Added: 01/10/2006 |
Drinking alcohol and health are closely connectedAlcoholism is a very serious and dangerous disease. And even though many people think that alcohol addiction is only an ethical problem, it still needs professional medical treatment.
It is the mechanism with which alcohol affects the human body that makes it so addictive. Drinking alcohol causes the release of biological substances called endorphins. The main goal of these bio-agents in other situations is to make the human body repeat positive experiences, so it serves as a learning instrument. It is because of this, that people want to drink alcohol again and again. And, in many cases, in order for them to reach the same effect, people need to increase the dosage of alcohol. This is physiological dependence. But along with this physiological dependence alcohol usually forms a psychological addiction. And that makes all the treatment procedures very
complex. They have to be performed in two stages.
At the first stage of different methods, the physical dependence is treated. This is a detoxification step. As long as all the alcohol withdrawal symptoms are very serious, this stage is performed under medical control (usually at a hospital and even special medications are often used to make it easier for patients to handle all the withdrawal symptoms). But even when physical dependence is cured, psychological addiction remains. So, the alcohol addict also needs a long course of psychological therapy. It has been proven that a group therapy is the most effective on this step.
And it is also necessary to understand clearly that dependence on alcohol and health conditions are closely connected. And dependence on alcohol and health effects it has are very dangerous. As long as alcohol is transformed in the liver, the first organ that is damaged will be the liver. Different sorts of liver diseases are common among alcohol addicts. But the consequences of addiction to alcohol and health effects can be far more serious. One of the most serious results of dependence is irreversible brain deterioration.
And of course alcohol addiction also has social effects. It can seriously harm and even ruin someone's personal life. People with alcohol addiction usually have problems with employment, too. And alcohol dependence affects not only the life of the addict but also the lives of his/her relatives. In many cases the children of alcohol addicts also have a great risk of future development of alcohol dependence.
All these effects alcohol consumption has on alcohol and health make all the treatment procedures very important. And many clinics have even developed a new approach - they treat alcoholism before its actual development. There are certain medical tests that can show people that potentially are alcohol addicts. And knowing about the potential danger, these people can regulate the amount of alcohol they drink to lower the effect and prevent alcohol addiction. But still such techniques are rare. Most clinics and medical centers use traditional methods of detoxification and physiological therapy.
And even after recovery many people usually experience so-called "Dry Drunk" which presents another problem.
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