Alcoholics trying to stop drinking face serious and sometimes life-threatening withdrawal symptoms. When you stop drinking alcohol, your body reacts to it through withdrawal symptoms because you are both psychologically and physically addicted to it. If you are trying to stop drinking, learn more about the symptoms you may face during withdrawal and why you may need medical supervision for some of them.
Withdrawal Symptoms And Your Autonomic Nervous System
After you take your last drink of alcohol, you will experience an array of symptoms, some debilitating enough to keep you in bed. Most of the first symptoms appear within 6 to 12 hours after your last drink. Your symptoms may include headache, nausea, vomiting, extreme anxiety, agitation and insomnia. These kinds of symptoms arise from your body's autonomic nervous system being too active. Your autonomic nervous system is responsible for your system's management of stress. When you drink alcohol every day, your autonomic nervous system adjusts to it and becomes depressed. When the autonomic nervous system begins sending your brain messages that it would normally without the depression of alcohol, you feel it through withdrawal symptoms.
Delerium Tremens And Rehab Center
Some alcohol withdrawal symptoms can be severe and even life-threatening. Because some withdrawal symptoms can be severe, checking into a rehab center with qualified medical personnel on staff is a good idea. Delirium tremens is the harshest kind of alcohol withdrawal. Commonly called DTs, delirium tremens can cause hallucinations, high agitation, increases in heart and breathing rates and blood pressure. Alcoholics that experience DTs usually exhibit these kinds of symptoms between 2 and 4 days after their last drink. Alcoholics experiencing DTs in a rehab center have better chances of enduring DTs because medical staff are there to help. In a substance abuse rehab center, you will have help getting through the physical and psychological side effects of DTs.
Counseling And Psychological Addiction
When you stop drinking, your body's physical withdrawal symptoms usually do not last as long as the psychological symptoms like cravings, depression and suicidal thoughts. If you are also taking other drugs like prescription painkillers to tone down withdrawal symptoms of alcohol, you could be opening the door for an addiction to pain killers. Visiting a professional counselor until you recover from psychological symptoms is a good idea for being more successful at staying sober.
Giving up alcohol can one of the hardest challenges you may face in your life. However, the benefits of being sober are certainly worth it. Contact a center for substance abuse treatment for more information and assistance.
Share30 June 2016
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