Alcoholism / addiction in Arizona

For years now AIDS has been the darling of the media industry with story after story concerning the ongoing epidemic or showing organizations adding to the aids quilt which is shown every year in Washington D.C. with its added blocks each designating a new death that year.... The latest figures from Atlanta's disease and control center, which are from 2004, reported 15,798 deaths due to AIDS in the USA for that year. Figures for Arizona vary for the same year with from 100 to 200 deaths attributed to AIDS.

In 2005 according to the National Traffic Safety Administration, automobile deaths in the USA was put at 42,636 with 16%, or 16,694 (slightly higher than AIDS deaths) of those attributable to drunken drivers. It doesn't however include the collateral damage done from those same deaths to survivors of those same accidents whose lives have been forever impaired due to brain damage, lost limbs, internal damage, etc.

Yet those stats are but the tip of an iceberg when it comes to the usage of alcohol; a socially acceptable means of destabilizing a human being's mental or physical acuity.

Figures can be used in many particular ways sometimes only to prove one's point of view but some figures speak for themselves. The American Council on Alcoholism estimates that some 16%, which is about one out of every 10 Americans is addicted to alcohol. Now remember that's only alcohol. If we add in those addicted to street drugs such as methamphetamines, coke, crack, heroin or marijuana, the figure rises to somewhere in the vicinity of 25%! That means that one out of every four people you meet on a daily basis has some form of addiction to substances that affect their lives.

But we have to go farther than that. Not only is substance abuse affecting the lives of those who use alcohol or drugs but it affects the lives of those in the alcohol / addicts families, his friends, co-workers and even every day people he or she might meet on the street.

Alcoholism has been called a family disease for years now probably due more to a book called Alcoholics Anonymous first published in 1939 for the fledgling 12 step group that goes by the same name. Alcoholics Anonymous got its start in 1935 by two men, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith both alcoholics bedeviled by years of trying to stop drinking on their own. They began to understand with the help of a doctor who was in the practice of treating alcoholics, that it took a drunk to speak to another drunk about their problem. They also realized for the first time in human history that taking that first drink, a psychological problem leads to the second problem were the human body, not able to metabolize alcohol as in most people, ups the craving for more alcohol which just starts the circle again over and over.

From humble beginnings through a troubled first ten years, AA has now grown world-wide with membership counting around 2.5 million with meetings held in over 150 countries. But, more importantly how has alcohol or drug addiction affected you or your family? Sure HIV/AIDS is out but we know most of the ways it is transmitted and the impact it has had on the American public pales in comparison to alcoholism and drug addiction. And don't get me wrong. For every death by AIDS I too can relate having had friends die by that disease and I am aggrieved as is anyone who has lost a close family member and can certainly relate. Nevertheless, alcohol addiction has been the bane of mankind for thousands of years.

Today car wreaks, fighting, countless arguments within families with the addicted person swearing to never again get drunk or use, has ruined the lives of innumerable individuals with children, of course, getting the short end of the stick.

But now help can be found. Not just for the individual user but on a larger scale for the family he or she affects with the daily, weekly or non-stop usage that brings about loss of jobs, utilities, homes and cars not to mention self-esteem. The stiuma of a user in the house usually brings about countless excuses by the husband or wife as to why so and so can't go to work today or why the bill will be paid-sometime in the future.

Families stop functioning as such and are held captive unless something is done before death, insanity or constant detaining of the user in hospitals, mental institutions or rehab facilities drains the very will to live.

Alcoholics Anonymous is not perhaps the only answer to the downward spiral but at least for the user it could be a beginning. As for the families, Alanon has shown to be able to give the wife or husband of the user a beginning to set their own lives back in order as well as get back that self-esteem lost over the years of living with an active alcoholic I addict because, said to say, it does infect the entire family.

Remember that alcoholism or drug addiction is a lonely disease that affects not just the user but everyone around him or her. Maybe it's time for a change.

Casa Grande Valley Newspapers