Perhaps you belong to that group of people whose list of good resolutions includes drinking less alcohol. Entrepreneurs and executives are part of a professional group that, on average, probably drinks more alcohol than the average citizen.
At least that’s my observation. To the best of my knowledge, however, there are no reliable figures on how alcohol consumption among managers actually is.
A glass, sometimes even a bottle of wine in the evening to wind down is on the agenda for many top performers, and often not just once or twice a week. In addition, there are professional, social and social events, which usually do not run “dry”.
Statistically, every fifth person in our country drinks too much from a medical point of view. One in twenty is addicted to alcohol. Alcohol is a neurotoxin, carcinogenic and damages many organs.
The line between pure enjoyment and an alcohol problem is narrow, the transition is fluid and also depends on the state of health and the psyche of the individual.
How do you reduce alcohol consumption?
Good intentions alone are usually not enough to get the problem under control if you clearly consume too much alcohol. The key question is: how does a person who is aware that alcohol is harming them break the habit?
There are also positive findings on this question. In most cases, the bar for successful weaning is set very high. The conventional therapy was: total abstinence.
Complete abstinence was and is for many therapists the only promising method. Every drop of alcohol is forbidden during the weaning phase and also later. The alcoholics should get well with God’s help, a kind of Christianly prescribed fundamental abstinence. Anyone who fails to do this is viewed as a backslider, as a “sinner” so to speak.
A major problem with this approach: Only about five to eight percent of those who are proven to be alcoholics seek professional help. And only a few of them stick through the usually prescribed abstinence therapy.
Many do not want or cannot do without beer, wine, schnapps or whiskey for the rest of their lives. The consequence is that alcoholics only very rarely succeed in repenting. The figures are correspondingly sobering: 70 percent of all diagnosed alcohol dependents suffer a relapse in the first year after therapy, and even 90 percent drink again after the second year.
This calls the conventional therapy concept into question.
Controlled drinking as an alternative
In this respect, an alternative idea is attractive. Experts propagate the so-called controlled drinking (kT) in weaning. For me this is progress. Many psychiatrists and psychosomatic doctors today go this way. The goal is lower threshold. It’s just about reducing alcohol consumption.
The therapists demand drinking diaries, expect alcohol-free days and drinking clearly defined amounts. Alcohol should never be used to relieve stress. The ultimate goal is therefore to control alcohol consumption and use this social drug responsibly.
Those at risk of alcohol should learn to use alcohol consciously and carefully. In small steps, they learn to plan their alcohol consumption for short periods of time.
It is crucial that the quantities are realistic. The goal is disciplined, planned and limited alcohol consumption. Self-determination replaces the ban, which is difficult to enforce. Of course, kT can also be an intermediate step to completely avoiding alcohol.
The concept of controlled drinking is not new, it was developed in the US and Australia in the 1960s. One of the farsighted pioneers in Europe was Dr. Gottfried Sondheimer, chief physician at the Forel Clinic in Ellikon, the largest specialist clinic for the treatment of alcohol consumption and drug addiction in Switzerland.
He developed the so-called ABC system. He treats hard alcoholics with existing brain and liver damage conventionally with total abstinence and assigns them to group A. In group B, dependent alcoholics were treated for one year under “limited abstinence”.
Group C is managed by the therapist on an outpatient basis and allows controlled drinking right from the start of therapy. Certainly the vast majority of those managers who drink too much alcohol belong to group C.
Controversial theses
Initially, addiction researchers opposed the concept of controlled drinking. Self-help groups passed resolutions, and authorities even prohibited therapists from distributing their theses.
Although the topic continues to be hotly debated among addiction experts, both approaches coexist in practice today. Also because studies on kT show that about two thirds of the study participants manage to drastically reduce their alcohol consumption.
Fifty percent of the study participants even decide to never drink alcohol again. Even with long-term observations kT can lead to success. Studies from Sweden and the USA have shown this.
The therapy of controlled drinking is not as established in Germany as in other countries, and the costs are not yet covered by all health insurance companies. This form of therapy is much better known in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and England. In England and the Netherlands, consumption reduction is already standard. Addicts who are hospitalized for withdrawal are free to decide whether they want to abstain from alcohol altogether or just limit the amount of alcohol.
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Curt Diehm is medical director of the Max Grundig Clinic, which specializes in executives. The internist also teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Heidelberg and is the author of over 200 original scientific publications and many non-fiction books.