Fragmented Intimacy: Addiction in a Social WorldI recall during my early years as a clinical psychologist being asked by hospital staff to speak with a 32-year-old man addicted to alcohol who was being discharged following treatment for pancreatitis. This had been his third admission for the same illness, and hospital practitioners were exasperated by his choice to continue dri- ing despite being repeatedly told it would cause irreparable damage to his pancreas from which he would be unlikely to survive. I met him in a side-room on the ward. He sat in his pyjamas in the corner of the room, thin and ashen looking, with a worried frown fixed across his face. Our conversation was initially stilted and I was trying hard not to replicate the lectures and sermons he was likely to have already received from hospital staff. As we talked I was able to piece together bits of inf- mation about his current circumstances: he lived alone, he was unemployed, and his only family contact was with a brother who visited to check on him occasionally. He started to relax into the conversation and then talked about his long struggles with alcohol: his drinking had begun in his early teens; it had provided him with con- dence and friendships; he had had some serious motor vehicle accidents; he had tried to stop drinking but soon continued; he had lost friends, jobs, and family re- tionships; and in response he had increasingly sought intoxication as a refuge. |
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abuse addiction services addictive rela addictive relationship addictive social system addictive substance/process addictive system adolescent associated assumptions asymmetry attempts become behavior Bert Bert/Joan biopsychosocial model cannabis Cathy Cathy/Dion challenge Chapter clients close club codependency collective action commitment compassion connectedness contexts controlling tactics counterreactions crisis cultural Danny Danny/Jack deterioration Dion discussion drinking drug effects emerge emotional environments example experience explored family members family therapy feel focus fragmentation friends gambling genogram going important individual inset box intensification interactions intimates intoxication involves Jacinta Jacinta/Wendy Jack Joan lead looking Māori meetings ment negative occur ongoing opioids opportunities parents particle paradigm partner person phase potential practitioners problem gambling problems programs psychological reconnection reintegration relationship to alcohol responsibility role sense ship social connections social world strength talk tapu therapy things threats tion tionship tive violence Wendy whānau Yeah
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Page 5 - Alcoholics are those excessive drinkers whose dependence upon alcohol has attained such a degree that it shows a noticeable mental disturbance or an interference with their bodily and mental health, their interpersonal relations, and their smooth social and economic functioning; or who show the prodromal signs of such developments.
Page 5 - Alcoholism is a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by continuous or periodic: impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial.