Alcohol abuse – How Might Alcohol Affect Your Health

December 21, 2009

alcohol consumption

There are various ways that alcohol can affect our health and our social skills; After one or two drinks you start to feel more at ease and more socialble as the alcohol gets into the brain and affects your thinking.
Drinking alcohol causes your heart rate to heighten and you may feel a warm glow. This is caused by alcohol making the tiny blood vessels in the skin enlarge, allowing blood to flow closer to the surface and lowers blood pressure.

How Alcohol Affects Our Health

The dangers of drinking excessive amounts of alcohol can be extreme. Alcohol health dangers include anxiety, slowed breathing and heartbeat, impaired judgment leading to accidents and injuries, loss of consciousness, suffocation through choking on your own vomit and potentially fatal alcohol poisoning. Drinking too much alcohol can also effect you mentally (generally temporarily), inducing guilt, anger and even paranoia, for no real reason. Your words may slurr, often don’t recognise your surroundings and drinking too much alcohol can result in memory loss.

Heavy drinking increases your calorie intake, resulting in it being partially responsible for adult obesity. In a medium-sized (175ml) glass of wine there are 125 calories and in a bottle there are over 500 calories. So thats about one quarter of your guidline daily calorie allowance!

Hangovers – Headaches could be the least of your worries

Alcohol consumption may cause you to get a hangover the next morning, often being undesirable to experience. You may experience stomach ache, sickness, nausea and sometimes diarrhea, Alcohol misuse also dehydrates you. Alcohol can also make you feel sad, guilty

.
If you drink over the guidline daily units often you are putting your health at risk. Consuming alcohol in large quantities increases blood pressure.

Alcohol consumption is frequently associated with mental health problems. A recent British survey found that people with anxiety or depression were twice as likely to be heavy drinkers.

High quantities of drinking can occasionally cause ‘psychosis’, a serious mental illness where the person beleives others are out to get them. Heavy drinking may lead to isolation and depression.

 

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A Young Man Makes an Appointment to See His Family Doctor About His Alcohol Problems and His Depression

November 13, 2009

Denny is a fifteen-year-old adolescent who has finally determined that he needs to go and see his healthcare professional about his hazardous and excessive drinking. At first, Denny thought he would be able to basically go on the Internet, look for some basic alcohol info and make up his mind whether or not he was addicted to alcohol.

Not surprisingly, he located numerous websites that highlighted some of the typical alcoholism symptoms. That’s the encouraging news. The less positive news, sadly, was that Denny manifested a number of these alcoholism symptoms.

Alcohol Addiction Symptoms Revisited

As a case in point, Denny has been drinking much more than normal and he has started to have more passionate bickering with the young lady he is dating. Furthermore, for the first time in his life he has been going through sleeping issues. If this wasn’t enough, Denny regularly has felt depressed and on an increasing basis he has been demonstrating limited attention to detail in the classroom. Additionally, he has felt highly stressed and more tense on a regular basis and for the past six or seven months he has displayed questionable thinking in the classroom. Because Denny has been exhibiting all of these symptoms, he was excusably concerned about his excessive drinking.

So Denny at long last made up his mind to contact his family physician and ask for an appointment. As a matter of fact, this was hard for Denny because his healthcare practitioner was also his parents’ family physician. The basis for his anxiety was this: at the risk of embarrassing his family, he had to go and expose his hazardous and abusive drinking behavior to his healthcare professional.

When Denny arrived at the family physician’s office, he explicitly informed the physician about the apprehension he has about his excessive drinking behavior. When the doctor asked what was bringing about this concern, Denny mentioned that he had gone online and read about alcohol dependency and especially about alcohol addiction symptoms. He then articulated all of the alcoholism symptoms that he obviously thought he exhibits.

A Thorough Physical Appraisal and Outpatient Alcohol Rehab

The family healthcare practitioner notified Denny that it was wise of him to deal with his drinking difficulties, he gave Denny an exhaustive physical assessment, and recommended that he talk to his Mom and Dad about signing into an out-patient alcohol treatment program that was managed by Doctor Myers, one of his doctor co-workers who is an alcohol addiction and alcohol abuse specialist.

Moreover, when Denny articulated that he has been feeling a sense of melancholy to an increasing extent, the family doctor notified Denny that alcoholism and depression on a fairly routine basis arise in the same person. Consequently, the family healthcare practitioner also suggested that Denny talk to his Mother and Father about getting therapy to focus on his sense of gloom. In fact, Denny can go to the local mental health center and make an appointment with Doctor Arndt, a celebrated counseling psychologist who specializes in treating teens.

The Importance of Coming To Grips With Your Drinking Difficulties and Getting Encouraged About Making Positive and Healthy Changes in Your Life

The doctor made it a point to tell Denny that he might not necessarily be dependent on alcohol, but that he was certainly drinking in an abusive manner. Stated differently, Denny was involving himself in teen alcohol abuse. The healthcare practitioner then told Denny that the reason he recommended alcohol rehabilitation in the first place was because he wanted him to face up to his drinking issues, make sure that he prevented them from worsening, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that he had to entirely refrain from drinking.

In a nutshell, by successfully treating his problem drinking, Denny would be able to get his drinking difficulties under control and abstain from the negative cycle that could most likely result in alcoholism.

Denny understandably did not look forward to facing his Mother and Father about his abusive drinking and his depression. And he certainly did not want to face the thought of getting registered into an alcohol treatment program. And as a final point, he was not thrilled about going to a therapist about his sense of gloom. Despite these apprehensions, nonetheless, Denny in fact felt some psychological relief for the first time in many months because he finally stopped making excuses for himself and at long last made up his mind that he needed to do something productive about his excessive and hazardous drinking.

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The Central Issues in An Effective Alcohol Abuse Intervention

November 08, 2009

What are the fundamental factors in an effective alcohol intervention? Why do some alcohol dependency interventions succeed as planned while several bomb?

The Requirement for a Time-Honored Track Record of Intervention Attainment

Scientific exploration demonstrates that a successful alcohol abuse intervention needs to be managed by an intervention expert who has a proven record of intervention attainment.

Basically this means that rather than choosing a “normal” addiction healthcare professional or psychologist for an alcohol abuse intervention, the person who is selected to direct the intervention needs to be trained in alcohol addiction intervention procedures and needs to display a reputation of fruitful alcoholism interventions.

A Few Fundamental Examples of The Most Productive Time For an Alcoholism Intervention

Scientific exploration and alcoholism facts about interventions has also displayed that the most worthwhile time for an alcoholism intervention is following a meaningful occasion in the life of the alcohol dependent person or hazardous drinker. The following represents a few examples of these types of meaningful happenings:

  • The alcohol-dependent person or abusive drinker has been caught stealing something of significance.
  • The abusive drinker or alcohol dependent individual has been caught lying about something of substance.
  • The alcohol dependent individual or alcohol abuser has been placed behind bars for a DUI or DWI.

In events like these, the alcohol-dependent person or alcohol abuser is more likely to feel apologetic or to be embarrassed, therefore making him or her more interested in getting the professional alcohol treatment that he or she needs.

At this time, moreover, it is also important to accentuate the fact that the abusive drinker or alcohol addicted individual needs to be alcohol-free during the alcohol dependency intervention. In a nutshell, if the abusive drinker or alcohol addicted person is intoxicated during an alcohol dependency intervention, failure is in effect assured.

Moreover, scientific study has also shown the fact that the alcohol abuser or alcohol addicted person has to at least try to listen to what is said in an alcohol intervention. Stated differently, during an alcohol dependency intervention, the alcohol abuser or alcohol addicted individual needs to listen to what his or her problem drinking has done to those who care for him or her the most.

The Value of Alcohol Treatment For the Irresponsible Drinker

And lastly, scientific study shows that the essential reason for an alcohol dependency intervention in the first place is to influence the hazardous drinker or alcohol-dependent person to get the professional alcoholism treatment that is needed. Stated more specifically, even if the individual who directs the intervention has a superlative reputation of effective interventions and even if the alcohol abuser or alcohol dependent individual honestly listens to every word that is stated for the duration of an intervention, if the hazardous drinker or alcoholic is not stimulated to obtain professional alcohol treatment after the alcohol abuse intervention, then the intervention will be a fiasco.

Without a doubt all of these factors are needed for a fruitful alcoholism intervention. If, conversely, the alcohol abuser or alcohol addicted individual is not encouraged to seek alcohol addiction rehab after listening to his or her family members put into words the sorrow, irritation, and disenchantment they feel about the alcohol abuser’s or alcoholic’s abusive drinking behavior and the care they feel for the problem drinker, then everything else that is part of an alcohol abuse intervention will for the most part be valueless.

Even Effective Alcohol Dependency Interventions Can Go Wrong In the Future

It also needs to be pointed out that notwithstanding the fact that the alcohol intervention can be viewed as effective in that it helped put the hazardous drinker or alcohol addicted person in a more receptive framework and openly helped the alcohol-dependent person or hazardous drinker determine that he or she needed alcohol therapy or quality help for alcoholism or alcohol abuse, the mere reality that the intervention took place might result in acrimony, irritation, and doubt in the future.

In sum, even when alcohol dependency interventions are seen as fruitful in the short term, in the long run, then again, they may go wrong and, thus, may make the family and/or the alcohol addicted person’s circumstance even poorer than it was before the alcohol abuse intervention took place.

No matter how unwarranted or incongruous this seems, try to keep in mind that it is merely one of the fundamental alcohol facts that has to be confronted when doing an alcohol intervention.

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What I Learned About Drug and Alcohol Addiction in High School

November 03, 2009

When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I took a substance abuse class. At that time period, I did not grasp the fact that alcohol abuse in point of fact was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse and especially about alcohol side effects, I read a lot about Alcoholic Anonymous, their meetings, how their programs have twelve steps, and how successful the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program has been for individuals all through the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol rehab and the various alcohol rehab facilities that are normally available to individuals who engage in hazardous drinking.

Detrimental Consequences That are Related to Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse

Some of the dangerous outcomes linked to alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class undeniably worried me. The ruined lives and abundant difficulties experienced by most alcohol dependent people made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. In short, I did not want to face the disaster and destruction that alcohol dependent people almost always encounter.

Ponder upon this for a moment. What fifteen-year-old person wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What young person wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that drinking alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What adolescent wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related issues before he or she becomes an adult?

What adolescent wants to encounter alcohol withdrawals when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would an individual engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause serious issues in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after a person has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would a young person want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that focuses on excessive drinking?

These issues were so noteworthy that I talked about some of them in class during the school year. What was absolutely inconceivable to me was the number of students who openly didn’t care about the harmful effects of abusive drinking that I discussed. It was almost as if they couldn’t care less about reality and how these outcomes can demolish their lives. For the first time in my life I started to understand a saying that my grandfather used to tell me throughout my adolesence: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.

It’s Beneficial, Important, and Liberating to Remove Yourself From the Destructive and Unhealthy Effects of Alcohol and Drug Abuse

And even at my young age, I also began to understand how invigorating, important, and beneficial it is in life to keep away from the unhealthy and debilitating consequences of drug and alcohol abuse.

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Is Your Drinking Becoming Problematic?

November 02, 2009

How do you recognize that you have a drinking problem? When is it clear that you are engaging in irresponsible drinking?

If you have hopelessly struggled to stop drinking or if you sworn to yourself that your drinking days are terminated and then you recognized that you were drinking excessively just a few days later, the odds are very good that you have drinking problems. The fundamental idea is that if you have attempted to stop drinking and cannot complete the task, then your drinking is controlling you, rather than the other way around.

Similarly, if it takes greater amounts of alcohol to get the same “high,” more likely than not you need to become aware that you have a drinking problem.

You may be telling yourself that the justification for your drinking is so that you can lessen your nervousness or get rid of the hurt that you feel. In a similar manner, you may be trying to steer clear of an injurious circumstance and may be looking for something better, more positive, or less mournful.

As you maintain your drinking, conversely, you will realize that drinking does not bring forth the same high and you will also understand that drinking doesn’t help eradicate whatever led to your discomfort in the first place.

As you continue to drink irresponsibly, sadly, you may become an alcoholic and, as a result, you may add another essential issue to manage rather than uncovering more effective and healthy ways of coping with your alcohol generated difficulties.

The Necessity for an Alcohol Assessment

If you have determined that you have a problem with your drinking, maybe the most positive thing you can do for yourself is to call your doctor or healthcare professional and schedule an appointment for a thorough physical and for an appraisal of your drinking situation.

If you beyond a doubt think that you have a crucial problem with your drinking, it might be a good idea to get prepared to hear that you need to get alcohol treatment.

At this point, what are your choices? You can positively decide against seeing your health care professional and persevere with your pattern of hazardous drinking.

It truly doesn’t take a wiz kid, to the contrary, to comprehend that continuous, heavy drinking, if left untreated, will go downhill over time and doubtless bring about an early death. Therefore, your most expedient choice is to confront your drinking circumstance and obtain the alcohol rehab you need.

The Sham of the Functioning Alcohol Dependent Person

It is ironic to note the fact that several alcohol addicted individuals lead busy and active lives and have vehicles, jobs, pets, houses, families, and any number of material possessions similar to people who are not addicted to alcohol.

Many of these “functional” alcohol dependent individuals may have never been arrested for drunk driving and may have been lucky enough to avoid all alcohol induced legal predicaments. Despite this fortunate circumstance, on the other hand, these alcohol addicted people need to drink in order to live on a day to day basis while preserving their facade as they interact with the outside world.

Ask anyone who has seen them when they are engaging in one of their drinking binges or in a drunken stupor or ask a family member about the problem drinker’s alcohol dependency, on the other hand, and they will be quick to maintain the validity of the drinker’s situation and the essentials about the alcoholic’s drinking predicament and about his or her alcohol generated difficulties.

Why Do Alcohol Dependent People Fail to Deal With Their Drinking Difficulties?

As alcohol dependency research and statistics on alcohol abuse have accentualted, no matter how clear the alcohol-related predicaments seem to those who interact with the alcoholic, alcohol dependent people typically deny that drinking is the origin of their alcohol-related difficulties. Not only this, but alcohol dependent people commonly blame their alcohol induced problems on other individuals or upon other situations that surround them rather than seeing their part in the issue.

The origin of the difficulty is that alcohol dependency is a disease of the brain. Once the problem drinker has become alcohol dependent, he or she regularly resorts to denial, manipulation, and dishonesty as a way of coping with the fact that his or her drinking is out of control. And to make matters more complex, the experience of alcohol withdrawal symptoms typically counteracts the alcohol addicted person’s rare attempts to abruptly quit drinking. As dismal as the alcohol dependent individual’s existence is, however, the encouraging news is that quality help is typically obtainable – if the alcohol dependent individual reaches out and gets alcoholism rehab.

Summary

Conceding the fact that drinking is eliciting difficulties in your day by day functioning is perhaps the most straightforward way to find out if you have a problem with your drinking. Stated another way, if your drinking is leading to difficulties with your health, at work, in your relationships, with your finances, at school, or with the legal system, then you have a drinking problem that needs to be tackled.

If you have a problem with your drinking, moreover, this means that you are getting involved with hazardous drinking.

While some drinkers may be able to pinpoint their “alcohol signs,” pinpoint their problems, and substantially reduce the quantity and incidence of their drinking, other drinkers, nonetheless, need to tackle their drinking difficulties by getting professional alcoholism treatment. Additionally, due to their inclination to deny the facts and warp the truth, alcohol addicted people certainly require competent alcoholism counseling for their hazardous drinking.

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