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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Bell Tolls for Thee" data-source="post: 132441108" data-attributes="member: 1812660">Alcohol, like any addiction, is primarily mental.  The human body is resilient.  On a cellular and physiological level, withdrawal and resolution of dependence happens over a span of days to 1-2 weeks depending on the substance.  As anyone who has been addicted to anything can tell you, it actually never goes away and that is because of the mental and psychological addiction.  That is why someone who is say cigarette free for 2-3 years can be pulled right back into smoking. It is why no one can ever be cured of an addiction, but rather be in treatment or remission.  It is also why anyone who thinks a week, month, or 60 days of rehab alone is all they have to do is embarking on a fool's errand.For alcohol specifically most alcoholics start by being "functional" alcoholics.  They need alcohol and do not feel themselves going a prolonged period without alcohol, but they still have a job and appear relatively normal.  They tend to drink more and more often while incrementally taking steps to compensate.  It's usually when that compensation breaks down or a respected friend/family member calls the spade a spade that the alcoholic might accept this truth.Unfortunately most do not.  Most will start to lose small things.  Here again some may see the truth of the problem, but many will rationalize the cause as being anything other than themselves with their relationship to alcohol.Eventually a big loss occurs like losing a job, an arrest, severance of relationships, etc... occurs.  Here is where the alcoholic is most likely to try and get help.  But again many will think, like a dieting person, that it is just temporary work that after a certain period of time will reset themselves rather than the start of training to win a daily struggle.Alcohol is a potent addiction as those that get to this point in the road may still go further.  There are homeless alcoholics.  Alcoholics with rotting limbs.  Alcoholics who have been saved more than once from hepatic encephalopathy, delirium tremens, or massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage who still refuse to even try to stop drinking.The one thing that is unfortunately true is, no alcoholic can be forced to get help.  As of now, forced rehab has proven to be a failure and waste of everyone's time.  This is even true of those that go voluntarily but are only doing so to avoid a negative consequence such as jail time or loss of a job.  No one else can want it for them enough to make damn bit of difference.</blockquote>

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