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Archive for the ‘Alcoholism’ Category

How do you recognize that you have a drinking problem? When is it plain to see that you are involving yourself in alcohol abuse?

If you have unproductively made an effort to discontinue your drinking or if you have given your word to yourself that your drinking days are finished and then you realized that you were drinking in a hazardous manner just a few days later, chances are incredibly good that you have a drinking problem. The bottom line is that if you have attempted to quit drinking and cannot get this done, then your drinking is controlling you, rather than the other way around.

In a similar manner, if it takes larger amounts of alcohol to get the same “high,” you probably need to recognize the fact that you have a drinking problem.

You may be telling yourself that the justification for your drinking is so that you can lessen your apprehension or get rid of the sorrow that you feel. Likewise, you may be trying to avoid an unsafe circumstance and may be looking for something more useful, more constructive, or less sorrowful.

As you continue to drink, conversely, you will comprehend that drinking does not bring about the same high and you will also grasp the fact that drinking doesn’t help eliminate whatever produced your discomfort in the first place.

As you continue to drink in a hazardous manner, regrettably, you may become alcohol dependent and, as a result, you may add another pivotal issue to cope with rather than uncovering more productive and healthy ways of dealing with your alcohol induced issues.

The Need for an Alcohol Evaluation

If you have determined that you have a problem with your drinking, maybe the most expedient thing you can do for yourself is to call your doctor or healthcare provider and schedule an appointment for a thorough physical and for a review of your drinking situation.

If you honestly think that you have a critical drinking problem, it might be a good idea to get prepared to hear that you need to get alcohol rehab.

At this point in your life, what are your options? You can indisputably decide against seeing your physician and carry on with your pattern of hazardous drinking.

It definitely doesn’t take a nuclear physicist, conversely, to comprehend that long-term, heavy drinking, if left untreated, will go downhill over time and doubtless set in motion an early death. Therefore, your most positive choice is to face up to your drinking problem and get the alcohol rehab you need.

The Deception of the Functioning Alcoholic

It is ironic to note the fact that multitudes of alcoholics lead busy and active lives and have houses, pets, families, vehicles, jobs, and any number of material possessions similar to individuals who are not addicted to alcohol.

Many of these “functional” alcohol addicted individuals may have never been apprehended for drunk driving and may have been fortunate enough to avoid all alcohol induced legal issues. In spite of this fortunate situation, then again, these alcohol addicted people need to drink in order to operate on a regular basis while keeping up their facade as they associate with the outside world.

Ask anyone who has seen them when they are engaging in one of their drinking binges or in a drunken stupor or ask a family member about the problem drinker’s alcohol dependency, nevertheless, and they will be quick to state the truth of the drinker’s situation and the particulars about the alcoholic’s drinking predicament and about his or her alcohol induced issues.

Why Do Alcohol Dependent Individuals Fail to Focus On Their Drinking Problems?

As alcohol addiction and alcohol abuse research has underscored, no matter how clear the alcohol generated issues seem to those who interact with the alcohol dependent individual, alcohol addicted people frequently deny that drinking is the basis of their alcohol induced problems. Not only this, but alcohol addicted individuals regularly blame their alcohol induced difficulties on other people or upon other situations around them instead of seeing their part in the problem.

The root of the problem is that alcohol addiction is a disease of the brain. Once the individual has become addicted to alcohol, he or she typically resorts to denial, manipulation, and lying as a way of dealing with the fact that his or her drinking is out of control. And to make things more difficult, the experience of alcohol withdrawal symptoms typically circumvents the alcohol addicted person’s rare attempts to abruptly quit drinking. As bleak as the alcohol addicted person’s life is, to the contrary, the encouraging news is that competent help is extensively accessible – if the alcohol addicted individual reaches out and gets alcoholism counseling.

Summary

Admitting the fact that drinking is bringing about issues in your day by day functioning is probably the most straightforward way to determine if you have a drinking problem. Stated more precisely, if your drinking is triggering problems with your health, with your employment, in your relationships, with your finances, at school, or with the law, then you have a drinking problem that needs to be resolved.

If you have a problem with your drinking, moreover, this means that you are involving yourself in abusive drinking.

While some drinkers may be able to detect their alcohol abuse problems and greatly diminish the quantity and rate of their drinking, other drinkers, then again, need to tackle their drinking problems by getting quality alcohol therapy. Moreover, due to their tendency to deny the facts and distort the truth, alcohol dependent individuals definitely need competent alcoholism therapy for their abusive drinking.

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For a number of years alcoholism research has revealed the fact that there is strong linkage between alcoholism and serious health conditions.

For example, in 2005, medical investigation showed that alcohol abuse and alcoholism cost the United States an estimated $220 billion annually. Interestingly, this immense alcohol-related cash outlay was substantially more than the cost associated with cancer ($196 billion) or with obesity ($133 billion). While it is pertinent to stress these facts, it is also noteworthy to point out that an interrelationship exists between all three of these health problems.

Stated another way, chronic alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction are also highly interrelated with obesity and with cancer.

To be sure, substance abuse research has demonstrated the fact that alcoholism can augment the risk for different types of cancer, particularly cancer of the liver, voice box (larynx), kidneys, colon, esophagus, rectum, and the throat. Heavy and recurring drinking can also result in immune system difficulties and impairment to the fetus during pregnancy.

Heavy Drinking Breaks Down the Problem Drinker’s Systems and Organs

What is more, if alcohol dependency continues over a period of years, the person’s body organs will likely be affected in an unhealthy manner. As an illustration, chronic, abusive drinking is particularly dangerous to the liver since the liver does most of the work of processing the alcohol that has been consumed. Extreme amounts of alcohol kills liver cells and obliterates the ability of liver cells to reproduce. This condition results in a progressive inflammatory malfunction of the liver that can at the end of the day lead to cirrhosis of the liver, a critical and possibly terminal disease.

Heavy, long-term drinking not only can result in serious liver damage, but it can also lead to damage to the heart and to the brain. Physical damage this serious may be irreversible and may, in turn, result in severe disease or an early death.

The Importance of Alcohol Treatment

It is essential, consequently, to know how to recognize the different alcohol addiction symptoms and signs so that the alcohol addicted person can be given the opportunity to get the professional alcohol counseling he or she needs.

Alcohol Addiction and Sophisticated Brain Research

Fortuitously, medical exploration is constantly generating original and significant information. Recent alcoholism exploration supplies a first-rate illustration. More accurately, for roughly the last ten years, complex brain-imaging scanning devices have confirmed that continuous and recurring irresponsible drinking alters the constitution of the brain to a substantial extent, as a consequence resulting in brain disease that can last months, years, or perhaps as long as the person lives.

More explicitly, medical research has demonstrated that individuals who have been drinking in a hazardous manner for a substantial length of time increase their risk for developing permanent and severe adaptations in the brain.

This type of damage may be indirectly associated with the drinker’s poor overall health or directly related to the alcohol’s effects on the brain or to severe liver disease.

Excessive Drinking, Malnutrition, and Mental Disorders

As a final example of assorted medical conditions that are considerably correlated to alcohol dependency, take into account the fact that according to scientific research, the abusive and repeated abuse of alcohol can result in erosive gastritis, a condition that lessens the absorption of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

This kind of organ breakdown is related to malnutrition and to a variety of critical neurological and mental problems including sleep disturbances, memory loss, and psychosis such as Wernicke’s Encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s syndrome. This latter medical problem is an enduring debilitating medical condition that is epitomized by repetitive learning and memory complications.

Summary

It is obvious that continued, hazardous drinking is directly or indirectly correlated with a variety of serious medical conditions that can and do result in dangerous ailments and premature death. Such information needs to be underlined and presented to everyone in our society so that most people will be able to abstain from hazardous drinking while other people who have a drinking problem will get the quality rehabilitation they need.

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It is fascinating to bring up something that family members who have been unfavorably affected by the alcoholism of another family member evidently do not comprehend. It seems that by shielding the alcohol addicted person with untruths and dishonesty to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have basically created a condition that makes it easier for the alcohol addicted individual to persist and move forward with his or her negative, destructive style of life.

Undeniably, instead of helping the alcoholic and themselves, these family members have basically become enablers who have involuntarily helped negatively affect the alcohol addicted person’s problem drinking situation even further.

The Likelihood of a Relapse is Real

Another key alcohol addiction issue has to do with alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol dependent individual has effectively undergone alcohol dependency therapy and then resorts to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first glance, this predicament flies in the face of logical thinking and seems so doubtful that it forces a person to speculate why anyone who has gone through the horrors of alcoholism can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol treatment and in turn after reaching sobriety. There are, of course, numerous conceivable reasons for this.

It should be noted, conversely that alcoholism research that has centered on the long-term consequences of alcohol dependency has shown that long after the alcohol addicted person has stopped his or her drinking, significant transformations in the way in which the alcohol addicted person’s brain operates are still present. As a result, all a recovering alcohol dependent individual has to do to involve himself or herself in behaviors that correspond with the transformations that have come about in the brain is to engage in drinking again.

The Need for A Critical Lifestyle Transformation

There are other reasons why quite a few recovering alcoholics return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after attaining sobriety. In accordance to the alcohol dependency research literature, to make an effective recovery, the alcoholic needs new ways of acting and thinking in order to deal more successfully with difficult alcohol-related circumstances that will take place.

Issues such as returning to the same alcohol addictive environment or to the same geographic location; interacting once again with friends from the time when the alcoholic was drinking irresponsibly; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these circumstances can elicit memories that can set off psychological stress or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcohol dependent person to engage in excessive drinking once again. Regrettably, all of these circumstances may not only counteract ongoing sobriety for the alcohol addicted individual but they can also lead to relapse and consequently cancel out one’s sobriety.

Conclusion

In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol addicted person, family members can essentially cause unintended destruction by enabling the negative drinking behavior of the alcohol addicted individual.

The drug abuse research literature validates the fact that most individuals who successfully complete alcohol rehabilitation go through at least one relapse. Alcohol dependent individuals and their family members need to know this so that they do not get depressed or stressed out when a relapse occurs.

Happily, participation in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up counseling and training have resulted in more productive, lasting alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency treatment results, have helped decrease alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted individuals attain long standing sobriety.

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