Alcohol Help

"Is my drinking risky?" At AlcoholScreening.org, over one million people have now learned the answer to this question by taking a confidential, free online screening to assess their drinking patterns. Visitors to the free health-screening website receive personalized feedback, finding out if their alcohol consumption is likely to be within safe limits — or if it may be harmful to their health now, or in the future. They also find out whether they drink more or less than other people of their age and gender.

AlcoholScreening.org was developed by Join Together, a project of the Boston University School of Public Health. Based on the AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), a standard in screening instruments, this simple, anonymous test takes only a few minutes and provides confidential results. AlcoholScreening.org was launched in April 2001, and the website delivered its millionth health screening on April 7, 2009. The milestone coincides with National Alcohol Awareness Month.

"Thanks for the statistics, I just thought it was ‘normal.’ I will try to cut down, I knew I was at risk because of my family tradition, yet I thought I was still on the safe side. I have clear data to re-evaluate my habits," wrote one user. AlcoholScreening also features answers to frequently asked questions about alcohol and health consequences, and provides links to support resources and a national database of 11,000 local treatment programs.

"Consumers across the country use the Internet to get health information. It makes sense that they should use it to learn whether they may have personal health risks related to their alcohol use," said David Rosenbloom, Join Together Director. "Research shows that questions about alcohol consumption patterns, coupled with brief feedback about risk levels or referral to assessment or treatment, when appropriate, can lead individuals to reduce risky drinking over sustained periods. Reducing risky drinking patterns can prevent injuries from car crashes and other mishaps, long term illnesses, and problems with family, community members or with law enforcement."

Join Together launched AlcoholScreening in April 2001. Join Together works to advance effective alcohol and drug policy, prevention and treatment. Major funding is provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

April is Alcohol Awareness Month. Sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) since 1987, it encourages local communities to focus on alcoholism and alcohol-related issues. Alcohol Awareness Month began as a way of reaching the American public with information about the disease of alcoholism – that it is a treatable disease, not a moral weakness, and that alcoholics can and do recover.

Boston University School of Public Health

Alcohol Treatment

To put it as simply as possible, right from the beginning: The decision to seek alcohol treatment is the most important one you’ll ever make. If you or someone you care about has slipped into a pattern of chronic alcohol abuse, you already know what’s at stake: You know that alcoholism is a monster of a disease, and that alcoholics are stripped of all the hope and joy and emotional vitality that make life worth living in the first place. Now, you’ve got to do something about….and alcohol rehab is the last best chance you’ve got. If you’re going to get better, it’s got to be in an alcoholism treatment center.

The worst decision you can make about alcohol treatment is not to seek it at all. If you take anything away here, let it be this: If you’re an alcoholic, you can’t get better outside of an alcohol treatment center. No alcohol addict quits drinking by himself. Again, if you’re going to get better, it’s going to be by virtue of a professional alcohol treatment program. Please, for your sake, don’t make the mistake of trying to play the hero.

But it’s not enough to simply run "alcohol treatment" through an Internet search and enroll in the alcohol treatment center that turns up on the top of the list. On the contrary, not all alcohol treatment facilities were created equal, and the alcohol treatment program that’s right for you is the one which caters to your specific alcohol treatment needs, and serves your individual alcohol treatment interests. Alcohol treatment, if it’s going to work, has got to be a profoundly intimate process.

It’s in that spirit that the following text addresses the essential elements of the alcohol treatment process: why alcoholism treatment is so important, and how alcohol treatment works. In choosing an alcohol treatment center, you’ve got to be informed about alcohol treatment itself; you’ve got to know what makes an alcohol treatment program succeed or fail, so you can choose one that you know will work for you. In the alcohol treatment fight, there’s no excuse for ignorance. Make today the day you start learning what you need to know.

Alcoholics and Alcohol Abuse

Successful alcohol treatment invariably begins with an understanding of alcohol abuse itself. Those alcoholics who get better in alcoholism treatment programs are the ones who understand the scope of their alcohol problem: what they’re up against, and what it will take to win the fight. The truth about alcoholism in the United States and around the world is hardly a pleasant one…but it’s one that you’ve got to learn, and got to face, if you’re ever going to make alcoholic recovery work for you.

In 2004, a study conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services found that upwards of eight million Americans were in need of alcohol treatment. Phrased less euphemistically, the study found that upwards of eight million Americans were alcoholics…which should if nothing else speak to the broad-based importance of alcohol treatment programs and private alcoholism treatment centers in the modern United States. If you need help, you aren’t alone.

Alcohol treatment, of course, isn’t important because of what it can do to change the statistical tone of government studies; alcohol treatment is important because alcohol treatment patients are important, and because alcohol treatment programs help alcoholics get back to living life as they used to know it. Alcohol abuse ruins careers, ends relationships, tears families apart. Alcohol treatment can undo that damage…but only if you’re willing to make alcohol treatment work for you.

Remember, alcohol treatment can’t start until you seek out. If you’re an alcoholic, you can’t get better outside of an alcohol treatment center…and you can’t get into an alcohol treatment center without walking through the front door. Please, for your own sake, make this day the day you decide to embark on your alcohol treatment journey. There’s no time like the present to start fixing the future.

Sunset Malibu