Alcohol, Sex, and Poly-Behavioral Addiction

Many people feel that they need to consume alcohol in order to have good sex?

For most Americans, the consumption of alcohol seems to be part of our cultural heritage. We drink at weddings, funerals, birthdays, and so to celebrate pretty much everything and anything. We learned from a very young age of our parents and other adults, is that drinking is a sign of maturity. Many people, especially young adolescents, expect that alcohol use will lower tension and anxiety andIncrease in sexual desire and pleasure in life (Seto & Barbaree, 1995). About 1 in 7 adults in the United States, the criteria for alcohol dependence according to NIMH a large epidemiological study (Grant, 1977). Males are four times more likely than women to be heavy drinkers, and are twice as likely to abuse alcohol or alcohol dependent.

Most men and many women find it difficult to imagine not drink any alcohol at least on weekends and findthink it almost impossible to have sex without having a few drinks. These values appear to be embedded deeply in our culture. Somewhere along the line, we got the news that we have alcohol to good sex.

If alcohol or strengthen Hurt our sexual performance?

I recently heard a stand-up comedian refer to the term "whiskey - Dick" when describing his "friends who had drunk too much and had difficulty with orgasm, even when usingViagra. Shakespeare once said that excessive alcohol consumption, "sparked takes pleasure, but the performance."
Alcohol reduces inhibitions and gives us a lovely feeling. It makes us more relaxed and talkative. It can fe shy people / / el confident and courageous. These effects may facilitate our sexual desires, by encouraging the development of our social skills. However, these positive effects are caused only available means in the early phase of intoxication, ie, when we have consumed 1-2 drinks (assuming younot already have a tolerance for alcohol).

Sexual Impotence

On the other hand, s have alcohol, "a negative impact on sexual performance has been extensively documented. Men and women who drink more, it can be very difficult to reach orgasm. Difficulties with achieving orgasm after alcohol consumption can be understood as alcohol expands the small blood vessels throughout the body, making it less stasis of blood in the genitals.So that the penis is flaccid or erect only partially, so that sexual penetration is difficult. Women may find that they make intercourse unpleasant vaginal lubrication is decreased, and sometimes painful (Raff, 2006). Impotence is the constant inability of a man maintain an erection for sexual purposes. It is estimated that impotence of over 30 million people in the United States of America (NIHCS, 1992).

Masters and Johnson, identified alcohol as a common factor inPowerlessness in their monumental work on human sexual inadequacy. Alcohol damages the central nervous system and destroys brain cells, and if the damage is sufficiently prolonged, can lead to irreversible impotence even while a person is sober. Alcohol is also a factor in loss of sexual control or premature ejaculation. Even a few beers before sex can spoil a man's erection, and a failure to control his ejaculation. Up to 80 percent of men who are strongly believed to drink toserious sexual side effects, including impotence, infertility, or loss of sexual desire. Heavy drinking over a long period can be irreversibly destroy testicular cells, while men with shrunken testicles. Both sexual desire and sexual performance can be damaged. Alcohol and testosterone levels in social drinkers suppressed by the suppression of the secretory activity of Leydig cells (Flatto, 1990).

Alcohol and High-Risk Sexual Behavior

A history of severeAlcohol was correlated with a lifetime tendency toward high-risk sexual behavior, including multiple sex partners, unprotected sex, sex with high risk partners (eg, injection drug users) prostitutes, and exchanging sex for money or drugs (Windle, M., 1997 ). There can be many reasons for this association. For example, alcohol can act directly on the brain to reduce inhibitions and the perception of risk decreases (MacDonald, TK, 2000).

Expectationsabout alcohol's effects may have a stronger influence on alcohol exercise involving sexual conduct. Studies show repeatedly that people who strongly believe that alcohol, sexual arousal and performance will be improved rather risky sex after drinking (Cooper, ML, 2002) practice. Some people intentionally reduce alcohol during sexual encounters as an excuse for socially unacceptable behavior, or their awareness of the risk(Derman, KH, 1998). After McKirnan and colleagues (McKiran, DJ, 2001), this practice is especially common among men who have sex with men. This result agrees with the observation that engage men homosexual contacts before or during drinking more consistently than heterosexuals in high risk sexual practices (Avins, AL, 1994).

Alcohol and AIDS

People with alcohol use disorders are more humane than the general population contract HIV (Immunodeficiency Virus) - the agent that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Similarly, people with HIV are more likely to alcohol at some point in their lives (Petray, NM, 1999). Alcohol abuse is high-risk sexual behaviors and injection drug use, two major forms of HIV transmission are connected.

What are signs of drinking problems?

The primary sign of problem drinking: for health, legal, social, academic and financial problems asResult of drinking. For example, missing class or work because the cat, or drink, will not be able to have fun or to express themselves without drinking, fights or problems with roommates or partners, spending excessive amounts of money on alcohol, blackouts for passing out, trips to the ER because they defensively) when someone mentions your drinking, more need to have the same effect (tolerance, with the primary goal often drink to get drunk, and / or drink to achieve repeatedDriving under the influence. These are only guidelines and each case is different. If you drink about your drinking or a friend, concerned to receive more information!

Screening for Alcohol Dependence

Screening tools available to consultants and therapists with a diagnosis of alcohol abuse and addiction as the SMAST to support below.

Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST)

1. Do they feel are a normal drinker? (If we are normal, that you drinkless
or as much as most other people.)

2. Is your wife, husband, a parent or other close relatives ever worry or
complain about your drinking?

3. Have you ever feel guilty about your drinking?

4. Do friends or relatives think you are a normal drinker?

5. Can you stop drinking if you want it?

6. Have you ever participated in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous?

7. Has drinking ever created problems between you and your wife, husband,
aParents or other close relatives?

8. Have you ever been in trouble, because drinking on the job get?

9. Have you ever neglected your obligations, your family or your work for
two days in a row because you were drunk?

10. Have you ever taken anyone for help about your drinking?

11. Have you ever been in a hospital because of drinking?

12. Have you had ever been arrested for drunk driving while driving
intoxicated or driving under the influencefor alcoholic beverages?

13. Have you ever been arrested, even for a few hours, because the other
drunken behavior?

People who answer - Yes to three or more questions indicate probable alcoholism, two yes answers indicate probable alcoholism, and less than two yes answers indicate that alcoholism is likely (Selzer, M., Winokur, A. & Van Rooijen, C., 1975).

Note: If after reading the above, we begin to rationalize to himself: "Well, I can always stop drinkingI would like, but I usually stop when I run out of money. "(As my old graduate professor, used to say) STOP BULL-SH #% ting yourself and take an alcohol-certified consultants.

Co-morbidity & Alcohol Dependence

Alcohol abuse and dependence are among the most devastating of psychiatric disorders (Volpicelli, 2001). Addiction such as alcohol dependence and other addictions, as a rule do not develop in isolation. About 37% of alcoholics sufferof at least one concurrent addiction and / or mental impairment (Rovner, 1990).

Individuals can switch from one function to maintain a different, or multiple addictions at different times. Established the National Co-morbidity Survey (NCS), the sample of the total U.S. population in 1994 that, among non-institutionalized American male and female adolescents and adults (ages 15-54) had about 50% a diagnosable Axis I mental disorders at some time in their lives. These results of the surveynoted that 35% of men at some point in their lives through substance abuse as a candidate for the diagnosis of a mental disorder, and nearly 25% of women for a serious mood disorder (mostly major depression) have qualified. As an important result to note from the NCS study was the widespread occurrence of co-morbidity diagnosed with diseases. It specifically found that 56% of respondents had a history of at least one disorder, two or more additional disorders.These persons with a history of three or more comorbid disorders were estimated at one sixth of the U.S. population, or about 43 million people (Kessler, 1994).

Poor prognosis

We have come to today, more than any other time in history that the treatment of lifestyle diseases and addictions such as alcoholism realize a difficult and often frustrating task for all concerned. Repeated violations are rich in all addictions, even with the use of effective treatmentStrategies. But why 47% of patients in private treatment programs (for example) relapse within the first year of treatment after treatment (Gorski, T., 2001)? Addiction specialists have to be conditioned to accept the failure as the norm? There are many reasons for this poor prognosis. Some would proclaim that addictions are psychosomatic-induced and maintained in a semi-balanced force field of the multidimensional positive and negative forces. Others would say that failuressimply to a lack of self-motivation and willpower. Most would agree that lifestyle behavioral addiction are serious health risks that may deserve our attention, but it may be that patients are diagnosed with multiple dependencies in the context (with one simple function) due to a lack of diagnostic tools and resources are incapable of resolving the complexity of assessing and treating a patient with multiple addictions?

Proposed new diagnosis

Since the successfulTreatment results will depend on a thorough assessment and accurate diagnosis and comprehensive individualized treatment planning, it is no wonder that repeated rehabilitation failures and low success rates are the rule rather than the exception in the addiction field. Treatment clinics need to be a treatment planning system and referral network that is equipped to offer carefully evaluated several addiction and mental disorders and related treatment needs and comprehensively haveEducation / awareness, prevention strategy groups, and / or specific addiction treatment services for people diagnosed with multiple addiction. Written treatment goals and objectives should be specified a detail for each of addiction and dimension of life, and the desired performance outcome or completion criteria should be explicitly noted in the behavior is based (a visible activity), and measurable.

To assist in solving this problem, a multidimensionalDiagnosis of "Poly-behavioral addiction", is proposed for a more accurate diagnosis leads to more effective treatment planning. This diagnosis encompasses the broad category of addiction that a person discloses a combination of alcohol and drug abuse, addiction and other obsessive-compulsive behavior would be addictive gambling patterns, religion and / or sex / pornography, etc.) include. Behavioral addictions are just asDamaging - psychologically and socially as alcohol and drug abuse. They are compared with data on other lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease in their behavioral problems, their causes and their resistance to treatments. They will participate in progressive disorders, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. They are also characterized by a preoccupation with a continuous or periodic loss of control, and despite continuous irrational behavioradverse consequences.

Poly-behavioral addiction would be described as a state of periodic or chronic physical, mental, emotional, cultural, sexual and / or spiritual-religious frenzy. These different types of poisoning are involved, by repeated obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior practices in pathological relationships to any mood change substance, person, organization, belief system, and / or creates an activity. The individual has an overpowering desire, need or compulsion to intensify with the presence of a tendency to comply with this practice and to demonstrate the phenomena of tolerance, abstinence and withdrawal, which is always physical and / or psychological dependence on the effects of this pathological relationship.

In addition, there is a 12 - month period in which an individual with three or more abnormal behavior and / or drug addiction at the same time involved, but the criteria for dependence for each meet> Addiction in particular (Slobodzien, J., 2005). In essence, Poly-behavioral addiction is the synergistically integrated chronic dependence on multiple physiologically addictive substances and behaviors (eg, the use / abuse of drugs - nicotine, alcohol and drugs, and / or acting impulsively or obsessively compulsive in terms of gambling, food binging, sex, and / or religion, etc.) simultaneously.

Proposed new theory

The Addiction Recovery Measurement Systems(ARMS) theory is a nonlinear, dynamic, non-hierarchical model that focuses on interactions between multiple risk factors and situational factors, such as catastrophe and chaos theories in predicting and explaining addictive behavior and relapse. Multiple influences trigger and operate in high-risk situations and influence the global multidimensional functioning of an individual. The process of reversion involves interaction between background factors (eg family,social support, Year of the potential dependence and comorbid psychopathology), physiological states (eg, physical withdrawal), cognitive processes (eg, self-efficacy, desire, motivation, the abstinence violation effect, outcome expectations), and coping skills (Brownell et al., 1986 ; Marlatt & Gordon, 1985). To put it simply, small changes in the behavior of an individual to a large qualitative changes at the global level and patterns at the global level of a system arise from onlymany small interactions.

The ARMS hypothesis purports that it is a multidimensional synergistically negative resistance that individual to develop to some form of treatment to a single dimension of their lives, because the effects of addiction a person interacts dynamically multidimensional. Once the focus is on one dimension inadequate. Traditional addiction treatment programs do not accommodate for the multidimensionalsynergistically negative effects of a person, who several dependencies (eg nicotine, alcohol and obesity, etc.). Behavioral Addiction negative working with each other and with strategies for improving global interaction. They tend to promote the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, help increase violence, decrease efficiency, and promote social isolation. Most treatment theories today involve assessing other dimensions to identify dual diagnosis orCo-morbidity diagnoses, or to assess factors that may play a role in the primary function of the individual. Proclaimed Weapon "theory that a multidimensional treatment plan must be devised addressing the possible multiple addiction for all of life of the individual dimensions in addition to the developing countries to identify specific goals and objectives for each dimension.

The ARMS acknowledges the complexity and unpredictability of the addiction to the lifestyleCommitment to change the individual to accept help with their lifestyle. The Stages of Change model (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1984) is supported as a model of motivation, incorporating five stages of readiness to change: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. The ARMS theory supports the constructs of self-efficacy and social networking as outcome predictors of future behavior in a variety of risk factors, lifestyle (Bandura, 1977). The RelapsePrevention of cognitive-behavioral approach (Marlatt, 1985) with the aim of identifying and preventing situations of high risk of relapse is also supported in the arms of theory.

Conclusions

Given the large number of alcohol abuse and sexual behaviors in our world today, one should always take into account a person's ethnic, cultural, religious and social background before any clinical decisions, and it would be wise not to over-pathologize in this areaDependence. However, since successful treatment outcomes are dependent on a thorough assessment and accurate diagnosis and comprehensive individualized treatment planning - poly-behavioral addiction must be determined to the complexity of effective addiction treatment of multiple behavioral and substance.

Since lifestyle diseases and chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, alcoholism, drug and behavioral addiction can not be cured but only managed - how should weeffectively manage poly-behavioral addiction?

The Addiction Recovery Measurement System (ARMS) is proposed to use a multidimensional integrative assessment, treatment planning, treatment progress achieved, and treatment outcome measurement system that provides a fast and accurate recognition and evaluation of comprehensive individual life-functioning progress dimensions facilitate tracking. The ARMS hypothesis purports that it is a multidimensional synergistically negativeResistance, the individuals to develop, some form of treatment to a single dimension of their lives, because the effects of addiction a person interacts dynamically multidimensional. Once the focus is on one dimension inadequate.

Traditional addiction treatment programs are not for the multidimensional synergistically negative effects of a person who (record multiple addictions, such as nicotine, alcohol and Obesity, etc.). Behavioral Addiction negative working with each other and with strategies for improving global interaction. They tend to promote the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, help increase violence, decrease efficiency, and promote social isolation. Most treatment theories today involve assessing other dimensions to dual diagnosis or co-morbidity diagnoses, or to assess factors that may play a role in the individual's primary identification to > Addiction. Proclaimed Weapon "theory that a multidimensional treatment plan must be devised addressing the possible multiple addiction for all of life of the individual dimensions in addition to the developing countries to identify specific goals and objectives for each dimension.

Partnerships and coordination between all service providers will by the ministries and health insurance companies in the provision of treatment programs are a necessity in addressing the multi-task solution > Alcohol Abuse and Poly-behavioral addiction. I encourage you to support the addiction programs in America, and hope that the (weapons) resources support you personally in the war on poly-behavioral addiction to fight.

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