Alcohol Detox

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By jasonstevens

After taking the first difficult step of admitting that you have a drink problem, alcohol detox is the next logical step.  This is the painful process of weaning your body off your daily need and addiction to alcohol.  If you have reached the point where you can only feel normal once you have had a drink, this can often mean that you have developed a physical dependency on alcohol.  If you feel that you cannot do it alone, you can search online to find resources in your community that can help with alcohol detox. 

The first and most important step in alcohol detox is to stop drinking and allow all the alcohol in your body to leave.  This can be painful, especially if you have not been truly sober for any significant amount of time in a while.  After the alcohol is gone, you will probably feel the cravings to drink again, but you should also feel a sense of clarify and sobriety that you have not felt in a while which can be an encouraging step in the right direction. 


Another type of alcohol detox need can be when you are extremely drunk and unable to take care of yourself.  At this point, it is best if your care is provided by a medical professional at the hospital.  Yes going to the hospital can be expensive but it's always a better situation than finding yourself in circumstances where you could die.  In these cases, the medics will often do what is necessary to remove as much alcohol from your system as possible.  At the most extreme, this can mean pumping out the alcohol and other contents of your stomach to prevent it from being absorbed.  This can be necessary if you have drank a dangerous amount of alcohol.  Once the alcohol has been absorbed into your blood stream, there's not much to do except to wait.  If you are dehydrated, a doctor may give you an IV which will put a saline solution directly into your bloodstream.   Being hydrated can help stop many of the symptoms of having drank too much alcohol.

Taking the first steps towards dealing with an alcohol problem are the most difficult. Once you are on the path to recovery with a good plan in place and friendly support network of people who can understand what you are going through, it's easy to get some momentum back towards a normal life without an alcohol dependency or addiction.

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