When Does Alcohol Use Become Alcoholism?

According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly 6% (3.3 million deaths) of all deaths around the world each year are due to alcohol use or misuse. The dangerous effects of abusing alcohol are far-reaching and can range from disease, personal health risks, and death to the breakdown of family relationships and friendships, legal trouble, and harmful social consequences.

Defining of Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a severe type of alcohol abuse. This is usually characterized by a person who cannot manage their drinking habits any longer.

Alcoholism is a disease, which can be organized by medical professional into three categories of mild, moderate or severe.Each category has specific symptoms and they often present increasing and severe side effects.

Generally speaking, a person with a drinking problem will usually start noticing their alcoholism when others start pointing it out, or they start realizing the  consequences themselves. They often cannot function without a drink, and this usually turns into a wide range of issues long term:

• Personal matters
• Professional goals
• Overall health
• Relationships

The effects of alcoholism will become worse and become more complicated if left untreated. From severe medical complications to loss of job, and many other personal repercussions.

How Can You Tell if You Have a Drinking Problem or Alcoholism?

Diagnosis of alcoholism is not easy. Every person will vary and it often depends on the culture and surrounding society.

The rule of thumb is “If you are questioning if you are an alcoholic”, you are likely addicted. Non-alcoholics do not sit aroujnd questioning their alcohol consumption. This coincides with the first stage we call denial.

Here are a few tell tail signs you might have a drinking problem:

1. Feel ashamed or guilty about drinking.
2. Have to drink to feel better or relax.
3. Hide your drinking or lie to others.
4. Regularly drink more than you intended to.
5. Forget what you did or “black out” while drinking.
6. Ignore the negative impact of your drinking and continue to use alcohol despite undesired consequences, including physical danger.
7. Withdraw from family, important work, social activities and roles.
8. Build a tolerance to alcohol. You have the ability to drink more than others without becoming drunk or you need to drink more alcohol in order to feel the same effects.
9. Experience withdrawal symptoms. After you cut back or stop drinking, you experience symptoms of sweating, anxiety, trouble sleeping, trembling and nausea or vomiting. You may even experience harsher symptoms like hallucinations and seizures. You have to drink to avoid or relieve these symptoms.
10. Have a preoccupation with drinking or a compulsion to drink. Individuals with alcoholism will physically and psychologically rely on alcohol. An alcoholic’s brain will adapt to the presence of alcohol and undergo persistent changes.
11. When alcohol use stops suddenly, the body isn’t used to being free of alcohol. This causes withdrawal symptoms, which occurs due to physical addiction. This means you are drinking too much, and too often.

Health Issues Associated with Alcohol Abuse

Alcoholism can cause and complicate a variety of physical and mental health issues, such as:

• Chronic depression.
• Anxiety
• Liver disease.
• Autoimmune conditions.
• Psychological disorders.
• Attachment disorders.
• Gastrointestinal issues.

Alcoholism can and often will:

1. Increase your risk of depression and suicide.
2. Cause traffic accidents or accidents involving intoxicated pedestrians deciding to walk home drunk.
3. Play a key role in violent crimes like domestic violence and homicide.
4. Lead to unsafe sexual behaviors, resulting in sexually transmitted disease and accidental pregnancy.
5. Exponentially increases your risk of liver disease (cirrhosis and hepatitis).
6. Increase your risk of stomach ulcers.
7. Increase your risk of heart disease.
8. Increase your risk of stroke or brain damage.
9. Low Testosterone and Thyroid Levels
10. Diabetes

Women who drink alcohol while pregnant pose considerable danger to their unborn child, which will often cause their child to experience various health issues like:

• Fetal alcohol syndrome
• Low birth weight
• Heart defects
• Low birth weight
• Learning difficulties

Other Risk Factors Associated with Alcohol Abuse

Yes, it is true that a person can have a predisposition to alcoholism. The risk factors that increase the probability of having alcoholism include:

• Childhood or adolescent trauma.
• Early exposure to alcohol abuse.
• Genetics.
• Co-occurring disorders or psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.
• Your social environment.

Problems can stem from a combination of environmental influences and biological tendencies.

1. Environment: Alcohol can be a huge part of an individual’s social group, and can be very destructive to a persons family life, especially early on. Causing them to turn to alcohol for stress relief. This often backfires since drinking causes its own issues.

2. Biology: Individuals with a family history of alcoholism have a greater risk of developing alcoholism themselves. For example, if you have a parent with alcoholism, you are at greater risk of struggling with alcoholism yourself.

Research from the NIH – i is possible that you may inherite genes, which can raise the probability of developing an addiction to alcohol.

Though genetics alone cannot account for a person’s alcohol abuse, genetics can increase the likelihood of alcohol abuse, especially when coupled with other environmental risk factors such as trauma or inappropriate exposure to alcohol at an early age.

Some ethnic groups, like Native North Americans may also have a higher risk of becoming addicted to alcohol than others.

To sum it up, if somebody has a family history of alcohol abuse or associates with heavy drinkers, they are at risk of developing alcoholism.

Evidence Based Treatment for Alcoholism

You can break the treatment of alcohol addiction down into three phases, which consist of:

1. Detoxification:

The first phase of treating alcoholism is detoxification.This is vital because alcohol detox can have severe medical side effects, which can lead to death if mismanaged. Supervision and guidance from a medical professional is necessary to avoid serious health risks, but they can help ease withdrawal symptoms with specific medication.

2. Rehabilitation

Rehab comes in two forms:

• Inpatient rehab
• Outpatient rehab

With inpatient rehab, you’ll be in an intensive treatment program where you’ll check into a facility for a certain amount of time. Generally, inpatient treatment lasts 30, 60 or 90 days.
With outpatient rehab, you’ll participate in a rehabilitation or recovery program, but you can continue on with your day-to-day life.

3. Maintenance

Completing rehab doesn’t complete your recovery process. To maintain long-term sobriety, you need ongoing support. Long-term support options may include individual therapy, group counseling, and/or support groups.

Maintenance programs help people recovering from alcoholism stay sober and recognize warning signs before a relapse happens.

• Go to rehab
• Get therapy
• Rely on self-help programs
• Take a self-directed approach to treatment

Recovery

To achieve ongoing recovery, you need a program that treats the underlying causes of alcoholism, not just detoxification.

We want everyone to know, you are not alone, and there is a solution. Alcoholism is a treatable disease, and our programs have worked for thousands of patients over the last few decades.

Feel free to call us anytime, and we will help you take the next step, and answer all of your questions.