NIU

alcohol treatment

Posted by Stacy on Monday, May 05, 2008 9:07 PM

Fortunately, there are many different types of treatments that can aid in addiction recovery. First and foremost, however, it is important that the person seeks medical treatment. Drugs can harm things like your heart, lungs, and brain. In addition, the withdrawal symptoms can sometimes even be deadly. For this reason, people can be discouraged from quitting because they feel the effects of drinking or doing drugs are better compared to those of quitting.

It is a good idea to partake in some sort of group support system as a method of drug recovery. This not only helps the person connect spiritually with themselves but also identify with others who are in the same situation they are and who feel the same things they feel.

There are also some other forms of alcohol treatment. These include inpatient treatments such as medical detoxification and long term residential programs, and outpatient treatments such as partial hospitalization or counseling.

Different forms of treatment are going to have different results for each individual. For some, group therapy may be ideal as they need to feel like they aren't alone, while others may be too embarrassed to discuss their problem with others. Others may feel some residential program is more ideal for them.

The effects of addiction can be weighty and dangerous. Aside from the short term dangers that could arise such as traffic accidents and accidental deaths from stupid decisions made while under the influence (such as believing one can fly, picking a fight with someone else due to increased aggressiveness, or even choking on one's vomit), many long term problems can emerge such as heart, blood, and liver problems. Plus, have you ever seen an alcoholic with six pack abs and a healthy appearance or a smoker run a marathon? While at first they may maintain the look of poise and control, over time drugs age you and make you look a wreck, especially if you haven't had the stimulus for a period of time and are suffering withdrawal. Once you become addicted to a substance, it is very difficult to release yourself from the constraints of addiction. It's something like gaining weight...it's so easy to put on weight by eating fatty and greasy foods, but so difficult to try to shave the weight back off. Addiction is the exact same idea. It's so easy to reason away being addicted and to say, "who are you talking about? You must not be talking about me..." not realizing that you are the exact opposite.

People are so testy when it comes to drug addiction as well that it can be difficult to approach the subject with them, even if it is someone very close to you. Our speaker told us that there are some different ways to approach those you care about who you want to alert to their condition but that the method differs from person to person. I could have discovered that on my own without much help. Obviously there is no one cure-all for addiction...if there were one, nobody would ever get addicted to anything! Then again, if there were a cure-all, that would give people an excuse to experiment with addicting things like caffeine and drugs because they would know that they were able to cure themselves of the addiction with the special cure-all.

Anyway, that speaker was pretty interesting just because he was talking about addiction and drugs and alcohol. I don't know about any of my fellow college students, but I would MUCH rather spend my time in a classroom listening to a lecture about addiction than to listen to some psychobabble about geography and what type of rocks are on the ocean floor and what is the chemical equation for ethanol? Plus, the difference between all that nonsensical learning and learning about addiction is that I can actually apply what I learned about in the latter to everyday life...when's the last time anybody asked YOU what a stalactite was?

The moral of this story, kids, is to avoid addiction at all costs because its results can be deadly. Life is too precious to waste it being addicted to something.