You’ve thrown away every bottle of alcohol in your home. You have a friend come over to make sure that you don’t try to drive yourself to the bar downtown, and you’ve started researching detox centers around your area.
It’s time for you to get clean. While this is a noble pursuit, it can be difficult if you don’t know how to treat alcoholism. For many people, trying to quit at home only makes things worse.
The painful withdrawal symptoms aren’t for the faint of heart, but what are your other options? We have an entire list of avenues that you can go down. Keep reading to learn more.
Medical Detox
When detoxing alcohol, many people turn to treatment centers. It provides a safe environment for you to wait out the withdrawal symptoms and get the substance out of your system.
You’ll have access to doctors who can administer medication and tend to your needs. There are often psychologists there as well who you can talk to.
When it comes to programs, you have two options. These are inpatient care and outpatient care. With inpatient care, you’ll stay in the center for a few weeks and receive treatment for alcohol addiction.
This is often the better choice if you have severe addiction because you’ll have 24-hour help against withdrawal. Outpatient programs allow you to stay in your home while you receive treatment.
You’ll attend meetings a few times a week, but that’s about it. It’s good for those who aren’t heavy drinkers or don’t have the means to stay away from home for a few days. Oftentimes, people go through an inpatient program first and when they’re done, they use outpatient treatment as an aftercare measure.
You can learn more about programs. For now, let’s move on to self-detox.
Self-Detox
If you can’t afford medical detox, you can try to work your way through the withdrawal symptoms at home. We’ll tell you that this isn’t recommended. Since you’re not being monitored, there’s a lot of temptation to give in to cravings.
It’s also dangerous to work through it alone. Depending on how dependent you were on alcohol, the withdrawal will be intense. You may experience an increase in heart rate, seizures, and even hallucinations.
If you must detox in your house, bring in a friend. They’ll be able to call 911 to get you help during a medical emergency. You’re going to be too sick to handle chores and cooking on your own.
Your friend or family member can help you out with these daily tasks, so you can focus on recovery. They can also be a shoulder to cry on when you begin feeling the psychological effects of quitting.
Behavioral Treatment
More often than not, alcoholism is the direct result of mental illness. Unless both problems are tackled at the same time, you’ll risk having a relapse. That’s where behavioral treatments come in.
There are several different types of behavioral treatments that you can get. The first is cognitive. The therapist will help you identify your triggers and deal with them in healthier ways.
Family behavior therapy takes a look at your home life. It explores negative family influences that may have contributed to your alcohol abuse.
Contingency management teaches positive behavior through the means of giving rewards. This is usually used to encourage people to attend their counseling sessions.
Medications
During your stay at a detox center, there’s a good chance that you’ll receive some kind of medication to help you get through your withdrawal symptoms. Disulfiram will prevent you from having alcohol cravings. If you do decide to have a drink, this drug will make you regret it with heavy nausea and headaches.
Taking Naltrexone will cut you off from any of the good feelings that you usually get from drinking alcohol. You won’t want to drink as often, and if you do drink, you will get sick from it.
Acamprosate is another one that will stop you from craving alcohol as much. Unlike the other two, if you give in and have a drink, it won’t make you sick at all.
Find a Support System
One of the most important things you can do when you’re trying to beat addiction is creating lasting support systems. You need to surround yourself with people who will support your path to sobriety.
It will be hard, but for you to make a full recovery, you’ll have to cut yourself off from anyone who still tries to get you to go out to the bars with them on the weekend. You may still love them, but they don’t have your best interests at heart.
Aftercare Programs
Once you get done with rehab, you’ll run into temptations that could cause you to have a relapse. To help you avoid turning back to alcohol, you’ll have to make use of aftercare programs. Some of your options are 12 step programs, SMART Recovery, and AA.
Most of these programs use group therapy to some degree. Each session will be led by someone who was once in your shoes. You’ll get a lot of helpful advice that will put you on the continued path toward sobriety.
How to Treat Alcoholism in a Healthy Manner
Are you trying to learn how to treat alcoholism so you can kick the stuff to the curb for good? As you can see, you’ve got a lot of treatment options available. You’re going to need to make use of every tool in your arsenal if you want to have a full recovery.
We hope that you’re able to use the information that you’ve read here today to start the healing process. To read more articles like this one, visit the Health section of our blog.