Alcohol addiction is a known problem for many families. Some do not understand the danger of cravings for alcohol, considering it a common bad habit that can be treated with a simple willpower effort. In fact, with the development of psychological and physical dependence on alcohol, the patient can be helped only by professional drug therapists, who know how to stop drinking.
Alcoholism is a chronic dangerous disease. Without timely treatment, it leads to pathological disorders in the work of internal organs and systems, personality degradation and increases the likelihood of premature death.
How to persuade someone to stop drinking
One of the main problems faced by relatives of drug addicts is how to persuade a person to stop drinking. The problem is that after the formation of his addiction, a person loses the ability to objectively assess the surrounding reality. Because of this, he can sincerely believe that everything is fine for him, if necessary, he will give up alcohol himself at any time.
In fact, at this time, physical addiction has time to develop. Ethanol toxins penetrate into tissues and internal organs, are actively involved in metabolism. Alcohol becomes essential for the normal functioning of the body, once its level decreases, a person begins to experience torturous withdrawal symptoms. The easiest way to treat them is to take another dose of alcohol. This leads to prolonged alcohol consumption, addiction develops, chronic concomitant diseases appear.
Giving up an alcoholic is not easy and coercive therapy is forbidden. Such a decision can only be made in court. However, providing medical care without patient consent is ineffective. As long as the person does not want to stop drinking, the chances of relapse will remain very high.
Mandatory treatment alternatives
To obtain the consent of an alcoholic, relatives are advised to intervene. To do this, all family members must come together and act together:
- Reject ultimatums, threats and scandals. This will not help convince the alcoholic to get rid of the addiction. Instead, a person can become even more attracted to himself.
- It is necessary to refuse any help in solving the problems provoked by alcoholism until the patient agrees to accept drug treatment.
- The use of folk remedies and methods should be abandoned. They can only help in the early stages of addiction, and even then not always. Often the patient's condition can only worsen, and the alcoholism will move to the next stage.
- Instead, you should choose a drug treatment clinic in advance.
- Take advantage of the situation when the patient suffers from withdrawal symptoms. They are so torturous that most agree to go to a doctor to stop suffering.
Another way is to contact motivational psychologists from the drug treatment clinic. They conduct confidential conversations at home, are aware of the peculiarities of the psychology of alcoholics to achieve a result.
Motivation to get rid of addiction
An honest conversation will help the alcoholic make an important choice and agree to go through all the stages of complex therapy. During it, relatives will be able to give weighty arguments and motives that must convince a person to make this responsible decision. These motives may include:
- Children and Family - Expecting or planning for a child is incompatible with alcoholism, such as raising young children. For some, the decisive factor is the emergence of a real and tangible threat to the loss of the family.
- A state of health, when new diseases begin to be detected in a person, the internal organs gradually fail, systemic failures occur in the body, this becomes clear evidence that it is necessary to stop.
- Careers start to suffer a lot due to addiction. The prospect of losing your job, everything to be achieved earlier in the professional field, become a good incentive. Drinking alcohol over time inevitably affects the success of work: brain activity decreases, sense of responsibility weakens, discipline limps.
- Reputation does not often become the main reason to quit drinking, but it does exist. At the very least, this argument should be used in conjunction with other motives for the alcoholic to give up alcohol. If the patient is chronically addicted, self-esteem loses value due to severe psychological changes and personality degradation.
- Moral or physical fatigue from the systematic use of alcohol. In some cases, it is possible to get a person to look at themselves objectively from the outside, to understand the meaninglessness and hopelessness of such a situation. The main thing may be the fact that the patient ceases to enjoy alcohol, from the pleasure it was before, no trace remains.
- Significant changes in life. In this case, a clear awareness of the boredom of the current reality and the desire to radically change everything should play a role.
Once you have reached voluntary consent and informed about the complex treatment of alcoholism, you should move on to the therapy phases. The program is developed on an individual basis, taking into account the psychological and physiological characteristics of the patient. Regular meetings are held with a psychotherapist, if necessary, to keep the level of motivation at the right level.
How to start addiction treatment?
Patients and their relatives need to be prepared for the fact that the fight against alcoholism will take a long time - on average, about a year. As a start, doctors are doing everything possible to rid the body of the remnants of alcohol and ethanol toxins.
For this, drug detoxification is performed if the patient can not endure just one week without alcohol. They do the same when they withdraw from heavy drinking.
The patient is given a dropper with powerful drugs in the form of solutions. There are two reasons why it is not possible to organize diffuse therapy yourself, even if you read a lot of online posts:
- Only an experienced physician, based on the results of the expressed diagnosis, can determine which medication should be included in the dropper, what should be the dose.
- Mostly, when removing a person from heavy drinking and cleansing the body of toxins, powerful drugs are used, which can be bought in a pharmacy only with a doctor's prescription.
The dropper is placed for about two hours. During all this time, the narcologist is next to the alcoholic, monitoring the indicators of vital organs. Leaving, he leaves the medication for relatives for the following days, gives advice on what to do when the patient comes to his senses.
Diagnosing
To decide which methods of treating alcohol dependence should be used, you should do a comprehensive examination. This allows you to make an accurate diagnosis of the patient, to establish all existing risk factors.
Diagnosis involves examining and questioning the patient, scheduling laboratory tests. The complexity of these measures allows you to determine:
- addiction phase;
- physiological and psychological characteristics;
- how long and how often a person has drunk alcohol, what kind of alcoholic beverages he prefers;
- if the treatment is not performed for the first time, the past experience is specified, for what reason there was a relapse;
- chronic comorbidities and dangerous disorders;
- allergic reactions;
- intolerance to individual components of drugs;
- the level of motivation of the patient, how much he wants to get rid of the addiction.
After evaluating the results obtained, the narcologist, during the consultation, together with the patient and his relatives, discusses a complete treatment program, gives recommendations on how to perform the therapy as effectively as possible.
encryption
The next step in the fight against alcohol addiction is coding. Doctors use medicated rather than curative methods. Diagnosis simply helps to determine which of the options will be effective and safe.
Alcohol coding can be done at home or in a hospital setting. It all depends on the patient's condition and the recommendations of the attending physician. Common coding methods for drinking alcohol include:
- Implant closure or other methods for introducing disulfiram-based drugs into the body. The active ingredient blocks liver enzymes responsible for the breakdown of ethanol toxins in water and carbon dioxide that are completely harmless to humans. When this does not happen, the breakdown patient experiences torturous symptoms of severe intoxication. The patient's condition worsens significantly in just a few minutes, even from a small dose of alcohol. This is an effective method of inhibitory therapy, as a person forms a persistent psychological barrier. He constantly remembers that he could die if he dared to drink. The chance of death is high if an effective antidote is not given in time.
- Use of naltrexone-based medicines. This is another drug coding technique, but not as dramatic as the previous one. In this case, the active substance blocks the receptors in the brain, which are responsible for getting a sense of pleasure from drinking. As a result, if the patient, after coding, still dares to drink, he simply will not feel anything. Because of this, he will decide to give up alcohol, as it is meaningless, at least for the duration of the coding.
- A psychotherapeutic technique based on immersing the patient in a state of deep ecstasy. In this position, the patient's suggestibility increases greatly, while he is fully aware of where he is, what is happening to him. An experienced doctor gives clear guidelines for alcohol aversion and a healthy lifestyle in the future.
The coding period varies from a few months to five years. Often they choose a coding for a period of one year, this time is enough to stop drinking, the patient managed to understand the benefits of a measured life, to pass the rest of the stages of complex therapy.
Psychological rehabilitation
To consolidate the effect achieved after coding, it is required to undergo a course of psychological rehabilitation in a hospital department of a narcology clinic. If earlier stages of treatment could be arranged at home, hospitalization is now required. This is the only way to rule out the possibility of relapse, protecting a person from negative external social influences.
During psychological rehabilitation, it is possible to eventually eliminate the physical and psychological desire for alcoholic beverages. For this, the following techniques are used:
- Individual and group psychological sessions that help the patient understand his problems, learn to solve life's difficulties and have fun without drinking alcohol.
- The 12-step rehabilitation program is an effective technique of US origin. It is based on recognizing helplessness in the face of solving a problem, accepting help from a High Power (it could be a religion or a mentor - a former alcoholic who has successfully recovered thanks to this program).
- Day Top rehabilitation program is based on the possibility of self-healing, the doctor takes an observant position.
- Family psychotherapy helps not only the alcoholic, but also his relatives, when they develop interdependence, helps to restore family relationships.
To rule out a relapse, upon discharge from the hospital, each patient receives psychological support after rehabilitation.