Self-medication with alcohol is voluntary dissociation its a choice.

Self-medication with alcohol is voluntary dissociation its a choice. The functioning alcoholic drinks to split off from the reality of his life, his pain or his feelings of inadequacy. When he enters that altered state he feels better. The problem is that he has become addicted to alcohol over time. Now he simply needs alcohol to feel at all OK.

When people are in dissociated states, with or without alcohol, they are simply not there. So when you tell them something when they are in their altered state, they may not have any recollection of what you told them when they come back to reality. And because they typically don’t realize they were mentally somewhere else, they get defensive and often angry. They may accuse you of lying or holding things from them.

Whether the deteriorating memory in the functional alcoholic is the result of brain damage or dissociation or, more probably, both, it should be taken as a symptom of advancing alcoholism.

If you are a functioning alcoholic and those around you are complaining about your memory problems, get whatever help you need to break your addiction and stop things from getting worse. Take it from someone who has been there: there is life after booze.

If you are a family member of a functioning alcoholic, do seek help yourself, lest you slip into a debilitating codependency role.

The Ten Stages is a studied recovery course. It is a source of reconnection a method of unlearning and a reintroduction to our child within which leads us back to our one true intuitive voice.We start to learn and come out of our protective dysfunctional shell and reclaim our lives. #childwithin#10stages