Looking To Understand How Alcohol Detox Works? by Rudy Silva

An alcohol detox program is an integral component of a medication treatment to free your body from experiencing withdrawal symptoms while undergoing alcohol addiction treatment. According to the experts, those who stop drinking alcohol will have different withdrawal symptoms from 2 to 3 days after the last drink.

The medicine that is commonly prescribed to people undergoing the alcohol detoxification program is chlordiazepoxide, a benzodiazepine drug. There are 4 goals that detoxification in alcohol aims for.

First, it provides you a safe withdrawal from alcohol dependence. Second, it provides humane treatment to protect your dignity. Third, it helps provide recovery of cognitive and affective faculties. Fourth, it prepares you for continued treatment program.

In the first goal, some of the withdrawal symptoms that are commonly experienced by people who are trying to quit alcohol drinking include auditory disturbances, sweating, strong craving for alcohol, trembling, anxiety, headache, irritability, tremors and even delirium. Most often, people become irritable when they are sober for a short period of time.

The irritability, though, has its limit that when overcome, will just go away. But as to knowing the limit of having the irritability remains to be relative. Some have it for many days, even weeks that unless they succumb to their cravings, they should have another effective approach in toning down the irritability. Others are irritable for just a few hours, if they were able to overcome it immediately and divert their energy and focus to another more meaningful activity.

Having a detoxification program would certainly help you not to experience these withdrawal symptoms, or at least have them least severe.

The second goal, the program seeks to provide a treatment that upholds the dignity, reputation and rights of the patient. There may be a case when alcoholism is regarded as dreadful that instead of helping the alcoholics, the society treats them as public nuisance, depriving them of their human rights. The program ensures that the alcoholics are given the best option for treatment without condemnation.

Among the long-term side effects of chronic alcoholism, the serious and most lethal are heart disease, inflammation of the pancreas, cirrhosis, high blood pressure, and brain degeneration. While all these pose serious health problems, the brain degeneration is regarded as the most serious of them all.

The third goal of alcohol detox is to try recovering the normal function of the mental and emotional faculty of the one undergoing the alcohol treatment. At some point, the medical professionals involved in the detoxification program may try to reverse the effect of brain degeneration.

Depending on the seriousness of the case and the response of the alcoholic individual, the treatment may continue after the detox program. If such is the case, the detoxification program is also designed to help people have a safe and smooth continuation of treatment after the detoxification is completed. As to what kind of treatment it is, the medical professional is the one who should make that decision.