How to get rid from alcohol addiction
Alcohol Addiction: How To Detox & Begin Recovery | Stanford
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you want me to look in the camera
we asked dr anna limke to answer common
questions she hears about alcohol use
how do you detox from alcohol
great question
one thing you should be very very aware
of is that alcohol withdrawal can be
life threatening
so if you are somebody who has been
drinking in very large amounts for a
sustained period of time there's a
chance that if you stop drinking you
could have seizures you could enter a
delirium state called delirium tremens
and without medical help you could die
so
really make sure that you get some kind
of medical advice or medical evaluation
if you think you fall into that category
in general acute alcohol withdrawal
lasts about three to
ten days and again it's that three to
let's say seven day window where people
are at very high risk for alcohol
withdrawal seizures or what we call
delirium tremens that's associated with
confusion with feeling like bugs are
crawling over you with feeling like
people are trying to get you
so signs and symptoms of psychosis
by about day 10
the acute alcohol withdrawal syndrome
has subsided but there is something
called the protracted abstinence
syndrome and this is this idea that
the craving and the kind of dopamine
deficit state that occurs with addiction
can last much much longer on the order
of
months and in some cases even years
before the brain fully heals and
normalizes
in fact we have good data showing that
it takes on average about 18 months
after stopping drinking for sleep to
totally normalize so when my patients
who are trying to get in recovery from
alcohol addiction come in and say a
month or two down the road i still i'm
not sleeping very well i say to them you
know hang in there really it's going to
get better that tincture of time alone
will heal your brain
how do you treat withdrawal from alcohol
so first thing to recognize is that
treating withdrawal from alcohol is not
the same as treating the disease of
alcoholism itself those are sort of like
different parts of the disease process
first we have to help people stop
drinking and help treat their withdrawal
but it's really only once we've gotten
them out of acute withdrawal that the
treating the disease of addiction which
is a chronic relapsing and remitting
disease actually begins
so i just wanted to kind of frame it
that way now if we think about how to
treat alcohol withdrawal the universal
symptoms of withdrawal from any
addictive substance are anxiety
irritability insomnia
depression and intrusive thoughts of
wanting to use
so for very mild cases of alcoholism
most people
don't need a medical intervention for
that alcohol withdrawal portion they
just need enough emotional and
psychological support to be able to get
through that acute withdrawal phase to
get them to the time where we actually
begin treatment for the disease of
addiction itself
but
there are quite a few people who will
need medication
to help support them through alcohol
withdrawal and those medications often
are medications that help prevent the
tremor the seizure and the delirium
tremens which can be life-threatening
and they include benzodiazepines but
also anti-seizure medication
how do you treat alcoholism
well
alcohol addiction or alcoholism or what
we usually call alcohol use disorder is
a bio psychosocial disease that means
its causes are biological
psychological and social or
environmental
therefore the treatment also needs to be
a
bio-psychosocial treatment
so for example a biological treatment
for alcohol use disorder might be to
prescribe a medication and we have
different types of medications that are
fda approved for the treatment of
alcohol use disorder one example
is a medication called naltrexone which
blocks the opioid receptors in our
brains you might ask yourself why on
earth would an opioid receptor blocker
help somebody stop drinking alcohol and
it's a great question and the reason is
because alcohol stimulates our own
endogenous or internal opioid system
and it's the reinforcement or the good
feelings that we get from triggering our
own opioid system
that leads to the release of dopamine in
the reward pathway that leads us down
the road of continued compulsive
consumption despite harm to self and or
others
so by prescribing an opioid receptor
blocker like naltrexone we essentially
abort or truncate stimulating that
endogenous opioid system
so
that patients have less craving to use
alcohol and if they do drink alcohol
while they're taking naltrexone it's
less reinforcing for them
there is lots of data showing that
individual and group psychotherapy can
be very effective for the treatment of
addiction
and then of course we have this social
or contextual piece one of the biggest
risk factors for addiction is simple
access to that drug so what we need to
do in order to help people stay in
recovery is help them change their
immediate environment and that includes
for example things like who they hang
out with right
if people are hanging out with other
people who are drinking heavily it's
very hard for them to stop themselves
and one of the things that can really
help is participation in a sober mutual
help group so going and talking to other
people
who are struggling with a similar
problem who are working on efforts to
solve that problem together and of
course the classic example is alcoholics
anonymous and we have lots of good data
showing that people who actively
participate in mutual help groups like
alcoholics anonymous actually stay sober
longer
if you or someone you love is struggling
with an alcohol use disorder please talk
to your health care professional it's
never too late to get treatment for
addiction
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