Blame on the Alcohol

Alcohol More Important Than Life

By Ned Wicker

As a baseball fan, I appreciate the film “A League of their Own,” starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell. It’s the story about the women’s professional baseball league, which was started because major League Baseball feared that the leagues would have to shut down because of World War II.

The story within the story is about Tom Hank’s character, Jimmy Dugan, who was selected to manage the team. Jimmy was still young enough to be playing, but his career was cut short due to injury, sustained after a night on the town.

We are first introduced to Dugan before the ladies’ first game. He bursts into the clubhouse, bypasses every player and goes right to a urinal to relieve himself. Madonna’s character, Mae Mordabito, is impressed by the length of this activity that she starts timing him. Jimmy, of course, is oblivious. He spends the entire game on the end of the bench, asleep. Wallowing in self-pity, Dugan is completely disinterested in the team. His behavior is abhorrent. League general manager, Ira Lowenstein, played by David Strathairn, confronts him by asking, “If we pay you more money, can you be more disgusting?” Finally, team owner Walter Harvey, played by Garry Marshall, lectures him on his behavior.

There is one particular scene, when Dugan is hitting balls from a pitching machine, where we get a look at the real Jimmy. He was a star player and judging from the way he was winging the bat, if it weren’t for his bad knees and alcoholism, he’d still be a good player. The alcohol addiction had taken over his life and the tragedy is that we are introduced to the alcoholic, not the ball player. We wind up asking ourselves, “What would have happened if Jimmy took care of himself.”

Jimmy comes to his senses and begins to engage the team. He asserts his baseball knowledge in a comical battle of signs with Dottie Hinson (Davis). He begins to see himself as a baseball manager, and begins to look at the ladies on the team not as women, but as ball players. We see this transformation of identity.

Identity is at the core of alcoholism. In the throws of addiction, people are seen as alcoholics. But what is their true identity? Who are they as people? Jimmy Dugan lost his identity as a ball player because of alcohol addiction, but found redemption in baseball as a manager. What’s more, we find that Jimmy is really a pretty good guy. He realizes that Harvey had given him a second chance in life, and rather than accepting a position as a minor league manager, he chose to stay with his women’s team for another season, out of respect for the players.

Alcohol addiction robs people of their identity. It interrupts life. It becomes the focal point of existence, stripping away dignity, opportunity and fulfillment. But there is redemption. There is treatment and hope of a restored life and people need not suffer and be forever captive to the disease. Jimmy Dugan found a new life. You can too.Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol

Questions about Alcohol/Addiction Recovery

What is the cycle of alcoholism and how does it relate to recovery?

Isn’t an alcoholic a person with weak character?

How do I break the cycle of alcoholism in my life?

Don’t alcoholics have to want to be treated?

Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol Blame on the Alcohol

The Cycle of Alcohol Addiction

Putting the Blame on the Alcohol

Maybe your recovery isn’t a path at all, but a seemingly endless cycle of using and not using, a cyclical pattern of good periods of time followed by bad.

We ask this question because recovery looks like the individual person, and no two people are alike. One person, through sheer will power and determination may be able to break the bonds of alcoholism, while another needs a multitude of services and nothing seems to work.

Medical people might explain that contrast in terms of an alteration of brain chemistry by the drug, possibly connected directly to some clinical diagnosis of depression.

Others may deny completely that recovery has any medical component at all, that the recovering addict is one who has overcome the demons inside with no help from any therapist, counselor or physician.

If you accept, even for a moment, that alcoholism recovery can be explained in terms of a cycle, most of this section will make sense to you. While there are those who bristle over the idea of people being “helpless” over alcoholism, experience seems to show that most people ARE helpless and that's what makes alcoholism recovery so tough!

Cycle of Alcohol/Addiction

I. Triggering Event

There are so many contributing factors to alcoholism, but we will not go into that discussion here. For the purpose of this illustration, we will break down the triggering event into two categories.

First, one might drink for recreation, to get “high.” This party approach to alcohol may be thrill seeking, or have an element of peer pressure attached to it.

The second category is “to numb the pain.” The person uses alcohol to get rid of a feeling, not to create one. Something hurts and the user is trying to numb that hurt. They may just want to feel better, because something is missing from their life, or they may want to escape a reality because it is too much to face.

In either case, whether to have a good time or to numb the pain, the cycle is started. They're not thinking about alcoholism recovery because they're not convinced they have a problem.

II. Something is wrong

Many people can drink beer and liquor and never become an alcoholic. They may realize that their drinking is getting in the way, or they just do not enjoy or need to drink anymore. They quit and it’s over.

However, that is not true for so many people, who arrive at the point where they determine there is a problem, but they are still drinking. Perhaps they're experiencing problems at work, or in personal relationships. Because they are drinking, they may have run into legal problems, such as a DWI/DUI and they realize that change is necessary. They begin to consider alcoholism recovery. They know they have to do something.

III. Try Harder

When the management of their drinking begins to slip away, people will say “I’m going to cut back.” They know something is amiss, but they do not want to go through the fuss of treatment, unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Maybe they’ve cut back in the past, or quit altogether, but started using again. They are going to try harder. People don’t want to be told what to do, or how to do something, they want to do it their way. It’s not just people struggling with alcoholism, it’s anybody. American culture reveres the individualist who proudly proclaims, “I did it my way.”

Some people can try harder and succeed. God bless them. Alcohol/Addiction recovery is serious work and if somebody can “cut back” or stop using on their own power, that’s much to their credit.

But most people can’t.

The finger pointers will say it’s because of a lack of will power, or a weakness of character. They say those who drink to excess are evil people. However, if one were to examine the other side of the issue and look at the alcoholism in terms of an alteration of brain chemistry, rendering some individuals powerless because of a chronic brain disease, then effort alone seems unrealistic.

Moreover, we are human beings and human beings fail. Nobody bats 1.000 in baseball, and even a player who is considered a great hitter is going to fail seven times out of ten. The world sees a .300 hitter and calls him a star, but he failed in his seven other attempts. If you are batting .300 in your fight against alcoholism, you’re failing.

Think of it in terms of trying to cut back or quit. Smokers can tell you their stories and we’ve all heard them. They’re good at quitting. But it isn’t that easy and neither is alcoholism recovery. If it were, there would be no smokers, and if alcoholism were that easy to overcome, why would there be addicts?

Let’s suppose, for sake of illustration, that a person has made the determination to quit. Being a rational and intelligent person, they formulate a plan to follow and they try hard to execute the plan. They are succeeding. A woman in an alcoholism recovery group once told me that she had “not used” for seven years. Through will power and a plan, she was clean for seven years, but something happened and she found herself at the next stage of the addiction cycle.

IV. Failure

Nobody likes to admit failure. It’s an ugly word in the Western culture. We like to think of ourselves as self-made people. We pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and become famous, or financially independent. We did the work and we deserve the reward. Failure is not permitted and those who fail are weak and undeserving.

In America, only those who win are given the credit. After all, the loser of the big game doesn’t get the parade. People apply winning and losing to alcoholism recovery, as if it were some kind of sporting or business competition. If you failed, you’re a loser.

What if failure was built into the human condition as a necessary indicator of a need for something outside of one’s own self? Alcoholics Anonymous founded its 12-Step program on that very idea, that we all need help.

We’re not meant to be alone, and even though there are those who can break free of alcoholism on their own, the truth is most of us can’t. Coming from a Judeo-Christian perspective, this writer sees human failure as a measuring device, to show us that we need God. A medical person might see failure in alcoholism recovery as an indicator that brain chemistry is still out of balance. Frame the failure anyway you like.

The failure can be caused for a variety of reasons. The cycle has come full circle, because something happened. Perhaps in a moment of weakness a person took a drink, or they experienced a traumatic event that was just too much to handle, or any one a thousand reasons prompted them to use again. They are back where they started and they need help.

Alcohol/Addiction is a chronic disease

Alcohol/Addiction is a chronic disease in our view. The key word is “chronic,” and like diabetes or heart disease, alcoholism needs to be managed. People need management tools to help them keep their lives in balance and to prevent the grip of addiction from squeezing its fingers around their throat.

The cycle needs to be broken, not just stopped.

Whatever the triggering mechanism that causes someone to use, it needs to be addressed. We maintain that the root causes of alcoholism have to be examined to prevent the cycle from continuously spinning. Go to the cause, like dealing with a business management situation, and address the issue, formulate a plan and manage the problem.

People can and do break the cycle. If you can break the cycle on your own, great, but if you can’t there are caring, compassionate professional people to work with you and help you to try or in many cases try AGAIN to break the alcoholism recovery cycle!

For more Blame on the Alcohol click for Intervention

HOW TO USE THIS SITE:

This site contains five MAIN pages that EVERYONE should read:

ABOUT…

SYMPTOMS…

CAUSES…

TREATMENT…

RECOVERY…

Read these five pages and learn what you need to know to spot alcoholism in:

Yourself... Your Family... Your Friends... Your Community...

The rest of the pages are there for your reference to explain important topics in more detail.

Finally don’t miss the Spiritual and 12-step sections to fully explore how understanding THE SPIRIT can lead to recovery!

You Can Be ADDICTION FREE FOREVER!