Common signs of alcohol dependence and withdrawal, and where to go for help.
For some people alcohol can be part of many occasions but like many drugs it’s addictive, both physically and psychologically.
An English study performed by the NHS estimates that around 9% of men in the UK and 3% of UK women show signs of Alcohol dependence and withdrawal. This means that drinking alcohol becomes an important, or sometimes the most important, factor in their life and they feel they’re unable to function without it.
To get some further context a study was commissioned by UCLA Berkley and found that 11% of men and 5% of females in the United States also showed signs of alcohol dependence.
What is alcohol dependence?
Often referred to as ‘alcoholism’ being reliant on alcohol to function is often described as being in a state where you are unable to control your ability to drink often ending in excluding yourself from family, friends and loved ones just to drink.
Depending on the stage of the dependence on alcohol most alcoholics will say that their day-to-day lives revolve around alcohol, which often leads to experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms if they choose to stop.
There are varying degrees of alcohol dependence and they don’t always involve excessive levels of drinking. Alcohol treatment can vary as much as the degree of dependency. If you find that you ‘need’ to share a bottle of wine with your partner most nights of the week, or always go for a few pints after work, just to unwind, you’re likely to be drinking at a level that could affect your long-term health.
It’s quite easy to become dependent on alcohol, if you have a glass of wine or a beer after work or a hard day to relax it won’t take long for your body to become psychologically dependent on alcohol. On the more extreme end are physical signs of reliance such as:
Shakes
Sweating
Nausea
Headaches
Mood Swings
View our addiction resources here
https://libertyaddictionrecovery.com/addiction-resources/
Alcohol misuse or Alcohol reliance?
The terms alcohol / Alcohol misuse and alcohol reliance are frequently utilized reciprocally, when in reality restoratively, there is clear differentiation between the two. Both include the genuine abuse of alcohol prone to make genuine harm wellbeing and prosperity. Be that as it may, while individuals with alcohol misuse issues for the most part figure out how to carry on their lives with some similarity to ordinariness, when reliance kicks in, the alcohol dominates.
Liquor misuse alludes to ordinary extreme drinking which has a progressively substantial adverse impact on individuals’ lives. Instances of this incorporate neglecting to satisfy work, family or social commitments because of repetitive drinking; experiences with the law or crisis administrations emerging from over the top alcohol use or consistently consolidating alcohol with genuinely risky circumstances, for example, driving or working hardware.
On the off chance that you are concerned that you are manhandling or abusing alcohol, visit our page on hitting the bottle hard.
As laid out above, when reliance sets in, alcohol assumes control over the focal job in somebody’s life and they normally wind up surrendering significant exercises and connections in view of their drinking. One of the early indications of reliance is the point at which you need more alcohol to accomplish the ideal impact. As reliance gets progressively settled, individuals wind up investing the majority of their energy considering alcohol or taking part in exercises important to get, use, or recuperate from the impacts of drinking. At that point, as reliance assumes control over, individuals notice that they get the shakes in the event that they don’t have a beverage. Thus they basically need to continue drinking to abstain from encountering these withdrawal manifestations.
Signs and manifestations of alcohol reliance
In case you’re stressed that you might be turning out to be alcohol subordinate or are worried about another person’s drinking, pay special mind to these four notice signs and side effects:
- Agonizing over where your next beverage is originating from and arranging social, family and work occasions around alcohol.
- Discovering you have an urgent need to drink and thinking that it’s difficult to stop once you start.
- Awakening and drinking – or wanting to have a beverage in the first part of the day.
- Experiencing withdrawal side effects, for example, perspiring, shaking and sickness, which stop once you drink alcohol.
In case you’re concerned that you have any of these manifestations of alcohol reliance, converse with your GP or look for additional data from one of the associations at the base of this page.
What causes alcohol reliance?
Usually several different factors contribute to someone becoming alcohol dependent. Alcohol dependence can run in families. It’s partly down to your genes, but is also influenced by your family’s attitudes to alcohol and the environment you grow up in.
Stressful events, such as bereavement or losing a job, can also trigger heavy drinking, which can then lead to Alcohol dependence and withdrawal.
People who are alcohol dependent have higher rates of other psychiatric disorders than people in the general population – particularly depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis and drug misuse. Often, people drink to try and reduce the symptoms (sometimes known as ‘self-medicating’), but in the long term alcohol makes these disorders worse because it interferes with the chemical balance in our brains.
Some people believe that there’s such thing as an ‘addictive personality’ which leads to alcohol dependence. But there’s not much strong evidence to support this view.
How to reduce your risk of becoming alcohol dependent
Put simply, you should aim to take regular breaks from alcohol as studies have shown it is the best way to lower your risk of addiction and dependency. Building tolerance to a physiological response is any drug is quite simple: The greater amount of liquor / alcohol you consume the more you will require to reach the same heights each time. Thus scaling to a potentially dangerous level.
Brain systems get tolerant to alcohol too, and although you may be able to walk a straight line after drinking quite a lot, this means the brain has adapted so that next day the brain cells ‘expect’ alcohol. Withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety and jitteriness occur, and you can find yourself drinking alcohol just to relieve that.
When you’re drinking most days you can become psychologically dependent on alcohol too.
Effects of alcohol dependence and withdrawal on the body
By now we’ve established that being reliant / dependent on liquor can lead to a whole range of health problems. It’s frequent for alcoholics to develop liver related diseases, heart diseases and high blood pressure, consistent drinking of large amounts of a range of years has shown to have caused liver damage in 70% of cases.
Coupled with this, Alcohol dependence has been known to contribute to mental health problems such as:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Suicidal Feelings
This is because regular, heavy drinking interferes with neurotransmitters in our brains that are needed for good mental health.
Being dependent on alcohol can affect your relationships with your partner, family and friends. It might mean you don’t perform so well at work and if that continues for any length of time you could face losing your job, leading to financial problems as well. These issues can also contribute to depression and anxiety. Alcohol can also make you more aggressive. If you use alcohol to try and improve your mood, you may be starting a vicious cycle.
If you think your mental health is suffering because of your drinking, but you feel you’re not able to stop, ask for professional help. Start with a visit to your GP or by contacting one of the organisations listed at the end of this page. To learn more about alcohol’s effects on the body, read our article “Is alcohol a stimulant or depressant?“
Alcohol withdrawal symptoms
As we mentioned earlier, if you are dependent on alcohol, simply stopping drinking can be bad for your health, always talk with a medical professional on advice if you are wanting to reduce your alcohol consumption.
Withdrawal symptoms can be physical and psychological
Physical alcohol withdrawal symptoms include:
- hand tremors (‘the shakes’)
- Sweating
- Nausea
- visual hallucinations (seeing things that are not actually real)
- seizures (fits) in the most serious cases
Psychological alcohol withdrawal symptoms include:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Irritability
- Restlessness
- insomnia (difficulty sleeping)
Severely dependent drinkers usually experience very strong alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Sometimes people drink to avoid these symptoms, a pattern known as ‘relief drinking’6.
It can take between three months and a year to fully recover from the effects of alcohol withdrawal. Even then, the brain remains abnormally sensitive to alcohol7. So if you start drinking again, your high tolerance to alcohol and withdrawal symptoms can come back within a few days8. It’s why doctors usually recommend that you don’t start drinking again, even in moderation.
Some helpful links:
Read how Liberty Addiction helps people suffering from alcohol addiction here
Take our simple test on Alcohol addiction here
See what our previous clients have said about us here
References
(1) NHS Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2015. Available at: http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB17712
(2) The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking. Office of the General Surgeon. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44358/
(3) Drinkaware interview with Dr Nick Sheron, Liver specialist at Southampton University. Available at: https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/make-a-change/how-to-cut-down/take-a-break-from-alcohol
(4) NHS Choices website, Alcohol-related liver disease – treatment. The Information Standard member organisation. Last reviewed: last reviewed: 24/09/2015. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Liver_disease_%28alcoholic%29/Pages/Treatmentpg.aspx
(5) NHS Choices website, Alcohol-related liver disease: introduction. The Information Standard member organisation. Last reviewed: 24/09/2015.Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Liver_disease_%28alcoholic%29/Pages/Introduction.aspx
(6) NHS Choices website, Alcohol misuse – introduction. The Information Standard member organisation. Last reviewed: 28/11/2015. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Alcohol-misuse/Pages/Introduction.aspx
(7) (8) National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) website, Alcohol use disorders. The Information Standard member organisation. Page last reviewed: April 2015. Available at: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg115
(9) (10) (11) NHS Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2015. Available at: http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB17712
