While LNAF provides clear explanations and personalizes the experience of quitting alcohol, it may be repetitive for those already familiar with the topic. “The Path for Dummies”?
We agreed that while we may not find it a compelling read, it would be beneficial for someone in the early stages of sobriety. We discusssed insights from a podcast with Mel Robbins, which explained the chemical effects of alcohol on dopamine and cravings, and mentioned that the book contains new material from chapter 18. The group also discussed Dopamine Nation’s connection to Annie Grace’s work and its potential to address broader issues like digital media addiction.
These chapters do highlight how addiction can eventually remove the ability to choose, and we confirm the concept of drinking experiments reactivating neural pathways which might convince us that a drink is the solution/ a good idea. Last week people shared experiences of quickly returning to old habits after testing boundaries. We acknowledge the harsh end of addiction where at some point people lose choice of whether they drink alcohol.
Non alcoholic recommendations – Plaid Circus botanical tea, Trader Joe’s bubbly rose, and bitters. We shared experiences of commercial evidence the growing trend of alcohol avoidance, e.g. NHS have published data showing 24% of UK adults haven’t had alcohol in the last 12 months! A local pub in London has 3 alcohol free draught beers!
Although chapter 11 details the facts of Biological, pyschological, cost to personal well being, society and financial burden, through the eyes of an alien.
The book lacks full information about the impact on children and families despite this being a significant research area. Children of parents with SUD are 4 times more likely to be physically or emotionally neglected.
The stigma on people and families going through substance use disorder from society is a bit glossed over.
While the book provided valuable insights about personal responsibility and stigma, it could benefit from including more discussion about the impact of alcohol on families dealing with substance use. We know that some children will become very good at being “unseen” and not drawing attention to themselves or home life.
Perhaps the intention is to make it more okay and more palatable to people to say, actually, I need to stop drinking, without shame and stigma. Whereas a full listing of painful topics of responsibility for harm to self and others may escalate resistance?
We observed in ourselves the difficulty of considering there may be harm to the children, our own family dynamics. It is a very harsh and difficult reality.
However it is possible there are people who drank who had no effect on family, and some… lots of people probably in the middle, who never came to the attention of any health services or authorities concerned about our children. We agreed that some denial regarding potential harm to ourselves and others is what we need to do for now.
We wondered how the approach was decided to tred the balance between stigma / shame and not emphasising the self responsibility – that people with alcohol use disorder do need to own it. “It is not your fault, but it is your responsibility”…
We all agreed that societal normalisation of alcohol is another reason why we should all be reducing the acceptance of it, questioning and accepting the harm is real.
Certain parts of prose do emphasise the success within Annie’s life – jobs, kids, friends and marriage being enviable to others. Is this conscious? Is this a definite appeal to those who are over compensating/ over productive to keep ok in spite of their alcohol issue? Overcompensating? The question came up of what would you be? What would you have achieved without the ongoing damage that you do to yourself?
The conversation concluded with personal reflections about how severe alcohol use disorder has affected family dynamics, with several members sharing their own experiences of growing up in families with substance use issues.
How do people get to the point of realisation that drinking is just never going to work for them?
Regarding understanding how to live in an easier way pyschologically we felt the exercises around expectations might be useful to follow.
“Unrealistic, unspoken, unagreed upon, expectations of others or yourself.”