Alcohol can be considered a human problem. However, not everyone can say exactly when and how this disease can manifest. Meanwhile, alcoholism, like any other disease, has several stages.
In total there are 4 stages of alcoholism. Not only the duration and effectiveness of treatment, but also the final result will depend on the degree of neglect and conditions in the patient's environment.
After all, many have recovered even after several years of returning to old habits.
This is not about treatment, but about the wrong approach to the root cause of the problem, lack of knowledge about the character traits of the patient, as well as insufficient psycho-emotional support for relatives and friends.
Early stages of alcoholism: causes and treatment
Read more: what is alcoholism.
The first stage of alcoholism is not always considered the beginning of personality deterioration and the development of such a disease. Treatment and its duration may depend on parameters such as:
- Age of the patient;
- Disease stage;
- Emotional state and atmosphere in the family;
- Tendency (heredity);
- Environment;
- The stability/stability of the human soul;
- Perception of the problem, as such, not only by the patient, but also by all his friends and relatives;
- Gender of the patient (male or female).
- The dose of alcohol increases gradually;
- Acceptance of liquor is possible even for small reasons;
- A person loses control, it is difficult to control movements, thoughts after drinking;
- Aggression towards acquaintances and friends is more often shown;
- Can't stop even after emptying the stomach of accumulated alcohol (vomiting);
- There is a severe hangover with pain in the head;
- So far, he reacts negatively to hangovers (rejection of alcohol);
- Discrepancy in actions and words, both in a state of alcohol intoxication and in a sober state;
- A negative attitude towards alcoholics, not considering the problem important.
Initial treatment
Also, do not miss the effects of alcohol on all human organs. Therefore, to understand the problem will help research about:
- Diseases of the liver and pancreas (heaviness, nausea, vomiting, pain and colic, flatulence, indigestion);
- Vegetovascular diseases (vein swelling, heaviness in the legs, swelling and pain after a day);
- Hypertensive diseases (sudden jump in pressure, loss of strength, severe headache, nausea);
- Nervous disorders (headaches, convulsions, swelling, irritability, sleep disturbances, hand tremors, aggression, irritability).
How to determine the level of alcoholism? You cannot figure this out on your own, without the help of a qualified specialist. The first signs should warn you. Early diagnosis and treatment are the foundation of successful, productive treatment.
The second stage of alcoholism: what are the symptoms and methods of treatment
The patient reacts sharply to criticism and reprimand from the outside, aggressive and frank in expression.
The degree of alcoholism and their treatment varies from case to case. One will need more psychological help, the second will need difficult conditions and limits where he will not be able to cross. However, one thing becomes clear: one cannot do it without outside help. The second stage of alcohol dependence is treated through an integrated approach:
- Cleanse the body medicinally. An important step that allows you to get rid of accumulated toxins. The intoxication of the body in this case is high, and the drugs allow you to overcome not only the side effects of consuming a large amount of alcohol, but also accelerate the process of decomposition of ethanol in the blood plasma;
- Aversive treatment - drugs are given intravenously to develop alcohol rejection. Often such drugs do not cause discomfort in non-drinkers. But the simultaneous consumption of alcohol and such drugs causes vomiting, nausea, severe headache and rejection at the subconscious level;
- Psychologist help. After all manipulations are carried out with the patient's body, the brain is freed from the effects of ethanol, it is time to proceed to the main stage of treatment - psychological help and adaptation to normal life.
How long such treatment can last is a characteristic of the individual patient. At this stage, it is important to identify the main cause of the desire for alcohol.
After all, the effect of drugs will not reduce the psycho-emotional dependence on relaxation, which can be obtained by drinking alcohol.
This stage and its effectiveness completely depends on the professionalism of the doctor and the willingness to accept the results of all relatives. Only in this case is it possible to prevent recurrence of the disease.
The third stage of alcoholism: a problem of society and not only
The third stage of alcoholism is no longer a problem only for the patient's family and close circle. This is a problem of the whole society: a person degrades, violates all existing norms and rules of communication, does not respond to comments and requests from loved ones, is a factor "burdening" the family. Indeed, often the 3rd degree of alcoholism forces a person to refuse work, ignoring the wishes of relatives and friends. This means that such patients cannot afford to purchase expensive alcoholic beverages. As a result, funds, expensive equipment and food were stolen from the home. Also, the third degree of alcoholism is accompanied by additional features such as:
- Deformation of appearance: thin arms and legs, large body and stomach, burgundy or gray skin with obvious blockage of veins, swelling in any condition in all limbs and under the eyes, loss of teeth, blackening;
- Disturbed soul: insufficient response to simple things, refusal to make contact, aggression for no reason, refusal to change anything;
- Alcohol is the basis of diet, replacing all healthy human nutrition. How much one can drink depends in part on one's configuration;
- speech distortion;
- Paralysis of certain parts of the body, more often the face, arms, legs;
- Health problems: hepatitis, chronic pancreatitis, cancer, indigestion, urinary and fecal incontinence;
- Alcohol resistance (less dosage, but more often).
Drinking alcohol before and during pregnancy
Treatment of alcoholism at this stage is a difficult task and not always effective. This is due, first of all, to a complete transformation of the human soul, a reassessment of its values and priorities in life.
Often such an addict does not set any goals for himself, except for the extraction of the next portion of alcohol.
However, the first three stages of alcoholism can be treated only if this issue is approached correctly.
What stages are difficult to treat
An important sign of the third degree of alcoholism is danger to human life: 80% die even after treatment due to years of intoxication of the body and the process of irreversible changes in internal organs. Thinning of heart tissue, vascular defects, chronic diseases of the liver, kidneys and pancreas (in women, also the reproductive system) create dangerous conditions for a quality future life for those who recover. Support for the most affected organs after treatment is the main task.
The last stage of alcoholism: no choice
Alcoholism is a dangerous disease. He sneaks in at the moment when it seems the whole world is against you. Often the first stage of alcoholism is skipped, not considered a real problem. And then the development and speed of development of complications is inevitable. Years may pass from the moment of transition from the first stage to the fourth stage.
When the first signs are not identified and skipped, the complexity of the cure increases every day. Alcoholism at the fourth stage of development is quite a sentence. Life is counted in months and weeks.
The body is completely tired, and the organs can no longer support the basic functions of metabolism. But not a special verse for the sick.
This is a diagnosis for those who cannot help in time, give help, do not consider the disease as a problem.
Unfortunately, in the fourth stage, it can no longer help. Patients should not accept persuasion or hospitalization. At worst, the Level 4 person in front of you has nothing to do with the person you once knew.
His brain is so distorted by alcohol that it is impossible to recognize someone you know. A complete deterioration of the subconscious, basic instincts are replaced by new ones (drink). Even professional psychologists and hypnosis will not help to get rid of the problem.
Alcoholism is a disease. This is important to remember. Remember and know what can be done to avoid the undesirable fate of an alcoholic, from whom all relatives and friends have turned away, having first crossed out of the world of the living.
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a disease that occurs with systematic alcohol abuse, characterized by mental dependence in intoxication, somatic and neurological disorders, personality deterioration. This disease can also develop with alcohol abstinence.
In the CIS, 14% of the adult population abuse alcohol and another 80% drink alcohol moderately, which is due to certain drinking traditions that have developed in society.
Factors such as conflict with relatives, an unsatisfactory standard of living, and the inability to realize oneself in life often lead to abuse. At a young age, alcohol is used as a way to feel inner comfort, courage, and overcome shame. In middle age, it is used as a way to relieve fatigue, stress, and escape from social problems.
Continued action to this method of relaxation leads to constant addiction and the inability to feel inner comfort without alcohol intoxication. According to the degree of dependence and symptoms, several stages of alcoholism are distinguished.
Level of alcoholism
The first stage of alcoholism
The first stage of the disease is characterized by an increase in the dose and frequency of alcohol consumption. There is a syndrome of altered reactivity, in which alcohol tolerance changes. The body's protective reaction to overdose disappears, in particular, there is no vomiting when drinking large doses of alcohol.
With a severe hangover, a palimpsest is observed - memory loss. Psychological dependence is manifested by a feeling of dissatisfaction in a calm state, constant thoughts about alcohol, increased mood before drinking alcohol.
The first stage lasts from 1 to 5 years, while the attraction can be controlled, because there is no physical dependence syndrome. A person does not deteriorate and does not lose the ability to work.
Complications in the first degree of alcoholism are mainly shown by the liver, alcoholic fatty degeneration occurs.
Clinically, it is almost invisible, in some cases there may be a feeling of fullness in the stomach, flatulence, diarrhea. Complications can be diagnosed by the increase and consistency of the liver.
On palpation, the edge of the liver is rounded, it is quite sensitive. With abstinence, these symptoms disappear.
Complications from the pancreas are acute and chronic pancreatitis. At the same time, abdominal pain is observed, which is located on the left side and radiates to the back, as well as a decrease in appetite, nausea, flatulence, and unstable stools.
Often, alcohol abuse leads to alcoholic gastritis, where there is no appetite and nausea, pain in the epigastric region.
Second stage
Second-degree alcoholism has a developmental period of 5 to 15 years and is characterized by an increase in altered reactivity syndrome.
Tolerance to alcohol reaches a maximum, the so-called pseudo-binge drinking occurs, their frequency is not associated with the patient's attempt to get rid of alcohol addiction, but with external conditions, for example, lack of money and the inability to get alcohol.
The sedative effect of alcohol is replaced by an activating one, memory loss when drinking large amounts of alcohol is replaced by complete amnesia at the end of intoxication. At the same time, daily drunkenness is explained by the presence of mental dependence syndrome; in a calm state, the patient loses the ability to work mentally, and mental activity is irregular. There is a syndrome of physical alcohol dependence, which suppresses all feelings except the desire for alcohol, which becomes uncontrollable. The patient is depressed, irritable, unable to work, after consuming alcohol, this function returns to its place, but control over the amount of alcohol is lost, which leads to excessive intoxication.
Treatment of alcoholism in the second stage should be carried out in a specialized hospital, narcologist or psychiatrist.
A sharp rejection of alcohol causes somatoneurological symptoms of alcoholism such as exophthalmos, mydriasis, hyperemia of the upper body, finger tremors, nausea, vomiting, intestinal indulgence, pain in the heart, liver, and headache.
There are mental symptoms of personality deterioration, intellectual weakness, delusional ideas. Often there is anxiety, anxiety at night, convulsive seizures, which are signs of acute psychosis - delirium tremens, which is popularly called delirium tremens.
Secondary complications of alcoholism from the side of the liver are represented by alcoholic hepatitis, often in a chronic form. The disease is more common in its persistent form than in its progressive form.
Like complications in the first stage, hepatitis is rarely shown by clinical symptoms. It is possible to diagnose complications by gastrointestinal pathology, a feeling of heaviness appears in the epigastric region of the stomach, right hypochondrium, slight nausea, bloating is observed.
On palpation, the liver is compacted, enlarged and slightly painful.
Alcoholic gastritis in the second stage of alcoholism can have symptoms disguised as a manifestation of withdrawal symptoms, the difference is repeated painful vomiting in the morning, often with an admixture of blood. On palpation, there is pain in the epigastric region.
After a prolonged party, acute alcoholic myopathy develops, weakness, swelling of the hip and shoulder muscles appear. Alcoholism most often causes non-ischemic heart disease.
Third stage
Alcoholism of the third stage is much different from the previous two, the duration of this stage is 5-10 years. This is the last stage of the disease and, as practice shows, it often ends in death. Alcohol tolerance decreases, intoxication occurs after a small dose of alcohol. Binges end in physical and psychological exhaustion.
In a drunken state, emotional instability manifests itself, which shows the symptoms of alcoholism, excitement, irritability, unpredictable anger replacing each other.
Degradation of personality, decrease in intellectual abilities, inability to work, leads to the fact that an alcoholic, having no money for alcohol, uses substitutes, sells goods, steals. Use of substitutes such as denatured alcohol, cologne, polish, etc. lead to serious complications.
Complications in third-degree alcoholism are most often represented by alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. There are two forms of alcoholic cirrhosis - compensated and decompensated.
The first form of the disease is characterized by persistent anorexia nervosa, flatulence, fatigue, low mood. There is thinning of the skin, white spots and spider veins appear on them.
The liver is enlarged, dense, with sharp edges.
The patient's appearance is greatly changed, there is a sharp weight loss, hair loss. The form of liver cirrhosis decompensation differs in three types of clinical symptoms.
These include portal hypertension, which leads to hemorrhoids and esophageal bleeding, ascites - fluid accumulation in the abdominal cavity. Often there is jaundice, where the liver is greatly enlarged, in severe cases, liver failure occurs, with the development of coma.
Patients have an increased melanin content, which gives the skin an icteric or earthy color.
Diagnosis of alcoholism
The diagnosis of alcoholism can be suspected by a person's appearance and behavior. Patients look older than their years, over the years the face becomes hyperemic, skin turgor is lost. The face acquires a strong type of association, due to the relaxation of the round muscles of the mouth. In many cases, there is excrement, carelessness in clothing.
The diagnosis of alcoholism in most cases turns out to be quite accurate, although analyzing not the patient himself, but his environment. Family members of patients with alcohol have several psychosomatic disorders, neurotic or psychotized spouses who do not drink, and pathologies in children.
The most common pathology in children whose parents systematically abuse alcohol is congenital cerebral insufficiency. Often such children have excessive mobility, they are not focused, they have a desire for destruction and aggressive behavior.
In addition to congenital pathology, children's development is also affected by traumatic situations in the family. Children have logoneurosis, enuresis, night terrors, and behavioral disorders.
Children are depressed, prone to suicide attempts, they often have difficulties with learning and communication with peers.
In many cases, pregnant women who abuse alcohol experience the birth of an alcoholic fetus. Fetal alcohol syndrome is characterized by gross morphological disorders. Often, fetal pathology consists of irregular head shape, body proportions, spherical eyes, underdevelopment of the jawbones, and shortening of the tubular bones.
Treatment of alcoholism
We have briefly described the treatment of alcoholism depending on its stage. In most cases, relapse can occur after treatment.
This is due to the fact that treatment is often aimed only at eliminating the most acute manifestations of alcoholism. Without properly conducted psychotherapy, lack of support from loved ones, alcoholism relapses.
But as practice shows, it is psychotherapy that is an important component of treatment.
The first stage of alcoholism treatment is the elimination of acute and subacute conditions caused by body intoxication. First of all, feasts are interrupted and production interruptions are eliminated. At a later stage, therapy is carried out only under the supervision of medical personnel, because delirium syndrome that occurs when drinking is disturbed requires psychotherapy and a certain amount of sedatives. Relief of acute alcoholic psychosis is to quickly put the patient to sleep with dehydration and support for the cardiovascular system. In cases of severe alcohol intoxication, alcoholism treatment is carried out only in a specialized hospital or in a psychiatric department. In the early stages, anti-alcohol treatment may be sufficient, but more often when alcohol is stopped, there is a deficit of neuroendocrine regulation, the disease develops and leads to complications and organ pathology.
The second stage of treatment aims to create remission. A complete diagnosis of the patient and therapy of mental and somatic disorders is carried out. Therapy at the second stage of treatment can be quite strange, its main task is to eliminate somatic disorders, which are the key in the formation of pathological desire for alcohol.
Non-standard methods of therapy include the Rozhnov technique, which consists of emotional stress therapy. A good prognosis in treatment is given by the effect of hypnosis and the psychotherapeutic conversation that precedes it.
During hypnosis, the patient is instilled with an aversion to alcohol, a nausea-vomiting reaction to the taste and smell of alcohol. Verbal aversive therapy methods are often used.
It consists of fixing the soul by the method of verbal suggestion, reacting with a vomiting reaction to drinking alcohol, even in an imaginary situation.
The third stage of treatment involves the extension of remission and the return of a normal lifestyle. This stage can be considered the most important in the successful treatment of alcoholism. After the previous two stages, a person returns to his former society, to his problems, friends, who in most cases are also addicted to alcohol, to family conflicts.
This has a greater impact on disease recurrence. In order for a person to be able to independently eliminate the causes and external symptoms of alcoholism, long-term psychotherapy is required. A positive effect is given by autogenic training, it is widely used for group therapy.
Training consists of the normalization of autonomic disturbances and the removal of emotional stress after treatment.
Behavioral therapy is used, so-called lifestyle correction. A person learns to live in a calm state, solves his problems, acquires self-control skills. A very important step in the restoration of normal life is the achievement of mutual understanding in the family and understanding of their problems.
For successful treatment, it is important to achieve from the patient the desire to get rid of alcohol dependence. Mandatory treatment does not provide the same results as voluntary treatment.
Nevertheless, the refusal of treatment requires local narcologists to forcibly refer patients for treatment at LTP.
Therapy in the general medical network does not give positive results, because the patient has open access to alcohol, he is visited by drunken friends, etc.
In cases where alcohol abuse begins in adulthood, an individual approach is needed in the choice of therapy. This is due to the fact that the somato-neurological symptoms of alcoholism appear earlier than the onset of addiction and mental disorders.
Death in alcoholism is most often associated with complications. There is decompensation of vital organs caused by prolonged drinking, withdrawal conditions, intercurrent diseases.
20% of elderly patients with alcohol have signs of epilepsy, acute Gaye-Wernicke syndrome is slightly less common. Attacks of both diseases during intoxication can be fatal.
The presence of alcoholic cardiomyopathy worsens the prognosis. Continuous systematic use of alcohol leads to death.
Less than 25% of patients with this complication live longer than three years after diagnosis. A high percentage of deaths in alcohol intoxication are due to suicide.
This is facilitated by the development of chronic hallucinosis, alcoholic paraphrenia, delusions of jealousy.
Patients cannot control delusional thoughts and perform unusual acts while conscious.