Every journey of recovery starts with a single step

Alcoholism is a condition where you drank to an extent or for a long enough time that your body eventually becomes dependent. This leaves you needing it in order to be able to function in daily life. Alcohol addiction can affect you both physically and mentally, and can have a negative impact on your relationships and lead to problems in your work and social life. Alcohol rehab and addiction counselling at Tower Counselling in the Ayurva Clinic can help to reduce the impact of your alcohol dependency and help you to fully recover from your alcohol addiction.

Alcoholism has a cause, a symptom and is fully treatable with the correct rehab and addiction counselling. Alcoholism, as a problem, develops when you drink to a level where the brain undergoes chemical changes, which augments the feelings of pleasure associated with drinking alcohol and makes the alcoholic want to drink more amounts and more frequently. At first, these changes can seem pleasurable, but eventually these dissipate when the level of alcohol used becomes a problem. A person with alcohol dependency, or rather an alcoholic, will drink to avoid the unpleasant feelings, dealing with daily life, and often the dangerous symptoms associated with alcohol withdrawl. 

Alcohol affects people differently, depending on their size, sex, body build, and metabolism. The general effects of alcohol on a person are a feeling of warmth, flushed skin, impaired judgement, decreased inhibitions, muscular incoordination, slurred speech, and memory and comprehension loss. In states of extreme intoxication, vomiting is likely to occur, possibly accompanied by incontinence, poor respiration, a fall in blood pressure. In cases of severe alcohol poisoning people can go into coma and death may occur.

Drinking heavily over a short period of time usually results in what is called a “hangover’’. When people have a hangover they can suffer a headache, nausea, shakiness, and sometimes vomiting, beginning from 8 to 12 hours later. A hangover is due partly to poisoning by alcohol and its other ingredients and partly to the body’s reaction to withdrawal from alcohol and dehydration.

Combining alcohol with other drugs can make the effects of the other drugs much stronger and as a result they can become more dangerous. Many accidental deaths have occurred after consuming alcohol combined with other drugs. Cannabis, tranquilisers, barbiturates and other sleeping pills, or antihistamines (in cold, cough, and allergy remedies) should not be taken with alcohol. Even a small amount of alcohol with any of these drugs can seriously impair a person’s ability to drive a car.

People who drink on a regular basis can become tolerant to many of the negative effects of alcohol, and thus are able to drink more before suffering these effects. Yet even with increased consumption, many such drinkers don’t appear intoxicated. This is because they appear to be able to continue to work and socialise reasonably well, their deteriorating physical condition may go unrecognised by others until severe damage develops, or until they are hospitalised for other reasons and they suddenly experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

Psychological dependence on alcohol may occur with regular use of even relatively moderate daily amounts. It may also occur in people who consume alcohol only under certain conditions, such as before and during social occasions. This form of dependence refers to a craving for alcohol’s psychological effects, although not necessarily in amounts that produce serious intoxication. For psychologically dependent drinkers, the lack of alcohol tends to make them anxious and, in some cases, panicky.

Physical dependence occurs in consistently heavy drinkers. Since their bodies have adapted to the presence of alcohol, they suffer withdrawal symptoms if they suddenly stop drinking. Withdrawal symptoms range from jumpiness, sleeplessness, sweating, and poor appetite, to tremors (“the shakes”), convulsions. Hallucinations, and sometimes resulting in death.

Alcohol abuse can take a negative toll on the drinker’s life, fostering violence or a deterioration of personal relationships. Alcoholic behaviour can interfere with school or career goals and lead to unemployment.

Long-term alcohol abuse poses a variety of health risks, such as liver damage and increased risk of heart disease. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome may result when a pregnant woman drinks alcohol; this condition causes facial abnormalities in the child, as well as growth retardation and brain damage, which often is manifested by intellectual difficulties or behavioural problems.

The effects of any drug depend on several factors:

It is the amount of alcohol in the blood that causes the effects. In the following table, the left-hand column lists the number of milligrams of alcohol in each deciliter of blood—that is, the Blood Alcohol Concentration (or BAC). 

Alcohol rehab offered at the Ayurva Clinic in Bulgaria can take many forms depending on your individual needs. It can vary from support through self-help groups to intensive treatment in one of our rehabilitation facilities. Therapy is aimed at helping you to find out why you drink and to develop alternatives to drinking, eventually leading to a fulfilled life without alcohol. During rehabilitation, you will face up to a variety of difficult issues and may experience intense mood swings.

 

Many people enjoy a drink without any problems, but binge drinking or drinking heavily over longer periods of time can have very serious consequences on a person, their loved ones and their life. Alcohol misuse and alcoholism, not only harms the individual, but damages relationships and society in general in terms of violence and crime, accidents and drink driving.

BAC (mg/dL)Alcohol Effects:

As well as the recognised immediate effects of drinking too much, such as nausea and vomiting, binge drinking and prolonged heavy drinking over longer periods of time can affect you in many different ways.

Binge drinking can cause blackouts, memory loss and anxiety. Long-term drinking can result in permanent brain damage, serious mental health problems and alcohol dependence or alcoholism. Young people's brains are particularly vulnerable because the brain is still developing during their teenage years. Excessive alcohol use and misuse can damage parts of the brain, therefore affecting someone’s behaviour and their ability to learn and remember. This in turn can have a negative impact on education, work and relationships.

Drinking alcohol is the second biggest risk factor for cancers of the mouth and throat, with smoking is the biggest. People who develop cirrhosis of the liver, which is often caused by abuse and misuse of alcohol, can also develop liver cancer.

Alcohol can cause high blood pressure (hypertension), which increases the likelihood and risk of:

Excessive alcohol misuse can also weaken the heart muscles, which in turn affects the lungs, liver, brain and other body systems, and also cause heart failure. Binge drinking and drinking heavily over longer periods of time can cause the heart to beat irregularly (arrhythmia) and has been linked to cases of sudden death.

People who drink a lot of alcohol have more lung infections, are more likely to suffer collapsed lungs and can be more likely to get pneumonia. When a person vomits as a result of drinking alcohol, they may choke and can also have vomit sucked into their lungs.

Drinking too much alcohol initially causes fat deposits to develop in the liver. With continued excessive drinking, the liver may become inflamed, causing alcoholic hepatitis, which can result in liver failure and death. Excessive alcohol can permanently scar and damage the liver, resulting in liver cirrhosis and an increased risk of liver cancer. Women are particularly susceptible to the effects of alcohol on the liver.

Drinking above recommended limits can lead to stomach ulcers, internal bleeding and cancer. Alcohol can cause the stomach to become inflamed (gastritis), which can prevent food from being absorbed and increase the risk of cancer.

Heavy or prolonged use of alcohol can cause inflammation of the pancreas, which can be very painful – causing vomiting, fever and weight loss – and can be fatal.

Heavy drinking, such as binge drinking or long term alcohol use may result in ulcers and cancer of the colon. It also affects your body's ability to absorb nutrients and vitamins.

Heavy drinking can increase your risk of developing high blood pressure – a leading cause of chronic kidney disease.

In men:  impotence (lowered libido/sex drive) and infertility. 

In women: infertility.

Drinking alcohol when pregnant can seriously damage the development of the unborn baby. 

 

Alcohol interferes with the body's ability to absorb calcium. As a result, your bones become weak and thin (osteoporosis).

People who binge drink or drink excessively over long periods of time pile on the weight. This is because alcohol is high in calories. Weight for weight, the alcohol in a drink contains almost as many calories as fat. For example, the average bottle of wine contains 600 calories while four pints of average strength lager contain 640. This being the case the average person who drinks a bottle of wine a night will gain 4200 calories a week and someone who drinks for pint size cans a night will gain 4480 a week

Alcohol dehydrates your body and your skin. It also widens blood vessels, causing your skin to look red or blotchy.

Binge drinking makes you lose your inhibitions and affects your judgement when it comes to sex or your safety with new or unknown sexual partners. Being drunk may make you less likely to use a condom, which increases your risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection such as chlamydia, HIV or hepatitis. It can also lead to an unplanned pregnancy.

People may think that alcohol helps them cope with difficult situations and emotions, and that it reduces stress or relieves anxiety, but alcohol is in fact associated with a range of mental health problems including depression, anxiety, risk-taking behaviour, personality disorders and schizophrenia.

Alcohol has also been linked to suicide. The Mental Health Foundation reports that:

Excessive drinking can disrupt normal sleeping patterns, resulting in insomnia, needing to go to the toilet a lot at night and a lack of good quality sleep. The ill effects of reduced quality sleep is known to contribute to increased stress and anxiety.

Alcohol affects the parts of your brain that control judgement, concentration, coordination, behaviour and emotions. If you binge drink, you may be at greater risk of:

If you are physically dependent on alcohol (suffering alcohol withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking), the first step in treatment is medically assisted withdrawal or alcohol detoxification. This involves replacing alcohol with other drugs then reducing the dose over five to seven days in hospital. This may be longer if this alcoholic detox process is carried out at home or as an outpatient. The aim is to reduce the unpleasant symptoms that result from stopping drinking. These symptoms are generally worse during the first day of treatment, but quickly improve over the following days