How Long Does It Take To Get Over Alcohol Addiction

Withdrawing From Alcohol Safely

When you drink heavily and frequently, your body becomes physically dependent on alcohol and goes through withdrawal if you suddenly stop drinking. The symptoms of alcohol withdrawal range from mild to severe, and include:

• Headache
• Trouble sleeping or concentrating
• Elevated heart rate and blood pressure

Alcohol withdrawal symptoms usually start within hours after you stop drinking, peak in a day or two, and improve within five days. But in some alcoholics, withdrawal is not just unpleasantit can be life threatening.

If youre a long-term, heavy drinker, you may need medically supervised detoxification. Detox can be done on an outpatient basis or in a hospital or alcohol treatment facility, where you may be prescribed medication to prevent medical complications and relieve withdrawal symptoms. Talk to your doctor or an addiction specialist to learn more.

Seek emergency medical help if you experience any of the following withdrawal symptoms:

• severe vomiting
• extreme agitation
• seizures or convulsions

The symptoms listed above may be a sign of a severe form of alcohol withdrawal called delirium tremens, or DTs. This rare, emergency condition causes dangerous changes in the way your brain regulates your circulation and breathing, so its important to get to the hospital right away.

What To Do If You Believe You Are Becoming Addicted

If you believe you are addicted or on the road to it, you need to stop drinking but dont go it alone. Depending on how severe your AUD is, stopping abruptly can be life-threatening. Locking yourself in a room for a weekend to go cold turkey like in the movies is not safe.

Attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings isnt enough either, though it can be a good start. It can provide fellowship, sympathy, and support from people who have been or are going through the same thing you are.

To stop drinking in a safer, more comfortable manner, you need professional medical and behavioral help, including:

• Evaluation. An alcohol tapergradually weaning off of your alcohol consumption or detox may be needed, followed by one-on-one
• Psychotherapy. Also known as talk therapy, this is one-on-one counseling with a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or other professional to uncover the why behind your addiction , teach new coping skills, and create or strengthen your social support system. Therapies include:

Better Sleep Lower Blood Pressure

“Eight days without a drink and I feel incredible. I woke up this morning and was just so happy to have no head pounding, no sweats, no guilt, no “Can I make it the four hours until liquor stores open?” feelings.”

“Haven’t listened to the little voice. Thinking about all the money I’m saving. The only issue besides the little voice is;insomnia, but getting some sleep. One very positive thing is that my blood pressure and heart rate have come down to just about normal.”

“My first three days, my worst symptoms were: nausea, sweating, shaky hands, insomnia . Day 4 felt better, woke up on day five and my head felt really clear then got to work and had a huge bout of anxiety all day . Day six and seven much better. Slept like a baby, pulsing in left leg decreased.”

“Physically I feel fine now, but I still crave alcohol like crazy. That’s going to be the worst part.”

“Am on day eight and feeling great. My skin is clearing up, I am not anxious, paranoid, fearful, shaky, nauseous, instead, I am feeling clear-headed, stronger, my appetite has increased majorly. I have money in my pocket, my house is clean, already my relationships are better with my girlfriend and mother. The urge is still there but it comes and goes.”

“I feel great, although today is anxiety-ridden and sleep is still a;problem because I think that the bottle or two of wine trained my brain to get sleepy early and I am trying to rewire it so that I can sleep. I get sleepy at 7PM and then am awake all night.”

Recommended Reading: How Long Does It Take To Stop An Addiction

Welche Hilfen Bei Suchtproblemen Gibt Es

• ;Professionelle Unterstützung

  Sie werden dabei unterstützt, einen Weg aus der Abhängigkeit und ihren möglichen seelischen und gesundheitlichen Folgen zu finden. Die hauptamtlichen Fachkräfte in den Krankenhäusern und den Beratungsstellen bieten Betroffenen und ihren Angehörigen vorbehaltlose Hilfe auf neuestem wissenschaftlichen Stand an und respektieren dabei immer die individuellen Lebenslagen.

• ;Suchtselbsthilfegruppen

  Die Suchtselbsthilfegruppen ergänzen seit mehr als 40 Jahren im Deutschen Roten Kreuz das professionelle Suchthilfeangebot. Die Betroffenen finden dort aus eigener Kraft zu einem Leben in zufriedener Abstinenz und stärken gegenseitig ihre Ressourcen. Die Gruppenmitglieder arbeiten teilweise anonym und fangen Hilfesuchende in schwierigen Situationen unterschiedslos auf.

• ;Bundesweites Sorgentelefon

  Ein bundesweites Sorgentelefon für Angehörige von Menschen mit Suchtproblemen beim DRK;steht ebenfalls zur Verfügung .;Zu erreichen Freitag – Sonntag und an gesetzlichen Feiertagen in der Zeit von 8 – 22 Uhr.

Alle Rotkreuz-Angebote in Ihrer Umgebung kostenfrei auf einen Blick – 26.000 mal Lebenshilfe vor Ort.

Did You Have Adverse Childhood Experiences

The ACEs study was done some years ago by Kaiser. It was a huge study that sampled over 17,000 people. The goal of the study was to try to figure out what might predict health outcomes. Without really meaning to they stumbled upon one of the most important findings in recent years. These things they called adverse childhood experiences were associated with a number of poor health and psychological outcomes.

Since then the data has been re-looked at by many researchers in order to see what else these types of experienced might predict. These adverse experiences include things like childhood abuse, trauma, poverty, and more. A study conducted in 2009 found that having two or more adverse childhood experiences was linked to a higher risk of alochol dependence.; This indicated that maybe one thing that effects how likely you are to become addicted is bad childhood events.

Again, there is no research that tell us exactly how quickly these people become addicted to alcohol. However, we can assume that if you have a history of these bad events you might get addicted to alcohol more quickly than people who dont.

Don’t Miss: How To Stop Addictive Behavior

The Importance Of Medically Assisted Alcohol Detoxification

Detoxification involves ridding your body of alcohol while managing unpleasant and dangerous withdrawal symptoms.

At Priory, our;alcohol detoxification;programme has been designed to help people withdraw from alcohol in a controlled and highly supportive clinical environment.

During alcohol withdrawal treatment within a Priory addiction treatment centre, your symptoms will be closely monitored and regulated by your consultant and their expert team so that you remain safe. Medical assistance can also be provided to prevent you from becoming ill or experiencing hazardous effects of the withdrawal process.

The Importance Of Getting Professional Help

If you or a loved one are battling alcoholism or withdrawal symptoms, it is crucial to seek medical care. Detoxing under the supervision of medical providers ensures a persons safety, reduces the likelihood of relapse, and increases comfort. But please note, alcohol detox is not the same thing as a long-term, comprehensive rehab program. Therefore, once detox is completed, those with substance abuse issues are encouraged to undergo further treatment.

Most individuals who suffer from alcoholism are unable to stay sober long-term without intensive support. For this reason, extended therapeutic care is often needed to help those suffering prevent relapse and find healthier ways of coping with unwanted emotions and stress.

Just Believe Recovery and Just Believe Detox offer evidence-based treatment programs that are tailored to each individuals unique needs. We offer programs in partial hospitalization and residential formats. Therapeutic services and activities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Cognitive-behavioral therapy

• Experiential activities
• Aftercare planning

Contact us today if you are motivated to break free from the shackles of addiction for life! We are dedicated to helping those we treat succeed at recovery and reclaim the healthy and happy lives they deserve!

READ THIS NEXT: Stages of Drunkenness

Don’t forget to share this post!

You May Like: How To Help An Addict Without Enabling

How Long Does It Take To Get Sober

An average liver can process approximately 1 unit of alcohol per hour. This means that if you drink 12 units, itll take;you roughly 12 hours to fully;sober up. People who start drinking never do so with the express purpose of developing alcoholism. Often, what begins as casual or occasional binge drinking morphs into a dangerous habit over time.

When a person drinks excessively, intoxication occurs. The liver processes only about 1-2 standard drinks per hour. Anything beyond this causes a persons blood alcohol concentration to rise significantly. Depending on how much a person drinks and other factors, it can take hours for a person to completely sober up.

One standard drink is defined as the following:

• 12 oz. of beer at about 5% ABV
• 5 oz. of wine at about 12% ABV
• One shot of liquor at about 40% ABV

While the length of time a person remains drunk varies, the average, moderately-intoxicated person will probably be sober in 6-8 hours. If it takes much longer than this, the person should be hospitalized.

Charts such as the one seen here can help a person gauge what their blood alcohol concentration will be over the next few hours after consuming a certain number of drinks.

Image via University of California:;

How To Overcome Addiction To Alcohol

No matter what stage you are in, you can get help for your addiction. There are addiction treatment centers, outpatient, inpatient, and intensive inpatient programs, individual and group counseling, peer mentoring, sober coaches, and many other services available in your community and on college campuses.

As alcoholism has increased, so have the resources to help you conquer your addiction.

Reaching out is the first start, something you can do today, right now, to begin living the sober life you deserve.

Tags:

Also Check: How Does Rehab Help Drug Addicts

How Much Alcohol Will Kill You

Alcohol overdose, or alcohol poisoning, can be serious. You can overdose when there is a high enough amount of alcohol in your system to cause life-supporting functions such as breathing or heart rate to dangerously slow or shut down.4

As your BAC rises, you may begin to feel more negative effects of intoxication and your risk of overdose increases: 4

• 06% 0.15% BAC: speech, memory, attention, coordination, balance moderately impaired; driving ability significantly impaired
• 16% 0.30% BAC: significant impairments in speech, memory, attention, balance, reaction time, and coordination; driving ability dangerously impaired; judgment and decision-making impaired; risk of blackouts; vomiting; loss of consciousness
• 31% 0.45% BAC: risk of life-threatening overdose and risk of death from suppression of breathing, heart rate, and body temperature

Symptoms of an overdose include: 4

• Profound mental confusion.
• Pale or bluish skin color.
• Low body temperature.
• Slow heart rate.
• Slowed or irregular breathing.

Your risk of overdose increases if you binge drink which, by one definition, entails consuming 4 drinks in 2 hours for a woman or 5 drinks in 2 hours for a man. Extreme binge drinking is drinking 2 or more times the binge drinking thresholds. Drinking a large amount of alcohol in a short time greatly outpaces the livers ability to clear alcohol from the body and leads to a rapid increase in BAC. 4

How Can You Manage Addiction

The best way to manage something is to begin by understanding it. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease.

The CDC classifies chronic diseases as any condition that lasts one year or longer, requires ongoing medical attention and/or limits your daily activities.;

Addiction follows all of those patterns you have to continuously manage it and take steps to remain healthy every day. Its not like acute diseases like the common cold or strep throat. Theres no cure all remedy for it and you dont simply wake up feeling better the next day.;

We want you to know that all of this is okay. It is manageable. Like any chronic illness, you just need a treatment plan that works for you. Something completely customized to your needs and your lifestyle.

You May Like: How Do Meth Addicts Act

How Old Were You When You Started Drinking

The younger you are when you start drinking, the more likely you are to get addicted to alochol. Subsequently, you will probably also become addicted to alochol more quickly. Teenagers have something known as dopamine deficiency. What happens is when we are teenagers the brain produces less dopamine than usual. Have you ever wondered why teens tend to be thrill seeking, sex crazed, drug doing maniacs? This is why! They are trying to get a dopamine rush that their brains arent giving them.

Alcohol plays a role in this because it hijacks the dopamine reward system. When you drink it releases dopamine and makes you feel good. So the result is that you want to drink more. For brains that are already deprived of dopamine this happens even worse. So that psychological dependence we talked about earlier might happen more quickly in teenagers.

Studies have shown that the younger people are when they start drinking, the more likely they are to develop alcohol addiction later in life. Particularly people who started drinking before age 16 tended to have much higher rates of alochol dependence than those who started drinking after age 20. However, there is no research that tells us exactly how long it takes for a 16 year old to become addicted vs. a 20 year old. We can deduce based on dopamine deficiency and higher rates of addiction that it happens more quickly for people who start drinking at a young age.

Detox From Severe Alcohol Addiction

For those with severe alcoholism, detox takes longer. Severe alcoholics may experience delirium tremens when they stop drinking. Delirium tremens is a set of severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms that often affects people with late-stage alcoholism. These symptoms may include confusion, hallucinations and tremors.

Delirium tremens is a rare and serious condition. In fact, research has indicated that about 3 to 5 percent of people hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal experience delirium tremens, according to The New England Journal of Medicines report.

Delirium tremens symptoms typically begin about three days after the start of detox. They generally last two to three days, but they can extend past eight days depending on the severity of withdrawal effects. Delirium tremens can lead to death.

Don’t Miss: Who Is An Addict Na

Final Stage Of Alcohol Withdrawal

After about a week of alcohol withdrawal symptoms, many patients begin to stabilize. Some may suffer from continued symptoms such as alcohol cravings and low mood. These ongoing symptoms may linger, especially for those who were dependent on large amounts of alcohol.

Psychological symptoms may persist, including feeling anxious or depressed. This is normal, as the body begins to normalize itself after alcohol abuse and the detox process. During this final phase of the detox process, people often rely heavily on their support system. This may include family, friends, or a medical treatment team.

Addiction And The Brain

You are at the mercy of your brain. It plays a significant role in your dependence to a substance.

The first time someone uses a drug, he or she may begin to feel its effects immediately. For example, when someone consumes ecstasy, they experience a burst of euphoria. When they take a painkiller such as oxycodone, they may feel extreme relaxation and reduced anxiety. Your brain reacts differently to each drug, and each drug affects certain areas of the brain.

Addiction can be expedited if the substance is injected intravenously, snorted, used in large amounts or taken in high frequencies. The more you take, or the heavier the dosage, the higher your tolerance becomes over time. This causes the pleasure to weaken and the cravings to heighten. Oftentimes, this result leads to a substance use disorder.

You May Like: How To Cope With Addiction

Alcohol Dependence And Withdrawal

Common signs of alcohol addiction, the physical and psychological effects and where to go for help.

On this page

For some people alcohol can be part of many occasions but like many drugs its addictive, both physically and psychologically.

The NHS estimates that around 9% of men in the UK and 3% of UK women show signs of alcohol dependence1. This means that drinking alcohol becomes an important, or sometimes the most important, factor in their life and they feel theyre unable to function without it.

How Long Does Alcohol Recovery Take

The symptoms of PAWS can last for several months to as long as two years, depending on the severity of the alcohol addiction. The symptoms will come and go without warning during this period, but they typically are less intense than they were during acute withdrawal.

If you enter a rehabilitation program after detox treatment which you should then you should be able to receive guidance on how to manage PAWS when it first hits and while youre still under the care of professionals. This knowledge will be invaluable to you as you graduate the rehab program and continue to battle PAWS occasionally thereafter.

Also Check: What Makes People Addicted To Drugs

Seizures Panic And More Insomnia

“First 4 days were terrible. Feeling better, but still feel extremely fatigued and have waves of nausea.”

“I can’t believe the luxury of sleep! After a really hard time, I slept for two nights! Not all night, but great sleep.”

“Day six was good, but after so long with no sleep, day 7 I spent in the hospital, just laid on the couch, and went into a full-blown seizure, woke up on floor sore all over, the only thing I remember is the extreme tingling all through my body. I was alone and called 911. A paramedic on each side holding me up, I felt like my legs were rubber bands.”

“I made it through 7 days of horror. Shaking too bad to get a glass of water to my mouth, vomiting with nothing in my stomach, no sleep, too weak to get to the bathroom without holding on to something with bad diarrhea, imaginary demons and bugs, and sweating so much that even if I did manage to get myself into the bathtub, it smelled like I hadn’t bathed in a week an hour later.”

“Starting to feel a little better. If I had the money, I would have gone to a 30-day rehab. I am still having shakes now and again. My head is in a fog constantly.”

“It’s just crazy how some little thing will throw me into a panic. My stomach is still hurting like it’s on fire. Sweats and shakes are gone but I’ve had such a horrible headache might check in with a doctor because I do have a brain aneurysm. So scared of having another seizure.”

“The depression is deep, and racing thoughts are hard to control.”