Professional Awareness re: Alcoholism - Introduction
This guide acknowledges that the word “alcoholism” has fallen out of favour with professionals - not because the condition no longer exists but because the word “alcoholic” has had centuries of bad press.
Alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, alcohol use disorder, alcohol addiction, problem drinking are just some of more recent terms used.
This guide suggests there is another way.
To educate our communities that alcoholics are not just to be found on skid-row.
To educate our patients and clients that alcoholics come in all shapes and sizes, all ages, from all walks of life. The majority have homes, work and families.
To educate that being a sober alcoholic is not shameful but sensible - given what we now know about alcohol and its effects, physical, psychological and social development, trans-generational trauma, sexual abuse, etc.
How prevalent are drinking problems related to your work?
Estimates of the population with drinking problems vary from country to country - in general these estimates relate to overall level of consumption of alcohol in the population. However, The World Health Organisation estimates that “7% of the world’s population aged 15 years and older, lived with alcohol use disorders, and 3.7% of the adult world population lived with alcohol dependence”.
Ref: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol
This means an average of about 5% (1 in 20) people have problems related to their drinking. Therefore, most people, who interact with 20 people in their daily lives, have a good chance of knowing someone with a drinking problem.
Furthermore, on average, each person directly affects 4 other people (4 in 20) mother, father and two siblings; spouse/ partner and two children, four close relatives and/or friends and/or work colleagues and so on.
That is 5 out of 20 people (25%) either have a drinking problem or are being directly affected by someone else’s drinking - one quarter of our population.
For a helping professional who averages one hundred clients per year, their case load will have an average of 25 clients either directly affected by their own drinking (5 people) or someone else’s alcohol use (20 people).
Given that alcohol affects the health of a range of body organs including brain, and a range of behaviours, any professional working in physical and/or mental health, legal and/or corrections, social welfare, employee assistance programs etc. are likely to have a higher average of these clients than the general population.
So, which of your clients may be presenting with alcohol related problems?
The drinker?
The partner or spouse?
The parent or parents?
The child or children of problem drinkers?
The adult child or children of a problem drinker?
The reality is all the above but depending on the type of service offered, there will be different proportions.
Given the prevalence of people drinking at unhealthy levels, and the stigma associated with alcoholism (alcohol addiction, alcohol use disorder, alcohol dependence, alcohol misuse, alcohol abuse) it is very likely that these people coming for help, will be unaware of how serious this issue is for them.
Have you been trained to effectively identify, assess, refer and follow-up on this aspect of people’s lives?
The reality is in our time poor world, with helping organisations short of staff and resources, many helping professionals and other workers must focus on their primary functions. And so, have little time to look at the contributing factors so for those presenting for help.
Rather the issue is - does this client meet the criteria for assistance from me and/or my agency?
Has the person presented to Emergency with a broken leg, or some other medical problem?
Does this person have alcohol related health problem like certain cancers, other tumours, neuropsychiatric conditions, cardiovascular and/or digestive diseases?
Does this family qualify for emergency housing, financial aid, rent assistance, some other welfare support?
Is this family affected by alcohol-related mental, emotional or physical related abuse or violence?
Is this person presenting to the legal system with some alcohol related matter - marital problems, divorce, child custody issues , drink-driving offenses, to name a few?
In principle, you or your service decides:
Yes or No.
If yes - the service is provided but if not addressing the underlying issues, your service is only offering partial assistance.
If no - the person is sent away. Problem resolved from your perspective.
But where does that person or family go?
In the majority, the answer is back home to family or living alone - without hope their situation can be improved and without advice about where such support can be found.
This does not need to be the case.
Alcoholism - a “family” problem.
Alcoholism (alcohol addiction/ alcohol use disorder) does run in families., sometimes appearing to skip generations.
Life is difficult for the person with the drinking problem.
Life for those living with someone else’s unhealthy drinking is also difficult - their physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being is impacted too.
In recent years there is a lot more information available - sometimes under the topic of co-dependence, adult children of alcoholics and/or other dysfunctional behaviours etc.
Whether the drinker themselves has admitted the problem or not, there are organisations within the alcohol and other drug services field and self-help support services that offer information and support to families of problem drinkers.
