Susan Berlin

Are you struggling with Alcohol or Drugs or other substances?

I imagine that you are here because either you or someone you care about has an issue with alcohol or drugs (marijuana, cocaine, prescription medication abuse) and you think that counseling or psychotherapy might be helpful to help with the addiction.

Below you will find a list of ways that yours or someone else’s substance use or alcohol use might be affecting you or them.

Alcohol

Alcohol use in and of itself may not be a problem for some people, but there are others whose random use of alcohol can cause problems in their life. 

Alcohol use can:

• Create a loss of inhibition (often referred to as “liquid courage”)
• Medicate emotional pain and stress and
• Lead to abuse and then dependence. 

Alcohol dependence—called alcoholism—is a chronic, progressive and often fatal disease. This dependent relationship with alcohol is problematic and often continual.   It can mean daily drinking and other more extreme uses, but doesn’t always. Folks often say to me…”I don’t drink every day”, or “I don’t crave alcohol”, or “sometimes I can drink normally and other times I can’t control how much I drink.” 

It is a misconception to think that if you don’t drink every day you don’t have a problem with alcohol (or drugs). One can abuse alcohol or another substance at any given time. You could have experienced a terrible loss or a serious event in your life or just encountered a period of high stress where you find your alcohol or drug use amplified or excessive.

Through drug and alcohol counseling, many times by paying attention to your usage—and addressing the issue that caused the increased usage—you can go back to “normal” or recreational, non-problematic drinking.   Alcohol abuse does not have to lead to alcohol dependence but if unattended it might develop into a real and continual problem for you. Often times, people cannot overcome a substance abuse addiction without the help of an experienced counselor or therapist.

If you find yourself identifying with even one or two of the issues on this list, you may have some bigger issues with alcohol.

Signs of Abuse or Dependence

Some signs that alcohol or drugs may be a problem for you are:

• Repeated efforts to control, modify, reduce your drinking or drug use
• Preoccupation with thoughts about drinking or using drugs, like wondering or planning when you might drink or use next, how much will you use, etc.
• Negotiating the amounts that you will drink, smoke, or swallow
• Rationalizing your drinking or drug use (e.g. “I was really tired that’s why I drank so much” or “It was such a stressful day at work, that’s why I got stoned”, “if you (wife, parent, child) didn’t make me mad then I wouldn’t have gotten drunk.”)
• When you act outside of your morals and/or values while under the influence
• Hiding your usage
• Lying about your usage, either to yourself or others
• Continuing to do the same behaviors that yield the same negative consequences
• Getting annoyed with people who are talking to you about their concerns about your drinking or drug use
• Needing more of a substance to yield the same effect (developing tolerance)
• Or needing less of the substance to get the same effect (reverse tolerance)
• Blacking out (periods of time that one does not remember anything while under the influence or intoxicated. This can happen with as little as one drink depending on your tolerance or chemical makeup)
• DUI’s (driving under the influence)—less than 2 drinks can impair your ability to drive!
• Quitting for a period of time just to “prove” it’s not a problem
• Drinking or doing drugs while alone
• Increasing difficulty abstaining from drinking, or smoking pot or taking pills or doing cocaine
• More frequent and severe withdrawal symptoms (like tremors of the hands and sweating and fever). A hangover is a type of withdrawal.
• Anxiety and guilt feelings following your use of chemicals
• Drinking more than your friends do

You may find that you can check off many of these. You may find that there are only one or two that are an issue. In either case, or anything in between, it may be helpful to talk with a counselor or therapist who specializes in working with drug or alcohol issues, including abuse, dependence, or addiction.  

You Can Get Better

Here is what I want you to know…you can get better! You can heal your problematic relationship with alcohol or drugs. 

In psychotherapy counseling, you can heal the issues surrounding your addiction by:

• Exploring the issues that surround your drinking, drug or substance use
• Looking at what might be the underlying issues that you are medicating and
• Working on the source of the issue. 

As your addictions counselor, I can help you sort through all of these signs and symptoms of possible problem usage. Through therapy, I can help you figure out what may be motivating your drug or alcohol usage and help you find ways for you to help yourself stop this very self destructive behavior. In counseling, you will learn from me how to stop drinking or doing drugs through behavioral changes and thoughtful suggestions along the way.

Take the first step and contact me or call my Washington, DC office (202-333-1787) to seek help with substance abuse.