Alcohol Abuse Medication: Alcohol Detox Symptoms – From Bad to Very, Very Bad

Alcohol Detoxification Facilities

The growing number of people addicted to alcohol has led to a huge increase in programs designed to help alcoholics dry out and confront their alcohol abuse issues. Alcohol detoxification facilities offer medically supervised programs during which patients can withdraw from alcohol use in safe environments. Detoxifying from alcohol is very painful, and sometimes fatal. Alcohol detox symptoms can be so unpleasant for those experiencing them as well as for their friends and families who must witness the process, that almost everyone who attempts to withdraw from alcohol on his or her own will fail.

Alcohol detox symptoms include headaches, hand tremors, and chills to nausea, vomiting, and revulsion towards food. But alcohol detox symptoms can also be much more severe, leaving patients in the throes of anxiety attacks, or suffering from auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations, grand mal seizures, racing heartbeats, and insomnia.

The Worst Alcohol Detox Symptoms

One of the most disturbing alcohol detox symptoms recorded so far has been delirium tremens, also known as “the DTs” or the “horrors.” Delirium tremens is an acute form of delirium which occurs in approximately one in twenty of alcohol withdrawal cases, and can be fatal if left untreated.

The DTs can surface as alcohol detox symptoms within a few hours after a patient’s last drink, but may not reach their most violent stage for between forty-eight and seventy-two hours. Doctors supervising an alcohol detox program must be able to distinguish DY form other less serious alcohol detox symptoms, because patients who do not receive immediate treatment have a one in three chance of dying. With prompt treatment that risk drops to one in twenty.

The alcohol detox symptoms exhibited by different patients will depend on how long and how heavily they have been using alcohol. The most severe symptoms are usually suffered by those with the longest history of alcohol abuse.

Medications For Alcohol Detox Symptoms

Both anti-convulsants and sedatives like Valium, Ativan, and Librium are administered to prevent or reduce alcohol detox symptoms. They are given orally in large doses several times a day for the first twenty-four hours of withdrawal, and tapered off gradually over a seventy-two hour period.

In some patients, however, alcohol detox symptoms like the DTs can require massive intravenous or intramuscular injections of medications like Haldol and Activa to manage the patient’s condition.

The loved ones of anyone facing detoxification need to understand the severity of alcohol detox symptoms, and to provide the alcoholic with support through the discomfort which lies ahead. And they must stick with their commitment throughout the counseling and therapy sessions which are necessary to help the alcoholic stay in recovery.

 

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Tags: alcohol dependence, american psychiatric association, alcohol withdrawal, mental health, substance dependence