alcohol treatment options

The number of people suffering from alcoholism grows every year at an increasing rate.

In the United States, it has been said that 14 million people are suffering from alcoholism but only 700,000 are being treated.
The problem of alcoholism in the United States needs to be readily addressed.

Alcoholism is detrimental not only to society when we speak of crimes, violence and accidents but also to the person suffering from it and the people around him or her.
Alcoholics produce actions that are harmful or offensive to other people but most of the time, their actions make themselves suffer.
There are lots of cons to consider when you are an alcoholic including your physical health and emotional well-being and so alcohol treatment options have been the distress of the government and the families of alcoholics.

As regards the concerns about physical health, alcoholics are more prone to the development of certain disorders such as

  • thinning of the intestines
  • Development of ulcer
  • irritations in the pancreas
  • liver scarring
  • significant memory loss or deterioration of the brain
  • heart problems.

On the other hand, the emotional well-being is also negatively affected as too much alcohol in the body can lead to increased anxiety, tiredness, irritability and hallucination. Also, other external factors including the response of people from the environment tend to lower the self-esteem and well-being of an individual by the harsh words people say, the way they act when an alcoholic is around or the way people treat an alcoholic. With all of these reasons and many others, what is the right treatment for alcoholism available to alcoholics?

One of the very common treatments for alcoholism is the psychological approach.
In this approach, a person suffering from alcohol abuse is being treated with the use of techniques such as motivational consultation, behavior controlling and therapies including aversion therapy, relaxation therapy, family therapy and other related therapies that could get to the root of why a person developed an addiction to alcohol in order for the therapist to solve it.

The family is an important factor in combating alcoholism especially in the cases where an alcoholic is a teenager.
With proper guidance and support from the family, it is most likely that psychological intervention to alcoholism would be effective and efficient.
Usual reprimanding and being strict would not help a lot, but a heart to heart talk along with the family’s portrayal of love, care and affection would definitely help a lot in overcoming alcoholism.

In the United States, the most common treatment under the psychological approach is the professional treatment program based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
With the 12 steps, the treatment of alcoholism in the United States has been effective, although not all people suffering from alcohol are being completely cured by these 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous or the other psychological interventions.

Medication is another recommended treatment and with this, a patient is advised by a medical professional to consume medicines that could relieve his problems with alcoholism and later on totally eradicate it. Medicines seen to be operational or has potential in combating alcoholism include:

  • Antabuse – combats alcoholism by making a person sick when he or she drinks alcohol
  • Opiate antagonists Naltrexone and Nalmefene – eradicate the addicting effects of alcoholic beverages such as the feeling of pleasure
  • Acamprosate – being studied extensively in the United States for its potential help with alcoholics as it has shown to make alcoholics have longer abstinence from alcohol.
  • Chantrix – help heavy drinkers reduce their average number of drinks per week by more than 30%
  • Ondansetron – works on serotonin in order to reduce the craving for alcohol

People under extreme problems associated with alcohol that cannot be cured by merely going for a consultation or consuming pharmaceutical products to fight alcoholism are suggested to undertake the process of rehabilitation.
The patient is being kept and taken care of in a medical facility where he or she will be detoxified to remedy the physical and chemical damages of alcohol.

The patient will also be educated with the alcohol itself, the techniques in order to resist the urge when faced with an alcoholic beverage and how to prevent his or her self from longing for alcohol.

It is also important for a patient to understand why life without alcohol addiction is better, the negative effects of alcohol to one’s life and most importantly, how happy it is to go back to his or her normal life after the treatment for alcohol addiction at the facility has been successful.

With the aid of technological advancements and widening knowledge in medicine, we now have so much freedom to choose the best among the alcoholism treatments available in the United States and all over the world.

May it be psychological, pharmaceutical and institutional or any other, the most important thing is that a person suffering from alcohol addiction would finally be cured and pursues his or her future without the worries when his body and mind was intoxicated. Alcoholism can destroy education, careers, lives and dreams. It’s a good thing we have alcohol treatment options to gain them back.