Alcoholism, one of the varieties of drug addiction, was recognized by official medicine in 1952 as a serious mental illness, the symptoms of which tend to increase continuously. The disease manifests as an uncontrollable desire to drink alcohol. A person begins to drink alcohol uncontrollably, may go on a long binge that lasts several days, or drink an amount of alcohol every day "out of fatigue", to relieve stress or simply for the sake of relaxation.
How to stop drinking and what are the dangers of alcoholism?
Most people who suffer from alcohol addiction are not fully aware of the dangers of this disease. They do not think that only returning to a sober lifestyle can save them from health problems, so they will not stop drinking alcohol. The issue of getting rid of alcoholism usually worries their relatives, who turn to specialists for help.
To understand the health risks of chronic alcoholism, it is worth remembering the serious diseases that develop in any alcoholic after several years of continuous alcohol dependence. The main place among them is occupied by:
- from the digestive system: gastritis, ulcer, enterocolitis;
- from the cardiovascular system: cardiomyopathy or cardialgia;
- from the liver: cirrhosis or hepatitis;
- from the brain: alcoholic pellagra, Morel's disease;
- from the psyche: delirium (delirium tremens), or psychosis.
Among the causes of serious deterioration of health, leading to premature death, can be mentioned pancreatitis, a specific disease of alcoholics, which can quickly lead to the development of a cancerous tumor in the pancreas. If a person with alcohol addiction, despite the developing disease, continues to drink alcohol regularly and uncontrollably, he will not have more than ten years of life.
A drunk person does not control his actions, therefore drunk drivers and pedestrians are most often the culprits of traffic accidents. Most crimes are committed through the fault of people addicted to alcohol.
Social problems of alcoholics
For a person who begins to drink regularly and uncontrollably, alcohol replaces family, work and hobbies. He gradually turns into something amorphous, his life flowing in a vicious circle, from stack to stack through the hangover scene. Chronic alcoholism provokes:
- Disruption of development and decline in social status.
- A negative change in ethical and moral character traits, leading to rudeness towards others, vulgarity, weakness.
- Behavioral deviation. People who drink constantly, unable to forget their bad habit, acquire antisocial character traits, often resort to physical and moral humiliation of loved ones, stealing money and valuables from home.
Active alcoholism, which has been occurring in recent years in our society, leads not only to health problems for drinkers and deterioration of the quality of life of society as a whole, but also to high mortality among young people.
How to convince an alcoholic to quit smoking?
Due to the negative effect of ethanol on the brain, a drinker can perceive any information only one-sidedly: he hears and sees what he wants, and ignores everything else. Only information that is not able to damage the friendship with the "Green Snake" penetrates his consciousness. An alcoholic not only does not think to stop abusing alcohol, but also categorically does not recognize the existence of such a disease as alcoholism.
It is impossible to force an addict to stop drinking for any reason by hanging posters on the walls about the harm caused by alcoholism. It is easier to acquaint the addict with the dangerous facts of the harm that alcohol causes, then he will surely begin to think about how to quit the habit that is causing irreparable damage to his health in order to return to a lifemeasured. Facts that can help get an alcoholic back on the road to sobriety include:
- to "win" cirrhosis, a person who drinks regularly needs only 10-20 years;
- forgetting about alcohol at the stage of damage to internal organs, an alcoholic can live for about 10 more years, but if you do not stop abusing, death will occur much earlier;
- a person who becomes a heavy drinker before his thirtieth birthday is guaranteed to end up in a grave by his fiftieth birthday.
Yes, these facts can influence an uncontrolled drinker and make him quit smoking, but it is better if the motivation for the treatment of alcoholism is carried out by an experienced psychologist. Neoplus drug treatment clinic in Yekaterinburg offers an intervention service. A qualified psychologist goes to the house of an alcoholic who refuses to undergo a course of hospital treatment, at the request of his relatives. Then a motivational conversation takes place. The result of professional motivation in 98% of cases is the appearance of the addict's desire to leave his addiction and he makes a voluntary decision to undergo treatment.
Is it dangerous to treat alcoholism yourself?
Unfortunately, the question of how to give up alcohol abuse does not concern people who are addicted to alcohol, but their loved ones. It is the relatives of alcoholics, exhausted by their regular drinking and realizing the futility of persuading them to undergo treatment, who seek information on how to stop drinking. It must be said right away that self-medication for alcoholism, which is a fairly common practice in our modern society, poses a serious threat not only to health, but also to human life, and is also completely useless.
An addict cannot stop drinking alcohol until he understands the danger of his habit and wants to quit it, and self-medication of alcoholism, especially without the patient's knowledge, is dangerous because:
- The use of medications that eliminate the desire to drink alcohol regularly, or that cause negative somatic reactions to alcohol, not only its taste, but also its smell, without the prescription of a qualified narcologist, poses a serious threat to the health and life ofthe alcoholic. By secretly giving the patient independently selected drugs, loved ones expose him to the risk of developing serious somatic diseases and aggravation of chronic diseases.
- Folk remedies with which it is impossible to drink alcohol due to immediate vomiting can cause an acute allergic reaction in the form of suffocation. Dysfunction of the respiratory system quickly leads to asphyxia and, in most cases, ends in premature death, since the ambulance does not have time to arrive due to the immediate increase in clinical symptoms.
Moreover, such treatment, not supervised by a doctor, can lead to the following irreversible consequences:
- worsening of mental problems;
- causing injury to people around him or himself;
- the appearance of suicidal and suicidal tendencies.
To prevent such consequences, you need to convince your loved one, who has started to drink a lot, to go to a specialized clinic. This should be done as soon as possible when the first signs appear that a relative is developing an alcohol addiction. It should be remembered that a person with a chronic addiction can stop drinking alcohol only after completing a full course of rehabilitation. Its delay can be fatal.
Professional methods of treating alcoholism in a private clinic
The question of how to get back to sobriety with the help of professionals is of interest to many people. Often searched online. To fully understand how to forget alcohol if you cannot do it yourself, it is worth considering the methods of alcoholism treatment used in our clinic. After the alcoholic is hospitalized, a complete diagnostic examination is prescribed. During the process, it is revealed:
- general condition of the patient;
- the stage of development of addiction;
- the presence of damage caused to the internal organs and psyche by alcohol.
Based on the results obtained, each patient is assigned an individual treatment regimen, but all the selected measures are included in some general stages.
Cleansing the body
Without this stage, it is impossible to start the full treatment of alcoholism. Detoxification is carried out through the infusion of absorbent (toxin-binding) solutions. To these are added individually prescribed medications to alleviate the withdrawal symptoms present in a particular alcoholic. If necessary, non-drug detoxification can be performed - plasmapheresis, hemosorption, hemodialysis.
Regenerative drug therapy
Patients with alcohol addiction admitted for treatment in our hospital are also prescribed a course of restorative and restorative therapy. Medicines, individually selected by specialists cooperating with the Neoplus clinic, allow you to quickly:
- restoration of internal organs damaged by the breakdown products of psychoactive substances;
- normalization of the functioning of the cardiovascular, nervous and digestive systems.
If a person who cannot stop drinking has been diagnosed with a serious illness, hepatitis, HIV infection, borderline mental condition, psychosis, epilepsy, etc. , specialized specialists in collaboration with our clinic prescribe additional therapy aimed at their treatment or maintaining the state of remission. .
Psychological rehabilitation
The main and longest stage of treatment of alcoholism, without which it is not possible to cope with this disease, which forces a person to drink alcohol constantly. Psychotherapeutic treatment protocol includes:
- group psychological training;
- individual lessons, conversations and consultations with a psychologist;
- The 12-step program has long proven its high degree of effectiveness.
In addition, our psychologists work for free with relatives of addicted patients, in order to prevent a possible breakdown after leaving the clinic.
socialization
This phase consists in restoring the ties with society lost while the addict was drinking alcohol, which is an effective prevention of relapse after treatment and a guarantee that the person will be able to stop drinking alcohol forever. Therapeutic programs used in this phase include:
- detailed analysis of problems and irritants leading to breakdowns;
- simulation study of situations that can provoke a relapse of the disease.
Our social workers and psychologists help patients change unfavorable behavior patterns, break away from their previous environment, restore daily or professional skills and, if necessary, acquire a new profession.
How to quit drinking forever, advice from a narcologist
There are no ex-alcoholics. If an addict has stopped abusing, it does not mean that he has succeeded in quitting forever. There is no advice to quit alcohol on your own. The only way out for an alcoholic to stop drinking is a consultation with an experienced narcologist and full treatment in a hospital drug treatment clinic. The help of specialists can make a person consciously want to stop drinking alcohol. The success of the treatment depends on how strong the patient's desire to give up alcohol is.
The following will help you forget alcohol:advise:
- refuse any offer to drink;
- always check the amount of alcohol consumed;
- Avoid companies where people drink too much.
To ensure that you stop abusing alcohol, you should learn to relax using non-alcoholic methods: find a hobby, play sports, etc. If you are worried about insomnia and anxiety, you should consult a psychotherapist at the clinic.
If there are signs of alcohol addiction, you should contact a professional drug treatment clinic, which will advise you on alcoholism treatment free of charge and anonymously at any time of the day.