How Do I Know If I’m Drinking Too Much? скачать в хорошем качестве

How Do I Know If I’m Drinking Too Much?

According to Statistics Canada, 1 in 5 Canadians ages 15 and up have met the criteria for alcohol use or dependence over their lifetime. And nearly 6 million Canadians ages 12 and over reported heavy drinking at least once a month. So clearly, alcohol consumption is an issue for Canadians. In today’s video, we will look at what constitutes having an issue with alcohol and what you can do about it. RESOURCES & LINKS: ____________________________________________ Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction https://www.ccsa.ca/ ____________________________________________ So, let’s get started with the signs and symptoms. The first sign of having an issue with alcohol would be experiencing difficulty with limiting what you are drinking. For the second sign, there is a desire to cut down on drinking, but there have been repeated failures to do so. Third, you are spending a lot of time involved with alcohol during your day. The fourth sign is feeling an intense craving or urge to drink alcohol. Fifth, there is a failure to fulfill major obligations at work, school or home due to repeated alcohol use. The sixth sign involves continuing to drink alcohol even though you know it’s causing physical, social, work or relationship problems. Seventh, there’s a reduction in social and work activities to use alcohol more frequently. For the eighth sign, there’s an increase in tolerance to alcohol, so you need more to feel the effect. And for the ninth and final sign, withdrawal symptoms occur when you’re not drinking, such as nausea, sweating and shaking. So, as you listen to these signs of an alcohol use disorder, the goal isn’t to diagnose yourself but to ask yourself if you are experiencing mild, moderate or severe difficulties with alcohol. If so, what can you do? First, when it comes to treatment for difficulties with alcohol use, I think it’s important to address the severity of the issue because this will likely determine the course of treatment. Ideally, the best way to do this would be to be assessed by a healthcare practitioner, as drinking can be an emotional issue where people tend to minimize and rationalize use. But regardless of the assessment method, let’s assume you determine that alcohol is a mild to moderate issue in your life. The first place to start is generally to attempt to contain drinking by creating rules that need to be followed to continue drinking and not have it interfere with your life. If you cannot consistently follow the rules you have established for a controlled drinking plan, the only option left is to abstain from drinking. For mild to moderate issues with drinking, joining Alcoholics Anonymous can also be beneficial, as it continues to be the most successful treatment program for alcohol use. Other successful forms of treatment include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which can help to adjust thinking patterns and actions related to consuming alcohol, including coping with triggers that lead to increased drinking. Family therapy can also be a benefit to help the family cope with the impact of problem drinking. For severe challenges with drinking, entering into a residential treatment program is likely the best course of action. So, I hope this video was helpful in determining if alcohol use has become an issue in your daily life. If you want to learn more about the assessment or treatment of problem drinking, please contact us at Sullivan + Associates Clinical Psychology. Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/SullivanAssoc... Find us on Facebook:   / sullivanpsychology   And on Instagram:   / sullivan.clinical.psychology