Finding the Right Alcohol Treatment

By Mark S. Gold, MD

It is possible to make changes before you become dependent on alcohol. Many people change their relationship with alcohol before it is too late.

A variety of health and treatment professionals can help people who want to stop drinking. Treatment professionals help people evaluate their problems with alcohol and gain an understanding of where they are in the disease. What are the symptoms they are experiencing? How has alcohol use affected their lives? Then they help them make choices about the goals they want to accomplish in terms of quitting drinking and remaining sober. Armed with a treatment plan, they are much better able to choose among the options.

People who want to stop drinking choose among the available treatment options to find an approach that is right for them. The right approach will give them the knowledge and support they need to meet their goals and to set new goals during recovery. The right approach will help them and their families and loved ones recover from a disease that has damaged their daily lives and their hopes for the future. The right approach will restore the hope they may have lost to the disease of alcoholism.

Health professionals who treat any type of disease—cancer, AIDS, arthritis, diabetes— will attest to the importance of hope in the recovery process. When a person’s hope is restored, so is the motivation to act, to make ongoing choices to fight the disease and to do what is necessary to recover.

Recovery is an Ongoing Process

Recovery from alcoholism is an ongoing process because there is no cure. The treatments and support that a person chooses now may later be too much or too little. The goal is to find what works now, and to educate yourself about all the options available, so that if you need more help in the future, or less help, you can find the treatments and supports that are right for you.

To think that you have to recover from alcoholism on your own with no help represents the distorted thinking that is a well-known symptom of alcoholism. In recovery from alcoholism, support comes in many forms. Family physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists, alcohol counselors, self-help groups and other organizations are just a few of the supports available that will help educate you about alcohol and provide the level of support you need.

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