What Happens in an Alcohol Detox Program?

So you’ve become an alcoholic or alcohol addict. What should you do in order to overcome this dilemma? First of all, you need to realize that you’re addicted to alcohol in the first place. Next, you need to condition your mind towards the path of recovery and sobriety. Quitting alcohol addiction and abuse doesn’t happen overnight because ending up addicted to hard liquor did not happen overnight either. It will take time, and it will take a lot of effort, but in the end, you can be certain that it will be worth it.

Alcohol detox or detoxification will play a huge part in reaching your goal.

What Is Detoxification?

Detox is a necessary part of alcohol rehab. However, it isn’t a treatment in and of itself, though. Rather, it’s more of a necessary first step for all alcoholics need to undergo in order to attain sobriety and independence from alcohol consumption in a safe manner.

The body naturally starts detoxification as soon as you stop drinking but the process may require assistance from a rehab center in order to deal with potential alcohol withdrawal symptoms and to ensure detox success when push comes to shove.

• Detox Begins When You Stop Drinking: If you start drinking once more, even for a short period of time or even a little bit of alcohol, then the process of detoxification won’t start. You need to stop drinking for at least 6 hours.
• Detox Occurs Every Time You Stop Drinking: The human body detoxifies itself all the time in between every session of drinking. However, alcoholics have a tendency to replenish the lost alcohol before it’s totally flushed out of your system.
• Six Hours After Your Last Drink: Detoxification happens six hours after your last drink. Not so coincidentally, alcohol withdrawal symptoms also occur within the same time frame for addicts you severely abuse alcohol consumption.
• Withdrawal Symptoms of Heavy Drinkers: Speaking of alcohol withdrawal symptoms, heavy drinkers typically suffer from symptoms like headache, nausea, anxiety, and hallucination as well as delirium tremens (DTs) or severe versions of the abovementioned symptoms.
• AWS Severity Depends on the Individual: The response of your body to the natural detoxification process can be quite different to how others and their bodies might respond to it since different people have different genetic make-ups and constitutions.

Because detoxification naturally occurs in the body, detox at a rehab facility or hospital typically involves ensuring that you go through detox while dealing with any associated withdrawal symptoms that might occur. The severity or mildness of the symptoms depends on the individual.

Detox doesn’t need to be induced or anything. Rather, anti-relapse medication and inpatient care might be called for when dealing with alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS), particularly when it comes to severe or life-threatening ones like DTs. The more severe the Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), the more severe the AWS.

Do You Need to Undergo a Detoxification Program?

If you suffer from AUD or if you’re an alcohol addict, then you should undergo detox and rehabilitation in order to become sober. If what’s normal for you is having a drink in your hand and alcohol in your system, then that’s a problem right there. You need to go through the entire detoxification process with the assistance of a rehab center because it’s usually not a simple matter of willpower to quit drinking.

You need motivation but you also have to deal with withdrawal symptoms and potentially life-threatening complications like delirium tremens that requires emergency attention. The challenge of quitting alcohol cold turkey is so immense that affordable rehab centers with detoxification services via hospital partners are called for.

You should specifically search for programs that guide, support, and assist you throughout the detox process, including any AWS adverse affects you might be faced with. It’s all for the sake of keeping such symptoms from overwhelming you. The professional sponsors, doctors, nurses, and counselors of such establishments might even prescribe anti-relapse medication if so required.

Symptoms of Relapse During Alcohol Detox

When going through detoxification, you might undergo withdrawal symptoms that will compel you to relapse and drink again. These side effects are present because your body, particularly your brain, has become used to having alcohol in your system. It has become what it considers as “normal” for your body.

You need to power through the whole ordeal because the longer you’re sober the weaker the symptoms will be. Speaking of which, the symptoms include the following:

• Shakiness, especially in your hands
• Headache
• Nausea
• Anxiety
• Dysphoria
• Hallucinations
• Unstable changes in your heart rate and blood pressure
• Problems in getting sleep
• Depression
• Delirium tremens (DTs)

The symptoms from AWS can be as mild as mere nausea and a headache or as deadly as delirium tremens, hallucinations, and seizures. Regardless, if alcohol addicts were to go through DTs, it’s imperative that they get emergency help because this is a possibly life-threatening issue.

Incidentally, among all levels of severity or phases of AWS, anxiety remains the one constant withdrawal symptom. Therefore, you might end up second-guessing yourself to the point of just drinking anyway. Don’t give in to the temptation or your feelings of anxiety. Remember that addiction is part physiological and part psychological dependence.

Rehabilitation centers are available to assist you in dealing with your withdrawal symptoms and keeping you away from the bottle. They have staff and crew as well as fellow recovering alcohol addicts to assist in your road to sobriety. They even have therapists and doctors who’ll help you deal with the overwhelming emotions swirling within you as you attempt to put your life back on track.

How Long Does It Take to Detoxify Your Body From Alcohol?

Detox is the first step in your long journey towards sobriety and recovery. It’s a process you should go through in order to allow your body to cleanse itself from alcohol. The real danger behind detoxification that requires clinical attention isn’t the process itself but the relapse symptoms and the alcohol withdrawal syndrome that usually follows.

• Length of Detoxification Time:The detox process itself takes about seven days or a week up until 10 days or a week and a half. Incidentally, the withdrawal symptoms occur six hours after your last drink all the way to more than a week as well. Doctors will then assist you throughout the detox and rehab process.
• Length of Rehabilitation Time:The rehabilitation program facilitating your detox takes about a minimum of 30 to 45 days. Some patients can even go through 90-day stays at a given inpatient treatment facility. So that’s just seven days out of 30-90 days of addiction treatment.
• How long your stay at rehab is can be influenced by the following:
  • The severity of your addiction
  • Your emotional, mental, social, and physical needs
  • The presence of other conditions that are behavioral, mental, or medical in nature (thus necessitating dual or co-occurring diagnosis)
  • The specific addiction (in this case, AUD)
  • Your addiction history

Phases of AWS During Detoxification

The normal course of alcohol withdrawal syndrome usually consists of the phases or periods outlined below. These phases can change or vary in severity depending on any co-occurring diseases or conditions of the patient in question.

• Acute Withdrawal: This phase involves mild symptoms like headache or medical emergencies like DTs, tremors, seizures, and autonomic nervous system hyperactivity. Within two days or 48 hours of ceasing alcoholic consumption, seizure and tremors will occur. As for delirium tremens, they’re strongest during the first three days or 72 hours before they fade away.
• As for the physiological effects of the acute phase of AWS, brace yourself for tachycardia or increased heart rate, vomiting, increased blood pressure, diaphoresis or profuse sweating, nausea, and body temperature deregulation. If symptoms persist, consult your doctor immediately (who should be available in your rehab center of choice).
• Early Abstinence: The second period of AWS during detox involves an increase in symptoms. This is the point where you, the patient, might have to deal with disturbed sleep patterns, anxiety, and low mood. Thankfully, the acute and at times outright deadly physical symptoms of AWS should by now disappear at this phase of detoxification.
• Regardless, you’ll have to deal with your elevated anxiety for three to six more weeks of alcoholic abstinence. This is why addiction rehabilitation services typically include mindful meditation and complementary and alterative medicine like acupuncture to assist in dealing with anxiety-induced stress. Due to their physical and metabolic differences, women tend to take longer than men to go through the early abstinence phase of alcohol detox.
• Protracted Abstinence: It’s during this final phase of detoxification that the symptoms of anxiety and dysphoria tend to dissipate. On that note, dysphoria refers to the feeling you get wherein you’re in a state of profound dissatisfaction. Your alcohol-addicted body is dissatisfied because your rewired brain isn’t getting its alcohol fix. You’re uneasy because your body is compelling you drink alcohol to feel better.
• Inpatient rehab is beneficial prior to this point because you have doctors, attendants, and therapists available to keep you away from alcoholic relapse. Now that your dysphoria has eased, you can now use your willpower to deal with your cravings and lower your risk your relapse. This isn’t as easy to do during the previous phases, where your body is screaming for a drink. You will still feel remnants of being antsy during this phase. Insignificant triggers can compel you to crave alcohol.

Protracted abstinence is essentially you walking through the threshold of sobriety. After rehab is over, there’s still aftercare to consider. What’s more, don’t be fooled by having the acute physical symptoms disappear or subside. You can still be overwhelmed with your psychological dependence to alcohol.

Your relapse risk increases because of this feeling of unease and the psychological burdens you attempted to cover up with alcoholism in the first place. This lingering anxiety and how your mind interprets it can also push you to the edge of substance abuse. This is why rehab aftercare is so critical.

The Long-Term Effects of Alcohol on the Body

Alcohol consumption really does take its toll on the human body even when you take your very first drink. When you’re drunk, your skin gets tingly and red. This is because that’s your body’s “allergic reaction” to alcohol. Meanwhile, long-term alcohol abuse or AUD can also result in many complications.

Alcohol’s impact on the heart is pretty significant, which can result in the following symptoms and complications:

• Arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat)
• Stroke
• Cardiomyopathy
• High blood pressure

Alcohol also impacts your liver significantly because the organ is responsible for filtration and cleanup. By drinking loads of hard drinks like beer and wine, you can suffer from the following:

• Fatty liver
• Cirrhosis
• Fibrosis
• Alcoholic hepatitis

Excessive consumption of alcohol can weaken your immune system too. This makes you more susceptible to the diseases enumerated below:

• Tuberculosis
• Colds
• Influenza
• Pneumonia

Alcoholic addiction can also cause cancers. It can lead to the formation of various cancerous tumors, which includes:

• Tuberculosis
• Colds
• Influenza
• Pneumonia

You can also undergo emotional repercussions when you stop drinking. Watch out for the following symptoms and adverse effects:

• Nightmares
• Fatigue
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Mood swings

Alcohol consumption also reduces your appetite, which results in alcoholics eating inadequate and nutritionally poor food. This will then result in your body becoming malnourished or nutritionally compromised as soon as you enter alcohol rehab in order to deal with your alcoholism. This is dangerous because this makes you more prone to the dangers of AWS throughout the detox process.

To an unhealthy body, conditions like delirium tremens can get downright deadly. You will have to eat right from then on while consuming supplements like:

• Vitamin B1
• Folic acid
• Iron

You’ll also have to drink many herbal teas and broths to make up for your poor diet and excessive alcohol consumption all this time. The important thing here is to keep you hydrated. You’ll thusly be given loads of water with hydrating salts whenever you get dehydrated while detoxifying the alcohol in your system.

The Mental and Physical Toll of AWS During Detox

Throughout your detoxification process, medications might be prescribed to you by your attending doctors and nurses. These drugs have the following benefits:

• They assist in decreasing your alcohol cravings.
• They reduce your perceived pleasure from consuming alcohol.
• They control many of your withdrawal symptoms, including anxiety, headache, and nausea.

As for the emotional impact of AUD after detox has passed, the rehab center deals with it through:

• Group therapy
  • Sponsor-based therapy
  • 12-Step rehab meetings (like with Alcoholics Anonymous)
  • Family Sharing stories with recovering alcoholics
• Family therapy
• Individual therapy
  • Dual diagnosis
• Behavioral therapy
• Counseling sessions with in-house professionals
  • Counselors
  • Therapists
  • Psychiatrists
  • Psychologists

The idea behind psychological therapy is to unlock what triggers your desire to consume excessive amounts of alcohol in the first place. You’ll then be given advice on how to deal with your emotional baggage in more positive ways. This should then assist you to kick your bad habits and become independent of alcohol dependence.

In cases like behavioral therapy, therapists will analyze your behavior then request you to intentionally alter it so that you can approach your personal or family problems with a different perspective and a more positive reaction.

The other alternative ways of counteracting the emotional toll of AUD addiction involve stress management methods and techniques. You will specifically be taught the following:

• Exercise
• Mindful meditation
• Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
  • Yoga
  • Acupuncture

Long story short, after detoxification, your rehabilitation will start in earnest. Particularly holistic rehab centers will then deal with the different aspects of your health that has been affected by your alcoholism.

There are times when an inpatient facility is your best bet when it comes to overcoming AUD and alcoholism because such centers offer care for not only your medical needs but also your psychological ones as well. You can even get dual diagnosis services from some of these rehab centers as well, but this varies from facility to facility.

The Prevalence of Alcoholism in the U.S.A.

Approximately 17.6 million Americans have to deal with alcohol use disorder (AUD) in the United States of America. Unfortunately, only a fraction of those people bother to seek help from a professional alcoholism treatment center or rehabilitation facility. Alas, many believe themselves to not be alcoholics but casual alcohol users despite evidence to the contrary.

Don’t allow yourself to become another statistic if you believe you’re an AUD sufferer! You should get into rehab post-haste. Thankfully, even when it comes to severe AUD, many alcohol addicts can recover and become sober by availing of the right treatment for their ailment.

You should search for a good rehab facility with detoxification services and a complete program that involves methods in assisting your transition from disorder therapy to becoming sober and a contributing member of society.

If you’re looking for the luxurious alcohol rehab in a beautiful place, visit LANNA Alcohol Rehab in Thailand.