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Many people struggle with alcoholism, also known as alcohol use disorder. Most of them feel as though there is no way out of this kind of disorder. However, the good news is, there are many treatment options out there. You just have to seek help. There is help and the alcoholic in your life can quit drinking, and even be restored to normal physical and mental health.
Alcoholism has become very common in the society today. This might be attributed to the increase in stress levels over the years. Although some people don’t even realize they’re addicted to alcohol. They just believe they’re living their best lives, even when the habit is ruining a lot of good things in their lives.
What is Alcoholism?
Alcoholism can be described as a condition in which an individual heavily and frequently consumes alcohol. This would eventually lead to a distortion of one’s mental capacity and physical health. Medically, a person is said to have the alcohol use disorder when an individual consumes a large amount of alcohol, for a prolonged period, and doesn’t have enough willpower, or the control to stop. Alcoholism usually leads to a lot of complications, including adversely affecting the health of the individual. In severe cases, alcoholics might develop a withdrawal syndrome. This is more of a neurological disease, as patients would display some symptoms when they don’t consume alcohol after some hours. Alcoholism also ruins relationships, marriages, physical and emotional abuse, and deaths. A vast percentage of road traffic accidents are alcohol-related. It’s important to encourage an alcoholic in your life to seek help. This is for the patient’s benefit, and for your benefit too. Alcoholism doesn’t just ruin the life of the individual but also affects the friends and family of the person too.
Drug and Alcohol Treatment Recovery Programs
Apart from alcohol, people also get addicted to different substances. Some of these include opiate drugs, such as morphine, heroin, Percocet, Codeine and so on. Most of these cases occur after these people were given prescription drugs for a condition, then got used to taking the pills. These set of people would go out of their way to get these pills, through prescription, or off the black market. Drug addiction is as bad and probably worse than alcohol addiction. However, the common ground between this two is that you need help to get off the addiction. There are several rehabilitation centers out there, that would assist addicts in getting clean. Below are the steps involved in these centers take in rehabilitating patients;
- Evaluation: This is the first thing a rehabilitation center would do, on the first contact with the patient. This generally involves the involves the psychological and medical evaluation of the patient. Also, the medical and personal history of the patient will be taken. However, it’s crucial that patients completely open up to the doctor and counselor about their habits, and how much drug or alcohol they consume. This provided information will be used to create a treatment plan for the patient.
- Detoxification: This is the process whereby the patient’s body is forced to be used to not taking drugs and not drinking. Although this process is gradual, the patients are eventually gotten off drugs and alcohol after a while. Patients are fed well, given medications that would help with any form of withdrawal syndrome that might occur.
- Therapy: Patients are placed in support groups, where they can share information, on how they’ve been coping. Patients do feel comfortable and better, especially when they open up about their struggles. Patients that are not comfortable enough to share their struggles with other people can also sign up for personal counselors. Some rehabilitation centers do offer this kind of one to one therapy
NEED HELP WITH ALCOHOL DEPENDENCY?
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844-445-1226
Codependent Alcoholic
This is a term that describes the behavior that seeks to protect, fix, although not helpful, as a response to alcohol consumption. This, when done for a long time, may lead to codependency. In other words, this can be described as an unintended addiction to someone else’s addiction. This kind of relationship is not normal, and dysfunctional. The individual might see themselves as the only person that can save the alcoholic. This occurs as a result of different reasons, however, the major being that, the person has some form of self-esteem problems. The person feels the need to be needed. They might even dedicate their life to the management, in an attempt to cure or be in control of the alcoholic. Below are some of the criteria for diagnosing codependency, according to Cermak (1986)
- Investing time, money and energy in controlling oneself, and others, especially in bad situations
- Taking charge of another person’s needs, even before meeting their own needs.
- Getting anxious, and not having a clear picture of the boundaries, especially as it pertains to issues of intimacy and separation.
- Being involved, or having relationships with people that have drugs, or alcohol.
- Having at least 3, out of the following symptoms;
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Drug abuse
- Victims of physical, domestic or sexual abuse
- Getting or maintaining a relationship with an individual that has drug or alcohol problems.
- Illness caused by stress
- Denial
- Suppressed emotions.
- Compulsive disorder and so on.
Getting Help for Alcoholic Family Members
As earlier mentioned, alcoholics don’t just destroy their mental and physical health; the habit also ruins their relationships. Eventually, they become a liability to their family members and their friends. You’d be saving a life, and be saving yourself a lot of stress by helping an alcoholic family member.
How to Help the Heroin Addict in Your Life?
It’s not easy to care for a heroin addict. However, there is a lot of families can do to help them. Below are some of the things that can be done;
- Learn all about heroin, and how it works.
- Support the patient to join an intervention meeting
- Help the patient to get the right counselor.
- Identify many counselors, and select the best one for the individual.
NEED HELP WITH ALCOHOL DEPENDENCY?
CALL TODAY
844-445-1226
References
Maskey, R. (2011). Alcohol consuming habits and its effect on adherence and blood glucose level in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Health Renaissance, 9(3).
Molloy, E. (2015). This Ad is for You: Targeting and the Effect of Alcohol Advertising on Youth Drinking. Health Economics, 25(2), pp.148-164.
Ormond, G. and Murphy, R. (2016). The effect of alcohol consumption on household income in Ireland. Alcohol, 56, pp.39-49.
Sharma, A., Etilé, F. and Sinha, K. (2016). The Effect of Introducing a Minimum Price on the Distribution of Alcohol Purchase: A Counterfactual Analysis. Health Economics, 25(9), pp.1182-1200
