Dry

Temptation has at one time overwhelmed us all in our lives and as long as one does not allow it to consume him/her then they are in a healthy state of mind. However when temptation becomes a source for one's social and personal demise then it has metastasized into an addiction. Alcohol use in a community with dwelling older adults is common, and the line between "social" or moderate drinking and alcohol abuse and physical dependency is often not clear. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines excessive drinking as more than 14 drinks a week and/or more than 4 drinks at the same sitting. A definition of addiction is having a dependency to a particular substance and if that substance can cause a person's life to alter from a steady track to all of a sudden be turned upside down and a mess. Alcoholism, obsession, and personal failures are usually the sort of thing people like to keep under wraps. Augusten Burroughs goes the opposite direction in his confessional book Dry. Burroughs intensely describes the trials and tribulations that one goes through in order to break his dependency of alcohol. Stress can be one of many factors that lead a person to drink periodically. It can take the edge off and allow a person to gain perspective of what needs to be done, however when the drinking goes from periodically to everyday and alcohol has become a means of obsession with its ability to allow someone to escape their situation and be at ease with life and have no burdens, it has become a problem.

In reading Dry, one gets pulled into the life of an advertising agent who's got to deal with the annoying clients and demanding bosses. He starts by describing that he's a social drinker who sometimes gets carried away when he's out on the town after a long day at the office and drinks until he doesn't remember the night before. The routine goes on until it starts affecting his work and he can no longer be counted on to perform his expected tasks. This destructive pattern I can imagine is not uncommon among adults with demanding careers who have not found a way to relieve the stress that builds up from doing the same thing day in and day out. People hear everyday that it's okay to have a drink and that it'll lead to a wonderful time where nothing happens except people go to bars and clubs with fun music and their lives turn into glamorous ones. The idea is that alcohol frees one's self and elevates them to a higher social status than one couldn't get to without alcohol. Advertising is a business of getting a products image out into society and showing people why they should use that product; so it's no wonder why bars, clubs, and popular restaurants are packed every night with people looking to have a good time and let go. When it comes to alcohol though it can have devastating effects if it becomes uncontrollable. With the amount of money that goes into advertising and getting the word out to society that drinking is socially and morally acceptable it has and will continue to infect the growing population. The young are being shown at such an early age that alcohol and success run parallel when really it's quite the opposite.

The numerous recognized stresses and losses associated with age that might cause individuals to resume or initiate regular moderate or excessive alcohol intake, such as role losses; loss of friends, families, and pets through death or other reasons; loss of physical health and function; loss of income; loss of overall purpose; and depression and decreased satisfaction with life. These factors can individually or cumulatively result in use of alcohol. With so many causal factors playing a potential role in someone's addiction to a substance there's no specific treatment to cure addiction. While the removal of such temptations is obvious, how a person deals with it and what steps that person takes to rebuild their health is why one should go to rehab.

When an addiction develops the most important task is getting help. A person has to want to be helped in the first place or else the treatment will never work and the person will just relapse. In Burroughs' case, his employer propositioned him about getting help and him being able to keep his job. Unfortunately that is not always the case. Some employers have zero tolerance with their employees and will terminate their employee position if caught under the influence while on company time. In the case of Burroughs, he had a support team at his job that did care enough to confront him about his alcohol problem and work together to come up with a plan so that he could rid himself of his destructive habit and return to work sober. For a person to enter rehab with the realization that they do in fact have a serious problem and that the process for cleaning up their act is a long and arduous one can have devastating effects on one's mental health. In the novel it did not hit Burroughs until he arrived at the rehab facility that he was to stay there for a period of time and have his actions monitored by health officials. This feeling of being imprisoned was overwhelming and potentially has the ability to cause mental disturbances. With the aid of alcohol withdrawal, the sudden change in personal security and removal of all contact with loved ones it is no wonder that patients that undergo rehab also undergo major psychological counseling.

When dealing with the idea of possibly having to go to rehab for something a person believed was an activity that was acceptable by everyone in the first place and was made to believe that this activity would

...