About ten years ago I received a call from Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. The doctor who called told me I had sent them the drunkest person they had ever seen live.

I was pretty proud. Hey, that’s a “high five” for a drug and alcohol counselor. We don’t get out much.

My client’s blood alcohol concentration (-BAC-) was an astounding 0.63. Let me put that in perspective for you. A -BAC- of 0.08 is legally drunk. At about a 0.23 -BAC- the temporal lobes of your brain are affected and you are staggering drunk. At a -BAC- of between 0.45 and 0.53 you’re dead.

At a -BAC- of 0.63 he was a full point past dead. He WALKED into the emergency room. It took me a half hour to get him to agree to go to a detox. It took 45 minutes for the ambulance staff car to get to Serento to pick him up. It took about another 45 minutes to get him down to Geisinger. By doing a mathematical calculation the doctor estimated his blood alcohol while with me was approximately 0.72. Way past dead.

I’m relating this story to make a point. No one can “train” themselves to drink that much. Alcoholism is a disease. It is more born than made. To drink that much and survive (let alone walk) shows how real a medical problem alcoholism is. Anyone can be drunk and stupid, and at one time or another most of us have. True alcoholism is another matter entirely. My client was the most extreme example you’re ever likely to hear about. But the point is the same. Alcoholism, real alcoholism, is a medical disease.

There are messages here for both the person with the problem, and for the family members and loved ones of the alcoholic.

First, for the alcoholic. Most people with a drinking problem look at other people who control their drinking and wonder how they do it. They try different ways to control their drinking like limiting their drinking only between certain hours, or drinking beverages they don’t like so they won’t drink as much. They promise they’ll only drink on special occasions like holidays and weddings. They give it up for Lent.

And each method works, but only for a while. The problems caused by drinking return and they continue to grow worse. When they drink, they cannot guarantee how it will turn out. A non-alcoholic can. The alcoholic lives in shame and regret on the inside, no matter what the outside shows.

For the family members, preaching, pleading, threatening, crying, bribing, won’t work. Family members didn’t cause the alcoholism by not loving the alcoholic enough; they can’t cure it by loving hem more. They can’t control it by pouring out the liquor bottles and beer. Family members cannot take responsibility for the alcoholic, only for themselves.

There is a difference between blame and responsibility. No one intends to end up as an alcoholic or the family member of one. No one ever expects to be sitting across from a counselor. People are not to blame for a medical condition. But they are responsible for treating it once they know they have it.

And alcoholism can be treated.

It’s a disease, not a decision.