Day: September 10, 2014

Living with an alcoholic is like living in a war zone!

Posted on by alcoholicsguide

Strength and hope for friends and families of problem drinkers

Al-Anon Family Groups

About one in ten children in the United States lives with a parent with an alcohol misuse problem.

In a word, “devastating.” That’s how Dr. George Koob describes the impact of a loved one’s alcoholism on family members and friends. Dr. Koob is the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), which is the leading funder of alcohol research in the world.

In this exclusive interview—released today—with Pamela Walters, Marketing Information Analyst for Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., Dr. Koob is candid about concerns, not only for the person who drinks, but for those affected by the drinker.

“Children, particularly adolescents, but even younger children, friends and family members, all can be affected by an individual with an alcohol use disorder,” said Dr. Koob. He continued, “They often are experiencing negative emotions. They feel stressed. They feel alienated. They can become aggressive. These symptoms can lead to low self-esteem.”

In focusing on how children are affected by a parent’s drinking, Dr. Koob said, “About one in ten children in the United States lives with a parent with an alcohol misuse problem.” Dr. Koob commented on the subsequent, negative effects on a child’s development. Parents struggling with alcohol use disorders are sometimes “barely able to maintain themselves, much less take care of a child,” he said.

Dr. Koob continued, “We know that a child with a parent who binge drinks is much more likely to binge drink than a child whose parents do not binge drink. We know that it can lead to dynamics in the family that contribute to the development of alcohol use disorders in the children themselves, when they grow up.” He went on to reference research the Institute is conducting to get the word out about the family cycle of alcoholism, and to encourage those who are affected by a parent’s, or anyone’s, problem drinking to seek help from Al-Anon.

“I’ve had many of my colleagues over the years who joined Al-Anon because their parents had alcohol problems, and they found it very, very helpful for protecting them against their own vulnerabilities,” Dr. Koob said. He encourages friends and family members to get help for themselves in dealing with a problem drinker. “And that then can lead to a strengthening of yourself, but also of your ability to get help for intervention,” he said.

Find all of Dr. Koob’s comments in “NIAAA Director talks about the impacts of alcoholism on family members and friends,” as part of the “First Steps to Al-Anon Recovery” podcast series at al-anon.alateen.org.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is one of the 27 institutes and centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAAA supports and conducts research on the impact of alcohol use on human health and well-being. It is the leading funder of alcohol research in the world.

Al-Anon Family Groups are for families and friends who have been affected by a loved one’s drinking. Nearly 16,000 local groups meet throughout the U.S., Canada, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico every week. Al-Anon Family Groups meet in more than 130 countries, and Al-Anon literature is available in more than 40 languages. Al-Anon Family Groups have been offering strength and support to families and friends of problem drinkers since 1951. Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. acts as the clearinghouse worldwide for inquiries from those who need help or want information about Al-Anon Family Groups and Alateen, its program for teenage members.

For more information about Al-Anon Family Groups, go to http://www.al-anon.alateen.org and read a copy of Al-Anon’s annual public outreach magazine “Al-Anon Faces Alcoholism 2015.”

Feeding Distress-based action.

Posted on by alcoholicsguide

Even as I a child I had difficulties controlling my impulses and my behaviours, “I was into everything”. I did not use much forethought in decisions making and would generally react and always be after something that I wanted desperately that very moment. Now in fact!

I believe I had sugar addiction, and chocolate and playing, and girl chasing addictive behaviours way before I ever got near alcohol in my early teens, with a six month, and quite disastrous period of poker machine gambling in between. And of course you couldn’t get me off the “Space Invader” machine.  I just couldn’t get enough of anything, ever. Always wanted more, more and some more. My mother would call for me to come home in the darkening hours of evening. I had to be scraped off the playing fields in order to come home. Exhausted.

So why this constant overdoing of everything!!?

Why couldn’t I stop once in a while, ponder the consequences of my decisions, employ some, goal-directed, action-outcome type of thinking?

Following on for our very recent blog which described the neural mechanisms implicated in negative urgency we now look at at an article which attempts to  bring together some of our most consuming research interests by attempting to explain whether there is  a  link between emotional processing deficits (alexithymia)  negative urgency and dysregulated behaviours.

This study (1) looked at whether whether negative urgency (distress-based impulsivity)  would be the link in relationship between alexithymia and dysregulated behaviors.

Dysregulated behaviors have been defined as behaviors that are difficult to control, and often  result in functional impairment for the affected individual (Selby & Joiner, 2009).

An inability to understand affective and physiological experiences inherent in alexithymia might prompt individuals to engage in maladaptive behaviors in an effort to regulate emotions. One type of behavior linked to alexithymia is binge eating. Wheeler and colleagues (2005) found that alexithymia was positively correlated with binge eating in a sample of females.

Carano and colleagues (2006) found that alexithymia was positively correlated with the severity of binge eating behaviors. Additionally, Speranza and colleagues (2007) found that alexithymia predicted eating disorder treatment outcome in a three year prospective study meaning high levels of alexithymia can interfere with treatment response even more than the actual severity of the presenting problem.

 

eating-disorder

Taylor and colleagues (1990) found that 50% of substance dependent males admitted to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program were characterized as alexithymic. Similarly, Haviland and colleagues (1988) found that approximately 50% of individuals diagnosed as alcohol dependent were characterized as alexithymic. These numbers are significantly greater than the reported prevalence of alexithymia in the general population, which has been estimated to fall between 10 and 15% (Rybakowski et al., 1988; Parker et al., 1989), and suggests that alcohol and drug abuse is another example of a maladaptive behavior that may be used to modulate negative affective states when one is incapable of doing so in an adaptive way.

Loas and colleagues (1997) conducted a one year follow-up on individuals admitted to a psychiatric facility for alcohol treatment. Results suggested that individuals who remained abstinent from alcohol use one year post-treatment had
significantly lower scores on alexithymia measures.

“Why does the lack of understanding and expression of emotions have such a powerful influence over dysregulated behaviors?” 

Why  do individuals with high levels of alexithymia who experience negative affect seem to engage in dysregulated behaviors so frequently, while other individuals may simply cry, ruminate, or develop vegetative symptoms of depression?

Is negative urgency (Whiteside & Lynam, 2001; Cyders, Smith, Spillane, Fischer, Annus, & Peterson, 2007) the mechanism through which these behaviors are developed  and sustained?     It may be that the relationship between alexithymia and behavior is explained by a tendency on the part of individuals with high levels of alexithymia to act rashly in an attempt to immediately reduce psychological and physiological sensations associated with negative affect (negative mood, negative emotions, anxiety etc).

Negative urgency could be thought the  mechanism that drives dysregulated behaviors in individuals who experience difficulty recognizing and expressing their emotions.  

eating-disorder-clinic-300x250

The authors (1) concluded that when faced with negative affect, many individuals are able to recognize and process their emotions adaptively. However, if people are not able to identify or describe their emotions (the very definition of alexithymia), our results suggest that this confusing affective experience may be quite upsetting (or unpleasant) and could lead to negative urgency, or a tendency to act rashly when they experience any type of negative affect.

High alexithymia individuals appear to be highly motivated to alleviate negative affect, regardless of the consequences. It may be that the emotional confusion inherent in alexithymia prompts individuals high on negative urgency to engage in dysregulated behaviors, by acting out either
against themselves or others.

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As we mentioned in our previous blog  emotional processing deficits are common in addiction and in other dysregualted behaviours and these deficits may not recruit the goal-directed parts of the brain. They do not guide action or choices effectively. As a result they manifest in perhaps crude, undifferentiated or processed forms as distress signals instead and recruit more limbic, motoric regions of the brain.  Hence they are not used to anticipate future, long term consequence.

We disagree that it is not simply negative affect that prompts negative urgency but rather the chronic stress dsyregulation underpinning the manifestation of negative affect.

We are simply adding that as addiction becomes more chronic, so does stress and emotional distress and this appears to lead to a distress-based “fight or flight” responding to decision making. Addicts increasing appear to recruit sub-cortical or limbic areas in decision making and this is prevalent in abstinence as in active using. It is the consequence of chronic emotional and stress dysregulation.

References for this blog

Fink, E. L., Anestis, M. D., Selby, E. A., & Joiner, T. E. (2010). Negative urgency fully mediates the relationship between alexithymia and dysregulated behaviours. Personality and Mental Health, 4(4), 284-293.