Attending AA may help simply because of the support you get. But AA is
not for every one. I certainly would look for a group where you feel
comfortable.

Because of my career as a drug counsellor I look upon addiction in a
slightly different way.I see drug addiction as a physical disease and
not so much as a "mental" illness. When you have a metabolic disorder
then of course this may affect your mind, but "mental aberration" is
not the cause of addiction. Rather the underlying biochemical disorder
causes you to be addicted to alcohol. It is like the underlying faulty
personal biochemistry that is more powerful than your will.

The question is why should this be the case? Alcohol is made from a
chemical substance called pyruvate, one of the end product of sugar
metabolism. Addiction to alcohol really means that the body has
problems metabolizing sugars in the diet into pyruvate, and then on to
biological energy. So that people become dependent on an abnormal
biochemical pathway as follows;

pyruvate ---> alcohol ---> acetaldehyde ---> acetate ---> ATP
(biological energy)

as their source of energy.

Normally the chemical pathway is

pyruvate ---> acetyl-CoA ---> ATP (energy)

Acetaldehyde is the major problem with alcoholics and cause most of
the health problems.

The energy is important because without energy the body cannot produce
the feel good neurotransmitters such as serotonin.

When an alcoholic consumes alcohol he gets ample supply of energy from
alcohol to produce the feel good neurotransmitters. So alcohol can
make him feel good.

The problem seems to be in the first part of sugar metabolism called
GLYCOLYSIS that ends in pyruvate.

The reason appears to be that alcoholics and for that matter any
addict (or person with depression) has a problem converting sugar into
pyruvate at the very first step of sugar metabolism.

People with insulin resistance have an obstruction in the transfer of
sugar (glucose) into cells for energy production. This may lead to
unstable blood sugar levels, usually going up and down and triggering
the release of stress hormones such ads adrenaline. Adrenaline
specifically functions to raise blood sugar levels especially when the
brain senses energy starvation. The brain cannot do without energy for
only a few minutes.

So the idea of an alcoholic drinking because of his stressful life, is
really the other way around. He produces a lot of adrenaline due to an
internal abnormality, that causes him to feel stressed.

Alcohol being a depressant drug is an antidote to adrenaline (stress)
it goes without saying that if you abstain from alcohol you are going
to be very stressed.

Withdrawal symptoms (excess adrenaline) can be reduced by taking
GLYCERINE. This is a substance that is converted to glucose slowly via
the liver and does not trigger excess insulin from the pancreas.
Excess insulin as occurs in insulin resistance (hypoglycemia) drops
the sugar levels suddenly activating adrenaline secretion. So the post
withdraw;la period of an alcoholic is one of anxiety, sleeplessness,
mood swings and depression/

The scenario is confirmed by the fact that if you test alcoholics with
a special test for hypoglycemia, you will find most of them are
hypoglycemic. Therefore the first step in the treatment of alcoholism
is to get the person on a hypoglycemic diet, together with nutritional
supplements, especially zinc.

Most of the information is given at our web site.

Please read:

"Alcoholism (Addiction) is a Treatable Disease" at:
http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/artic...treatable.html


I hope this makes things clear.