Alcohol Problem

Dear Kelly,

You have done amazingly well with your life, haven't you? You have achieved what eludes most people, despite the handicap you were born with, and the results of the operations that gave you normal intelligence. And yet, I hear that you have no self-pity. Indeed, I think you need to be proud of yourself and pat yourself on the shoulder.

As a general rule, using alcohol for self-medication, whatever the cause, is a very dangerous thing. Let me tell you a story.

I was writing a novel in which AA figured in, so I went along to a couple of meetings. At one, this big, beefy man stood up. He said, "I am John, and actually, I am not an alcoholic, but I am here all the same. For many years, I ran a small liquor store, and it was part of my marketing strategy that when a customer came in, I offered him a tiny sip of this and that and of course, I had a sip of the same. And, you know, in all those years, I never got drunk once. But, one day, I was walking down the street when I suddenly collapsed. They took me to the hospital, where it was found that I had advanced cirrhosis of the liver."

A second fact about alcohol, as with most other substances, is that people will habituate to it. That means that the quantity that has a given effect will cease to do so, and you need to take more to achieve the same feeling.

Kelly, I don't know your doctors. They may be as unfeeling and unethical as you say. But if I were a doctor who prescribed a drug and the patient came in saying it has an unpleasant side effect, then I would do everything in my power to change the drug regime: try out a different medication, vary the dosage, or prescribe something else to make things better.

If your current doctors won't do this, then shop around and find one who does.

A second possibility is to go to a naturopath, who may be able to give you something to get rid of the unpleasant side effects without risking harm to you.

Bob