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Alcoholism is a condition where you drank to an extent or for a long enough time that your body eventually becomes dependent. This leaves you needing it in order to be able to function in daily life. Alcohol addiction can affect you both physically and mentally, and can have a negative impact on your relationships and lead to problems in your work and social life. Alcohol rehab and addiction counselling at Tower Counselling in the Ayurva Clinic can help to reduce the impact of your alcohol dependency and help you to fully recover from your alcohol addiction.

Alcoholism has a cause, a symptom and is fully treatable with the correct rehab and addiction counselling. Alcoholism, as a problem, develops when you drink to a level where the brain undergoes chemical changes, which augments the feelings of pleasure associated with drinking alcohol and makes the alcoholic want to drink more amounts and more frequently. At first, these changes can seem pleasurable, but eventually these dissipate when the level of alcohol used becomes a problem. A person with alcohol dependency, or rather an alcoholic, will drink to avoid the unpleasant feelings, dealing with daily life, and often the dangerous symptoms associated with alcohol withdrawl. 

Alcohol affects people differently, depending on their size, sex, body build, and metabolism. The general effects of alcohol on a person are a feeling of warmth, flushed skin, impaired judgement, decreased inhibitions, muscular incoordination, slurred speech, and memory and comprehension loss. In states of extreme intoxication, vomiting is likely to occur, possibly accompanied by incontinence, poor respiration, a fall in blood pressure. In cases of severe alcohol poisoning people can go into coma and death may occur.

Drinking heavily over a short period of time usually results in what is called a “hangover’’. When people have a hangover they can suffer a headache, nausea, shakiness, and sometimes vomiting, beginning from 8 to 12 hours later. A hangover is due partly to poisoning by alcohol and its other ingredients and partly to the body’s reaction to withdrawal from alcohol and dehydration.

Combining alcohol with other drugs can make the effects of the other drugs much stronger and as a result they can become more dangerous. Many accidental deaths have occurred after consuming alcohol combined with other drugs. Cannabis, tranquilisers, barbiturates and other sleeping pills, or antihistamines (in cold, cough, and allergy remedies) should not be taken with alcohol. Even a small amount of alcohol with any of these drugs can seriously impair a person’s ability to drive a car.

People who drink on a regular basis can become tolerant to many of the negative effects of alcohol, and thus are able to drink more before suffering these effects. Yet even with increased consumption, many such drinkers don’t appear intoxicated. This is because they appear to be able to continue to work and socialise reasonably well, their deteriorating physical condition may go unrecognised by others until severe damage develops, or until they are hospitalised for other reasons and they suddenly experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

Psychological dependence on alcohol may occur with regular use of even relatively moderate daily amounts. It may also occur in people who consume alcohol only under certain conditions, such as before and during social occasions. This form of dependence refers to a craving for alcohol’s psychological effects, although not necessarily in amounts that produce serious intoxication. For psychologically dependent drinkers, the lack of alcohol tends to make them anxious and, in some cases, panicky.

Physical dependence occurs in consistently heavy drinkers. Since their bodies have adapted to the presence of alcohol, they suffer withdrawal symptoms if they suddenly stop drinking. Withdrawal symptoms range from jumpiness, sleeplessness, sweating, and poor appetite, to tremors (“the shakes”), convulsions. Hallucinations, and sometimes resulting in death.

Alcohol abuse can take a negative toll on the drinker’s life, fostering violence or a deterioration of personal relationships. Alcoholic behaviour can interfere with school or career goals and lead to unemployment.

Long-term alcohol abuse poses a variety of health risks, such as liver damage and increased risk of heart disease. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome may result when a pregnant woman drinks alcohol; this condition causes facial abnormalities in the child, as well as growth retardation and brain damage, which often is manifested by intellectual difficulties or behavioural problems.

The effects of any drug depend on several factors:

It is the amount of alcohol in the blood that causes the effects. In the following table, the left-hand column lists the number of milligrams of alcohol in each deciliter of blood—that is, the Blood Alcohol Concentration (or BAC). 

Alcohol rehab offered at the Ayurva Clinic in Bulgaria can take many forms depending on your individual needs. It can vary from support through self-help groups to intensive treatment in one of our rehabilitation facilities. Therapy is aimed at helping you to find out why you drink and to develop alternatives to drinking, eventually leading to a fulfilled life without alcohol. During rehabilitation, you will face up to a variety of difficult issues and may experience intense mood swings.