiritual component to recovery

The authors also critique our nation's alcoholism policies, including education and prevention programs, efforts to curtail college bingeing and underage drinking, and the advertising and marketing strategies of the alcohol industry. —>

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553380149
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/28/2000
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	164,323
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Katherine Ketcham is the author of nine nonfiction books, including five on alcoholism.  William Asbury, former Editor-In-Chief of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, writes and lectures frequently on the nation's alcohol problems.  Mel Schulstad is former president and co-founder of the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors.

Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli is director and chief psychologist of the Alternative Therapy Center of the Metrowest Medical Wellness Center in Natick, Massachusetts and is an instructor at Harvard Medical School.

Read an Excerpt

1
Still Under the Influence

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
—schopenhauer

Don't remember where I was flying to, but was taken off the plane in Twin Cities, ambulanced to Hennepin County Detox—nightmare—went to Hazelden from there—started stealing, then drinking—then to detox center in Hastings, Minnesota. Scotty picked me up, got drunk at his home nearby, had to leave on bus to Madison, got drunk couldn't stay at Sharon's. My wallet stolen that night. Tried to sleep outside at Ray's old apt. Neighbors called. Woke up in detox. Began series of staying with AA people.
Ran out of places to go, no insurance, no halfway house, no money. Went to D.C.—stayed sober one month.

Terry McGovern wrote these words in her journal when she was forty-three years old. Two years later she was dead. Around 8:30 p.m. on December 14, 1994, Terry left the Crystal Corner Bar in Madison, Wisconsin, and wandered into an unlit parking lot, where she either fell or lay down in the snow and froze to death. Her body was discovered around noon the next day. The coroner's report stated that death was due to "hypothermia while in a state of extreme intoxication."
Many of us will hear Terry McGovern's story and shake our heads in dismay—perhaps even in disgust. Why, we wonder, did this gentle, intelligent, much-loved daughter of former senator and presidential candidate George McGovern choose to kill herself with booze? How did she get caught up in such a self-destructive way of life when she was so talented and privileged, surrounded by people who loved her and wanted to help her? What, exactly, was wrong with her? What demons possessed her?
The answers to these questions are hotly debated by those who insist that alcoholism is a primary, progressive, physiological disease and those who argue that alcoholism is not a true medical disease at all but a symptom of underlying psychological and emotional problems to which the individual responds by engaging in increasingly self-destructive behavior. The disease theorists engage in vociferous exchanges with those who do not see alcoholism as a disease, and each side carefully amasses research studies and dramatic anecdotes to fortify its position.
After the smoke clears, little if anything seems to have been resolved. Witnessing the bitter disagreements among experts, most of us end up bewildered by the conflicting theories. If alcoholism is a behavior, what quirk of personality or circumstance would lead good, decent, intelligent people such as Terry McGovern to destroy everything in their lives for alcohol? Are alcoholics inherently weak, selfish, emotionally immature individuals?
If, on the other hand, alcoholism is a disease, why do its victims suffer from such intense guilt, shame, and self-loathing? Why can some diagnosed alcoholics return to "moderate" or "controlled" drinking  for weeks or even months? Why do some alcoholics stop drinking and recover with no treatment at all? And why are psychological counseling and spirituality considered such important elements of recovery?
These questions and the contentious debates they engender lead many people to throw up their hands, concluding as the Supreme Court did in April 1988, that alcoholism is a consequence of "willful misconduct."
Alcoholism is not a mysterious illness, nor is it "willful misconduct." Alcoholism is a true medical disease rooted in abnormalities in brain chemistry—biochemical aberrations that are inherited by the great majority of alcoholics and, in some cases, acquired through intense and sustained exposure to alcohol and other drugs. When the alcoholic drinks, something different happens. This difference between alcoholics and nonalcoholics is not created by personality disorders, emotional instability, character defects, or traumatic circumstances; it is a difference in the way the alcoholic's body responds to the drug alcohol.
Physiology, not psychology, determines whether one drinker will become addicted to alcohol and another will not. This is not theory but fact, based on thousands of research studies detailing the nature, causes, and progression of this ancient yet perpetually misunderstood disease. More than fifty years of experimentation and investigation by distinguished scientists in such diverse fields as neurology, biochemistry, pharmacology, and psychology have provided the basic facts needed to understand the drug alcohol and the disease it creates in biologically susceptible individuals. We know what this disease is, we know how to treat it, and we know how to prevent it. The knowledge is in our hands.
Yet the myths and misconceptions that distort our thinking about alcoholism, complicating both treatment and recovery, remain firmly in place. Two decades ago the myths and realities about alcoholism were presented in Under the Influence: A Guide to the Myths and Realities of Alcoholism, coauthored by James R. Milam and Katherine Ketcham. Despite stunning scientific advances in alcoholism research in the last twenty years, these myths continue to influence the way we treat alcoholics.
Myth:        Alcohol has the same chemical and psychological effects on everyone who drinks.
Reality:        Alcohol, like every other substance we take into our bodies, affects different people in different ways.
Myth:        Addiction to alcohol is often psychological.
Reality:        Addiction to alcohol is physiological and involves profound chemical disruptions in the brain.
Myth:        Alcohol is an addictive drug, and anyone who drinks regularly for a long enough period of time will become physically addicted to it.
Reality:        Alcohol is a selectively addictive drug; only a minority of drinkers will experience the need or desire to consume alcohol in sufficient quantities and over a long enough period of time to become physically addicted to it.
Myth:        People become alcoholics because they have psychological or emotional problems that they try to relieve by drinking.
Reality:        Alcoholics have basically the same psychological problems as nonalcoholics before they start drinking, but these problems are aggravated (and new disturbances are created) by addiction to alcohol.
Myth:        If people would drink responsibly, they would not become alcoholics.
Reality:        Many responsible drinkers become alcoholics. Because of the nature of the disease—not the person—they begin to drink irresponsibly.
Myth:        Some alcoholics can learn to drink normally as long as they limit the amount.
Reality:        Alcoholics, who by definition suffer from a permanent brain addiction, can never safely return to drinking.
A little history may help here. Originally published in 1981, Under the Influence detailed the biochemical and neurophysiological factors—metabolic abnormalities, alterations in brain chemistry, heredity, ethnic susceptibility, and prenatal influences—that determine why some people become addicted to alcohol while others do not. The book helped fuel the "recovery boom" of the 1980s, a time of remarkable advances in alcoholism treatment and prevention efforts and a period marked by a growing commitment to the scientifically proven understanding that alcoholism is a primary, progressive, physiological disease requiring lifelong abstinence for recovery.
As the recovery boom gained momentum, growing numbers of behaviorists, social critics, and popular writers raised their voices to criticize the "disease concept," arguing that it failed to account for psychological and emotional factors. Many critics contended that focusing attention on the physical addiction released problem drinkers from moral responsibility for their behavior. What about willpower and simple human decency? If we call alcoholism a disease, the critics continued, we might as well call fingernail biting, obsessive TV viewing, and chronic boredom "diseases." One psychiatrist used a sunburn analogy: Redheads tend to burn more easily than brunettes or blondes, so shouldn't they protect themselves by staying out of the sun? And shouldn't those redheads who continually get sunburned take responsibility for and accept the consequences of their misbehavior?
Alcohol problems should be redefined as "maladaptive lifestyle habits," argued behavioral psychologist Alan Marlatt of the University of Washington. An outspoken critic of the "disease concept," Marlatt insisted that excessive drinking is a behavior that people do, not a symptom of what they are, and that alcoholics and problem drinkers can be taught how to modify their maladaptive habits through stress management, lifestyle changes, and basic learning principles. For those who want to reduce their drinking and avoid the health problems associated with excessive use of alcohol, Marlatt and other behavioral psychologists argued that moderation is the key.
In Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease Herbert Fingarette, a professor at the University of California and a consultant on alcoholism and addiction to the World Health Organization, dismissed fifty years of research on the neurological and biochemical nature of alcoholism with this statement: "No leading research authorities accept the classic disease concept." In The Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control psychologist Stanton Peele argued that disease definitions actually "undermine the individual's obligations to control behavior and to answer for misconduct."
Popular writers quickly latched on to the behaviorist trend. Audrey Kishline, a moderate drinker who believes she was mistakenly diagnosed as an alcoholic, observed in Moderate Drinking, "The act of lifting a drink to your lips too often is not a 'disease.' Drinking too much is a behavior, something that a problem drinker does, not something that he or she has."
As concepts such as "moderation," "responsible drinking," and "maladaptive habits" caught the public's imagination, society as a whole became less tolerant of alcoholics and their "misbehaviors." Changing attitudes toward alcoholics were reflected clearly in the increasingly popular use of the word abuse.* Beginning in the 1980s, government agencies charged with overseeing alcohol education and treatment programs abandoned the word alcoholism in favor of the term alcohol abuse and, more recently, substance abuse. In recent years the word alcoholism seems to have disappeared from official language while the term substance abuse has become as familiar as Budweiser's trio of frogs.
As alcoholism gradually became linked in the public mind with alcohol "abuse," efforts to teach "irresponsible" and "abusive" drinkers how to moderate their drinking grew in popularity. Critics of the disease concept argued vehemently that controlled-drinking therapy—tellingly translated as "behavioral self-control"—should be considered a valid alternative to lifelong abstinence. In the 1990s "harm reduction" programs such as DrinkWise, S.M.A.R.T., and Moderation Management expanded to the point where a 1997 U.S. News and World Report article predicted that controlled-drinking programs would someday "be as commonplace as Weight Watchers and Smokenders."

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Beyond the Influence:

"Comprehensive, balanced yet provocative, Beyond the Influence blends up-to-date research findings with practical knowledge about the cause and consequences of this disease. An excellent resource that resonates with courage and conviction."
—Ernest P. Noble, Ph.D., M.D., Pike Professor of Alcohol Studies, UCLA, and former Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

"A brave and lucid book...[that] will open many people's eyes and save many people's lives. A must-read for anyone dealing with alcoholism."
—Jeff Jay, president of the Terry McGovern Foundation and director of Program Development at Brighton Hospital, Brighton, Michigan

"A vital contribution for anyone who wants to understand the science of alcoholism, plus how to treat it."
—Claudia Black, Ph.D., M.S.W., author of It will Never Happen to Me

"A book of great importance...it furnishes a generous dose of hope...[and] a rallying cry for action."
—Jay Lewis, former editor and publisher of The Alcoholism Report

From the Publisher

In the nearly 20 years since Ketcham coauthored Under the Influence, it has become a classic in identifying and treating alcohol addiction. Now, with new coauthor Asbury (an experienced journalist and "recovered" alcoholic), she restates much of her original material, with additional support from recent scientific research. The authors define alcoholism as "a genetically transmitted neurological disease," not the result of a character defect or moral weakness. They explain in exhaustive detail the effects of "the drug alcohol" on the human body and brain in both alcoholics and nonalcoholics. Clearly and concisely, they offer abundant information on such usually neglected topics as the importance of nutrition and identifying early to middle-stage symptoms of the disease. They also break with conventional wisdom in other ways, encouraging intervention rather than waiting for alcoholics to "hit bottom" and seek help on their own, and they label alcoholics with six years of sobriety as "recovered" rather than continually "recovering." The most surprising statistic here is the relatively small number of people who consume most of the alcohol sold; the authors level a stinging indictment of the "Big Alcohol" industry and its deceptive tactics. The glare of their harsh light also falls on the government (for failing to hold the alcohol industry accountable and for jailing alcoholics rather than getting them into treatment that works), and on doctors (for failing to identify the disease earlier and treat it as a hereditary biochemical disorder that requires medical and nutritional treatment). This book offers a plethora of timely information; a blow to old stigmas, myths and stereotypes; and hope for a future in which many senseless tragedies can be avoided and lives saved. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

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