Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

How Treatment Centers Help You Overcome Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome Safely

Once a person’s body becomes accustomed to large amounts of alcohol on a daily basis, the brain and body cannot function normally without alcohol in the system. This condition can develop in matter of weeks in cases of frequent binge drinking or when consuming large quantities on a daily basis.

Under these conditions, cutting back or abstaining from alcohol can bring on alcohol withdrawal effects within six to 12 hours time. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome develops in cases where a person stops drinking altogether.

According to the University of Iowa, alcohol addiction develops out of a pattern of uncontrolled drinking that causes considerable damage to a drinker’s physical and psychological health. Considering the level of physical dependency at work, alcohol withdrawal syndrome can bring on serious aftereffects, especially in cases where a person has other health problems.

For these reasons, most people require professional treatment help to overcome alcohol withdrawal syndrome safely. Alcohol treatment centers specialize in offering the types of physical supports needed to ease a person through the distressing symptoms that arise from alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome

Treatment centers can monitor your symptoms throughout alcohol withdrawal.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism, alcohol exerts an inhibitory or depressant-like effect on the central nervous system. Stopping alcohol use after long periods of excess consumptions causes a rebound effect to take place in the brain. This rebound creates a state of hyper-excitability, known as alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

In effect, brain chemical processes overcompensate for the lack of alcohol in the system, which gives rise to the physical symptoms associated with alcohol withdrawal.

Symptoms most likely to develop include:

Nausea
Vomiting
Tremors
Profuse sweating
Increase in body temperature

Treatment for Alcohol Withdrawal

Alcohol withdrawal symptoms can appear in anywhere from 13 to 71 percent of people entering detox treatment with seizure episodes affecting an estimated 15 percent of people during the detox stage.

Depending on the level of the addiction, alcohol withdrawal syndromes are considered minor or major in severity. Standard medication treatments used include benzodiazepine drugs, which produce sedative-type effects. Benzodiazepine drugs commonly used include Librium and Ativan. Sedative drugs directly counteract the brain’s rebound effect during the early stages of detox.

Treatment for Major Withdrawal

Years of alcoholism will inevitably produce severe symptoms as the alcohol withdrawal syndrome unfolds. Major withdrawal, also known as delirium tremens begins around three to five days after a person stops drinking.

People affected by major withdrawal will display the following symptoms:

Elevated blood pressure
Mental confusion
Visual and auditory hallucinations
Extreme agitated behavior

At this level of alcohol consumption, most people develop medical conditions as a result of long-term alcohol abuse. Nutritional deficiencies are also present.

Considering the severity of symptoms associated with major withdrawal, treatment typically requires benzodiazepines administered in injection form. Anti-psychotic medications are also given to provide relief from psychotic-type symptom, such as hallucinations and extreme agitation.

Alcohol withdrawal syndrome can place a person in considerable distress and be life threatening in cases of major withdrawal. Alcohol treatment centers offer the safest route when long-term alcohol disorders are at work.

More Treatment & Detox Articles

More help could be on way for heavy drinkers

Moves to improve ‘appalling’ services for people with alcohol problems look likely in West Sussex, amid concerns over the impact on hospitals. The West Sussex health overview and scrutiny committee was told a review of the services would follow a new five-year strategic commissioning plan for health services, to be unveiled soon by the West….

How Binge Drinking Affects The Teenage Brain

As children grow, cells in the brain (known as neurons) are constantly making new connections with other cells in the brain. The stronger these neural pathways within the brain become, the more efficiently children can perform new skills. Neural pathways within the brain strengthen whenever new skills are learnt and, to some degree, this process….

To help, or at least do no harm

Canada’s Health Minister urgently needs an education in harm reduction. Announcing his intention to shut down Insite, the supervised injection facility serving drug addicts in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Tony Clement told the House of Commons health committee that “supervised injection is not medicine; it does not heal the person addicted to drugs.” Mr. Clement got….

Tide turns in favour of drug reform

One hundred years ago, the US convened the International Opium Conference. This meeting of 13 nations in Shanghai was the beginning of global drug prohibition. Prohibition slowly became one of the most universally applied policies in the world. But a century on, international support for this blanket drug policy is slowly but inexorably unravelling. In….

Cancer treatment

Cancer is a serious disease which is responsible for major percentage of deaths in the world. A cancer can affect any part of the body. Till date there are over 100 types of cancer which are being detected and are also treated. Anyone can get affected by the cancer, theirs no discrimination. Cancer is caused….