YOU WERE BORN TO BE SOBER.

Alcohol addiction is one of the most acute problems of our time, adversely affecting the spiritual, moral, mental and physical condition of a person, is the basis of social degradation of society. Under the influence of alcohol, numerous crimes are committed annually — murders, rapes, hooliganism, robberies, the number of road accidents caused by drunk drivers is growing. A large number of fatally injured people die in road accidents. According to official statistics alone, Russia loses up to 600 thousand citizens a year due to alcohol mortality, but the real figures are probably much higher. Families break up from alcohol abuse, children suffer. The number of social orphans is growing.The task of modern society is to protect people from this danger, to convince healthy people of the harmfulness of alcohol consumption, to stop novice alcoholics who have just embarked on a slippery path and to help patients who still have a chance of recovery.

Drunkards and alcoholics are natural victims of our mentality and customs imposed from outside. In Soviet years, the "zombification" of people's consciousness for alcohol consumption was actively going on. The danger of alcohol consumption was downplayed, at the same time the opinion was spread about the "benefits" of alcohol in small doses, the so-called "cultural" use. As a result, the consumption of alcoholic beverages has spread widely in the country and drinking has become considered a normal, legal and even respectable business. In print, you can still find information about the presence of vitamins and other substances useful for the body in wine. However, analyzing these publications, you clearly notice the scientific incompetence of the judgments of their authors, there is a noticeable professional and commercial interest in the spread of alcohol consumption, as well as an emotional approach to assessing the use of wine and alcohol in general, based on the personal alcohol dependence of the authors. There is no point in retelling all the information that appears in society about the "benefits" of alcohol, you will always encounter someone's private opinion in it. But opinion and facts are completely different categories. And it is important to be able to distinguish one from the other. So what are the facts?

Back in 1972 The World Health Organization has recognized alcohol as a drug. And a drug is, as you know, a substance that causes addiction. If you look at the alcoholic path of a person, you can see how the disease is forming:

• moderate alcohol consumption;
• habitual use of alcohol, a bad habit, what is called domestic drunkenness;
• the first, second, and third stages of chronic alcoholism, alcoholic illness, and alcohol dependence.

The rate of production of alcoholic needs, and hence dependence on alcohol, is individual and determined by the specific characteristics of each organism. It is influenced by gender, age, general health, past illnesses and injuries, especially the brain, and much more. For example, if you have suffered a concussion, you will get drunk 5-10 times faster than others; if your mother consumed alcohol during pregnancy, alcoholism will occur even sooner. However, there are no people insured against this disaster, and every drinker shortens his life by 10-20 years.

Thus, accidental voluntary alcohol consumption, so-called "cultural" alcohol consumption, drunkenness and alcoholism are different degrees of alcohol dependence. People get drunk gradually, unnoticed by themselves and, often, others. No one is immune from the formation of alcohol dependence! None of the alcoholics dreamed of becoming one. The traditional statement for alcoholics is: "I'll stop drinking when I want to," but they don't stop drinking, despite the abundance of alcoholic troubles.

- "Rise up, Russian man! Stop being crazy! That's enough! It is enough to drink a bitter cup full of poison - both for you and for Russia," the Holy Righteous called  John of Kronstadt.

The treatment of a patient with alcoholism is not like the treatment, for example, of a patient with pneumonia and consists in a person learning to live without drinking alcohol.To acquire sobriety, it is necessary to get rid of pro-alcoholic programming.And the main thing to remember: YOU WERE BORN TO BE SOBER.

Medical psychologist GUZ LOND Elena Nikulicheva.