After years of drinking, you may be so addicted to alcohol that you cannot get through a single day without it. Your body needs it to function halfway normally and to avoid withdrawal symptoms like the shakes, nausea, severe headaches, and the sweats.
In fact, it may be these very symptoms as well as their intensity that deters you from seeking help for your alcohol addiction in the first place. You do not want to go through the physical and mental distress of withdrawing from a substance that your body has become to depend on for its everyday function.
As unpleasant as you might believe the process of withdrawing to be, it is not as distressing or as permanent as the damages that alcohol inflicts on your body every time you take a drink. Eventually your body will give out and succumb to cirrhosis, anemia, and a host of other illnesses that are brought on by chronic drinking.
If you are serious about prolonging your life and overcoming your alcoholism, you must find the strength and resolve to face the process of withdrawing once and for all. Once you are ready, you may be able to find the sobriety and normality you have been missing in your life by seeking help from a facility like a rehabilitation hospital, an Austin alcohol detox program, or a medical clinic that is dedicated to treating long-term alcoholics like you.
Different Approaches to Detoxing
When you check into a program that has resources like group and individual counseling, a Periodic Table of Drug Addiction treatments, on-site ministers and religious services, and other forms of help, you may stand the best chance of beating your addiction to alcohol. You also may be more at ease upon entering the program if you are given your choice of how you want to approach your own withdrawal process.
If you are genuinely frightened about suffering mental and physical distresses while detoxing, you might find it to your advantage to go through a medicinal withdrawal process. The medicinal detox allows you to wean yourself from alcohol while receiving minimal doses of medicines that ease the mental and physical distress of abstaining from drinking.
While you receive the medications, you are under constant medical supervision. This supervision ensures that you do not become addicted to the medications and also that you do not experience harmful side effects like allergic reactions or internal organ damage.
After you get past the worst of the physical and mental side effects of withdrawing, you will be weaned from the medications. You will remain in treatment until you no longer have cravings for alcohol and instead exhibit a certain level of control over your actions and thought processes regarding your alcoholism.
You also have the option of using natural detox, which does not involve the use of medications to get you through the detoxification process. Instead, natural detox involves a progressive weaning from alcohol. You consume less and less each day until your body no longer craves alcohol. This approach may be ideal if you have struggled with drug addictions in the past and want to avoid exposing yourself to substances that might take the place of drinking. Natural detox also poses the least amount of risk to your body. You may even be able to detox in as few as 48 hours.
Post-Care
Once you have gone through your choice of detoxification, it is important that you follow up with some sort of post-detox care. You may be enrolled in an after-care program that allows you to keep in contact with the medical and therapeutic professionals who guided you to recovery.
This communication can be vital in helping you maintain your own confidence in your ability to stop drinking. It also can be vital in helping you avoid the temptation to resume your old habits that led you to drinking in the first place.
Getting Started
If you are ready to overcome your addiction to alcohol, your first step may involve contacting the facility to find out more about its inpatient and outpatient programs. You can also learn more about the detox process and what you can expect in the first 48 to 72 hours as you wean yourself from drinking. The number to call for the facility is on its website.
Alcohol inflicts long-lasting damage to your body. You can regain sobriety and prolong your life by going through a natural or medicinal detox program.
