How To Stop Alcohol Ruining Your Relationship!
Alcohol addiction is a serious disorder which causes the good health of your mind and body to go downhill. And, unknown to most people, this addiction creates a ripple effect in other areas of your life as well.
Your personal life becomes a mess, your professional life looks patchy and doubtful, you lose good friends, and you become an example of a disorganized and an unaccomplished person.
Let’s delve more into the details of the ill-effects of alcohol addiction, how it hampers your relationship with your partner, and what can be done to curb this issue.
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How is alcohol harmful to the mind and body?
We all know that alcohol is quite harmful to the consumer physically. It damages your vital organs like the liver, heart, lungs, and brain. Moreover, it messes up your circadian rhythm, increases fatigue and lethargy, reduces sex drive, and initiates muscle cramps and numbness.
Along with the physical disadvantages, there is a host of negative mental effects of alcohol too. It shrinks your brain size thereby toying with your concentration and memory retention capabilities. It alters your perception of reality and decreases your cognitive abilities too.
The shocking part, however, is that these mental and physical negative impacts of alcohol eventually take a toll on one’s personal relationships as well. Drinkers often face issues like their partners not willing to keep up, their parents and siblings find it better to let them go instead of sticking around, and friends and acquaintances drifting apart.
The financial and professional losses of alcohol are also quite intense. Let’s understand the gravity of the consequences of consuming alcohol which, eventually, sheds a bad light on your relationships in the long run.
How does consuming alcohol negatively impact your relationships?
Alcohol addiction is like a slow poison killing you slowly and gradually from within. The effects are not noticeable each day but when you look at the years and decades as a whole, alcohol does enough damage and makes you stand out in the crowd.
Here are a few ways in which alcohol addiction negatively influences your close relationships including spouse, kids, parents, and friends.
Constantly feeling lethargic:
Alcohol not only decreases your stamina but significantly brings down your immunity levels too. In fact, alcohol negatively impacts the smooth functioning of your vital organs thereby causing you to feel fatigued and lethargic on a general basis.
For alcohol using parents with young kids, this is a serious disorder. Little kids need plenty of physical attention which includes running around playing with them, running behind their bike, and attending their cultural functions. Low stamina may get in the way of creating a strong bond with your kid in their early years of life.
Reduced sex drive:
The ill-effects of alcohol combined over time lead to an array of health disorders that reflect in the form of a decreased sex life. Induced erectile dysfunction is quite common in alcoholics.
In order to address this condition, some men then opt for medications to increase their sexual appetite. Combine these medications with a serious history of alcohol addiction, and you have a perfect recipe for disaster.
A study conducted in 2015 on more than 30,000 Americans and published in the journal ‘Social Psychological and Personality Science’ states that married couples who have sex with their spouses at least once a week is in a happy relationship than those who don’t.
As per a survey carried out in 2008, Bedfordshire law firm declared that about 43% of married couples divorce on the grounds of lack of sexual intimacy. The number has only increased in the last decade and continues to rise even today.
Low stamina:
Alcohol gives rise to liver issues, cardiovascular disorders, lung infections, digestive tract problems and, in severe cases, a leaky gut. These issues, when brought together, cause the overall stamina of the body to drop considerably.
A long-term alcohol addict has more wrinkles on the face, cannot walk or run, unlike their peers, and has a higher susceptibility to diseases and opportunistic infections.
Low stamina also means you won’t be working out and exercising as much. Also, it prevents you from having a satisfying sex life. It hampers your relationship with your young kids when they ask you to run around and play with them.
Poor management of emotions:
It is pretty common to see an alcohol addict having outbursts of emotions which are wrongly targeted towards an irrelevant individual, mostly their families. Anger, jealousy, hatred, insecurity, and infidelity are all negative emotions and actions that stem from severe alcohol addiction as a root cause.
This may or may not culminate into domestic violence but surely causes people and families to drift apart. Being an alcohol addict gives out unpleasant vibes around an individual which may even cause them to lose good friends in the bargain.
Induces Financial crunches:
This is no secret that alcohol definitely burns a huge hole in your pocket.it robs you of your savings while some people drink their time away maxing out their credit cards. Piling up debt is never a good idea, especially if you use that money to buy a slow poison like alcohol.
Alcohol addicts are often jobless since the consequences of their addiction are a strict no-no in the workplace. Combine a jobless situation with a free-flow of outgoing expenses on expensive alcohol, and you have a mismanaged and financially-broke individual.
In many cases, the spouse or the parents try to cover up for the expenses of the addict’s alcohol. However, in due course of time, these relationships drift apart which results in broken homes.
Reduced mental capacity:
With regular consumption of alcohol, your brain tends to lose focus and doesn’t work at its optimum best. Habits like meditation, relaxation, and art therapies work wonder in improving your mental capacity, and alcohol robs you of these mental exercises.
Instead, what you develop is brain fog, slow learning capacity, lack of concentration, anger issues, negative emotions, and low self-esteem.
This, eventually, takes a huge toll on your personal and professional lives thereby paralyzing your growth and development in the long run.
Health issues set in:
Cardiovascular disorders. Kidney issues, fatty liver, insomnia, lethargy, fatigue, lung infections, and the possibility of cancer are all quite common conditions with an alcoholic.
In addition to that, alcohol dependence also results in mental imbalances such as inability to concentrate and memorize, hallucinations, slurred speech, behavioral changes, and blackouts.
For people who are still on the verge of starting a new life or have just settled down or have a promising career ahead, this can be a serious issue to deal with. You have an entire life before you with meaningful relationships. Throwing away this good fortune in exchange for a few moments of short-lived pleasures is definitely not a good deal.
Domestic violence:
This is, perhaps, one of the most overlooked consequences of alcohol addiction. Regardless of whether it is a man or a woman, alcohol addiction may even lead to domestic violence targeted towards your spouse, kids, and parents.
Domestic violence, no matter how occasional or mild it may be, is one of the biggest and most impactful reasons leading to broken homes.
Even then, your spouse may not break up with you or your parents may not abandon you, but your relations with these people will be seriously and irreversibly damaged in the years to come.
Marital problems:
Given the above conditions mentioned, problems are bound to set in your marital life. Moreover, regular consumption of alcohol toys with your emotions inducing feelings of jealousy, insecurity, and hatred towards your spouse.
It may eventually culminate into infidelity in the long run. And, as we all know, most married couples prefer staying in a monogamous relationship.
Infidelity is one of the biggest grounds on which couples break up, the root cause of which may be alcohol addiction.
What can you do to control it?
Keep aside an alcohol-free day every week:
This practice works best if you assign one day of the weekend to this cause. Promise yourself to go without drinking either Friday night or Saturday night. You’ll eventually see its good results building up with time.
You can even get your friends and family onboard this idea to help you implement it better and also to take them a step away from becoming an alcohol addict.
Opt for alcohol-free celebrations:
Look for other ways to excite you in a party than consuming alcohol. You can set up games or exciting events and celebrations to make up for the alcohol on a few occasions.
Once you get the hang of alcohol-free celebrations, you realize that it is even more rewarding and fulfilling than simply drinking. Also, there are no annoying headaches and hangovers later.
Go sober every once a couple of months:
This may be difficult at first. Therefore start with going sober for two days in a row followed by one week every month. This way, you can go an entire month being alcohol-free. Practice doing this once every 2-3 months for best results.
Being sober gives you immense time and opportunities to think, plan, and act clearly. It is nothing but a breath of fresh air for an alcoholic who is trying to get out of it.
Join alcohol-addiction communities:
You don’t necessarily need to skip a workday and join a community physically or enroll in Alcoholics Anonymous groups. However, you can watch videos on the internet and attend webinars wherein they give you some amazing tips and suggestions as to how you can overcome your alcohol addiction issue.
In fact, Stop Drinking Expert is one such online community in this regard which hosts a webinar every week so that anyone from anywhere in the world can attend it and benefit from it.
What makes Stop Drinking Expert the best solution in this regard?
We have one of the best trained and expert speakers on topics like alcohol addiction. Craig Beck, the coach, will not only give you the exact reason why alcohol addiction occurs in most people but will also help you walk your way out of it.
And what’s more? This webinar is free for all! All you need to do is book a spot for yourself and you can attend free of cost. What more can a person want?
Webinars are currently in trend and make up an integral part of the future. Attending a free webinar and listening to an experienced professional speaker is ten times more effective and feasible than being part of communities and workshops.
Summing it up:
Alcohol is an addiction. And any sort of addiction cannot be gotten rid of in a day. It takes a long while, constant regulation and perseverance, and a series of tremendous efforts to be able to leave the addiction behind and a lead clean life ahead.
Having said that, this process is not quite impossible. In fact, it becomes easier when you put yourself in the company of other people facing the same issue as you and working towards a common goal.
When you understand the gravity of the situation and the concrete steps that others are taking to achieve it, you are motivated to work on yourself too.
The expert professionals at Stop Drinking Expert are one of the best you can ever encounter to give you a solution to an addiction like this. These professionals hold renowned expertise with immense work experience to top it all.
They understand human psychology and work accordingly to help you quit alcohol now and forever. Through the webinar, you not only meet others like yourself but also trained therapists whose primary job is to make your life better through helping you quit drinking.
So, what are you waiting for? Start with making a promise to yourself that alcohol will be off the charts for you henceforth. And head over to our free webinar to allow us to help you attain this goal for life!
References:
https://www.healthline.com/health/alcohol/effects-on-body#1
https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/family-marital-problems
https://www.orlandorecovery.com/blog/alcoholism-and-relationships/#gref
https://www.ibtimes.com/lack-sex-leading-couples-divorce-2574131
