From the author: When you meet a rescued alcoholic, know: there is a hero in front of you. After all, a mortal enemy sleeps within him. And he himself is constantly burdened with his weakness and continues his thorny path in this world, where the cult of drinking reigns. Among those who don't understand him. In a society that believes it has the right to look down on him with pitiful hatred as a man of the lowest order, because he dared to swim against the flow of the alcoholic river. Having met such a person, know: this is a person of the highest standard. Friedrich von Bodelschwing This concept, in addition to the psychological structural component, has absorbed many provisions from the American Minnesota model of supporting addicts and the rich experience of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) society. The theoretical model created by the Pole Jerzy Mellibrouda includes It involves the interaction of three psychological mechanisms that give rise to addiction, arising from alcohol abuse, psychosocial circumstances and the consequences of use. The mechanism of compulsive regulation of feelings transforms the manifested emotions into alcohol hunger. Anosognosia of the dependent personality, supported by magical thinking, distorts cognitive processes, and the splitting of the “I” destroys the awareness of one’s own identity. This concept clarifies the pathogenesis of such phenomena as alcohol hunger, relapse into drinking, the ineffectiveness of the influence of the social environment on the addict, and also provides reliable hypotheses for successful therapy (Mellibruda, 1997). According to this concept, compulsive mechanisms play a decisive role in the emergence, development and building depending. The structure of these mechanisms and the way they function are specifically different from the pathological mechanisms of other emotional pathologies, such as neurosis. Their occurrence does not have a direct connection with childhood traumatic experiences, or the toxic upbringing of significant people, but are provoked by prolonged and (or) intense alcohol consumption. People dependent on alcohol can trace the presence of common features and similar patterns of behavior that can be explained, understood and predicted thanks to the concept of psychological mechanisms of addiction (Mellibruda, 2002). The mechanism of compulsive regulation of feelingsEmotions and intelligence of the individual allow it to have full contact with the outside world and its reality. In threatening situations, emotions help to make immediate decisions - for example, fear of a speeding car motivates you to quickly jump away from the roadway, pain from a burn on your palm with an iron induces you to quickly withdraw your hand. If the intellect allows one to understand the surrounding reality, then emotions indicate to a person what is important to him, what he wants and what he does not. Emotions or their absence in the prospect of losing any relationship demonstrate how important these relationships are for him. Negative emotions are also an important element of contact with reality. Motivated to take action to neutralize the causes: a husband whose wife is threatening divorce may decide to change his behavior in order to avoid feelings of loneliness. An employee whose boss is dissatisfied with his work may, under the influence of fear of dismissal, improve the quality of his work or promptly find another job. The Christian vision of suffering also finds its foundation here. Suffering, as a rule, does not allow one to break away from reality, inclines one to reflect on oneself and one’s behavior, motivates one to take action and forces one to solve the problems that life brings. However, for an alcoholic, the fundamental source of feelings is alcohol. Repeated experience of the euphoric effects of alcohol leads to the fact that natural ways of reproducing pleasant sensations in oneself become less attractive. Drinking alcohol is a quick and easy way to stimulate your emotional state. Therefore, unpleasant events do not motivate reflection,re-evaluation and behavior change, because the alcoholic knows an easy way to pacify unpleasant emotions. An alcoholic intentionally manipulates his feelings with the help of alcohol, gaining emotional independence from his environment. As a result, events in the outer world have progressively little impact on his inner world. He closes himself in his own “little world,” thereby breaking away from reality. Due to the progression of such emotional regression, the addict’s environment does not have much influence on him. The emotions that an alcoholic experiences become less adequate over time in relation to what is happening in his environment. The emotional life of an alcoholic regresses towards impoverishment. All negative emotions (guilt, shame, fear, loneliness) easily turn into alcohol hunger, manifested in the desire for immediate relief from suffering, into obsessive thoughts about drinking. The dominant, positive emotions are relief after consumption and euphoria from the effects of alcohol. Relationships with people become superficial, some of them are interpreted instrumentally, and friends for drinking alcohol become the preferred society. The skill of seeking immediate relief instead of patiently experiencing negative emotions and solving problems leads to the fact that with the progression of addiction, tolerance for suffering decreases. As a result, an alcoholic deprived of access to alcohol becomes irritable and explosive - trifling inconveniences and discomfort cause strong emotions and inappropriate reactions in him. The preferred way to deal with stress is a style of behavior focused on avoidance. A way of thinking that clearly demonstrates this behavior is: “problems disappear when you don’t think about them.” A dose of alcohol helps you forget about problems. However, unresolved problems do not disappear, but grow into a “snowball”. Stages of development of the mechanism of compulsive regulation of feelings: Stages of development of addiction state the relevance of the concept of “addiction trap”. The first, pleasant stage is a trap that calls for stimulation of repeated behavior that causes pleasant sensations. Negative emotions associated with long-term consequences do not motivate people to stop using. The impossibility of realizing one’s situation is, in turn, the result of the action of another mechanism of dependence - the mechanism of illusion and denial (Mellibruda, 2002). The mechanism of illusion and denial Each person has logical, rational thinking, characteristic of a mature personality, as well as magical thinking, characteristic of children. Magical thinking is sometimes necessary in adult life. It leads to a reassessment of the desired results, reinforces optimism and hope regarding the successful development of the situation, makes it possible to survive difficult times, gives energy to realize one’s dreams, ambitious plans and intentions that might seem unrealistic to other people. Alcohol weakens the individual’s ability to think rationally, fatally reinforcing magical thinking. A distorted perception of reality relates, first of all, to the volume of alcohol consumption and the consequences of such consumption. A system of beliefs arises that makes it difficult to understand the negative consequences of alcohol consumption and correlate them with consumption. Distorted thinking regarding issues of one’s position, alcohol consumption, the actual reasons and claims of relatives or employers, the causes of disastrous life incidents is the result of the work of the mechanism of illusion and denial. This mechanism leads to the fact that - contrary to real facts - the alcoholic sees no reason to stop drinking, but finds many excuses to continue drinking (Mellibruda, 2002). Manifestation of the mechanism of illusions and denial (anosognosia) Simple denial is a refusal to recognize the obvious facts of problems associated with consumption (for example, a drunk alcoholic claims: I didn’t drink anything). Minimization - reduction 2002)