Almost Alcoholic

That is the title of a book that I was sent and am going to review. The book is written by Robert Doyle, MD, who is a psychiatrist and Joseph Nowinski, PhD, who is a clinical psychologist. Both of them have worked as mental health professionals and pursued further training in the area of substance abuse. I will do a few blogs about this book. My major in college was in the drug and alcohol field. I am a recovering alcoholic. I also went through the circle program in Pueblo, Colorado in the early 90s when it was the number one treatment center in the state. The book starts out with a case of a man who is on the way of becoming an almost alcoholic. After that story it talks about the view of two kinds of people and they would be alcoholics and non-alcoholics. It lists an alcoholic as: “Being unable to stop drinking, beginning from the first time he or she had a drink. Repeatedly having blackouts (i.e., can’t remember the next day what happened) after having only a few drinks. Being arrested multiple times for driving while intoxicated, becoming violent on more than one occasion.”(pg.15) I can attest to being just like all that was just said. I had three DUIs before I even turned twenty one. Everything I ever been arrested for has been alcohol related. I would not start drinking unless I knew there was enough alcohol to get drunk. That is something I never want to go back to. I was always angry at the way my life was going. I was asked if it was so horrible why I continued. My answer was I did not know another way. They offered me drug and alcohol treatment way before I went to the circle program. I turned them down. The first chapter goes on talking about cases of people who are almost alcoholic. Then it talks about how alcoholism was first talked about as a medical condition in the early nineteenth century by two physicians Scotsman Thomas Trotter and American Benjamin Rush. “Alcoholics Anonymous was published in 1939 that the idea that alcoholism was a disease with both physical and mental causes begin to take hold.”(pg.23) Alcoholics anonymous sure does help a lot of alcoholics, if you keep going to meeting it helps a lot. I do believe in rock bottom when you are there you finally understand that you do not want to sink further.