Alternative Alcoholism Treatment

What Concerns are Commonly Associated with Substance and Alcohol Abuse?

Narcotics and alcoholic substances are an ever-increasing problem and with greater numbers of addicts being admitted to hospitals and rehab clinics every year within Australia; the problem doesn’t look like it’s going to go away any time soon. What many dependents fail to acknowledge is the severe effects that substance abuse can take on their bodies.

From aiding in the development of mental disorders, all the way to affecting the way in which the human body is able to function – there’s a reason why many narcotics are considered illegal.

Common Substance Abuse Problems

Different narcotics can affect people in varying ways and this is one of the things that can make it so difficult to treat people without prior knowledge relating to the severity of their addiction and dependency. A good drug rehab clinic will make a point of tailoring their services to benefit the individuals that they are taking care of – but that doesn’t explain the types of problems that a person can expect to face when exposing themselves to some of the most common drugs, including:

• Amphetamine
• LSD
• Cannabis
• Cocaine
• Heroin

Alternative Alcohol Treatments | Alcoholism, Alcoholism is disease, here’s some resources to help you fight back:
Responsible Drinking: A Moderation Management Approach

What are the risks of alcoholism & Drug Abuse

There are long term consequences of alcohol abuse that can be fatal if left untreated, and these vary in type and extremity. Depending on the type of alcohol being consumed, as well as the frequency in which it is administered – the results can occur rapidly, or over a specific period of time. In either event, the results are very similar in nature and a vast amount of these consequences can result in fatality.

The most prominent risk associated with alcohol is blood poisoning – and event that can occur when the anti-bodies within a person’s blood are overwhelmed by the toxins contained in certain types of alcohol (consider vodka for example). The resultant chemical imbalance can result in physical symptoms, such as the discolouration of skin – but it will take its largest effect internally.

Resources

I Need to Stop Drinking!: How to get back your self-respect.
Why You Drink and How to Stop: A Journey to Freedom:
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book:
Alcoholics: Dealing With an Alcoholic Family Member, Friend or Someone You Love:

We often are asked by people what kinds of treatments are available for alcohol problems. The standard treatments are either in rehab facilities or 12 step, meaning Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous for people who use other drugs. Alcoholics Anonymous is widely known but people often want to know what else can they do? What are alternative treatments to the standard kinds of either hospital based rehabs or 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous meetings? The one thing I always tell people is that there’s not one way to get clean from alcohol and to say clean from alcohol. So for some people, they want to pursue alternative treatments. I have to caution people that we don’t have any very good evidence in research that support the alternative treatments as stand alone treatments so what I usually refer to alternative treatments as, I refer to alternative treatments as adjunctive treatments that they’re often added onto other kinds of treatment for people. And those might include hypnotherapy. Those might include yoga or other kind of mindfulness exercises, meaning meditation. People really sometimes find that very very helpful but there are people who does those kinds of things who really do meditation well, for an example, and other people who just don’t meditate well so you have to look at different kinds of things. There are treatment facilities that use, what’s called equine therapy. They use horses therapeutically and people will talk to, there’s not again a good research base that shows that those have positive effects but anecdotally from people’s experiences, people find those things very powerful and so as a treatment provider and as a researcher, although there’s not an evidence base, I always tell people to try different things and to use what works for them. So there are many alternative treatments. Again, I often, my recommendation is that people see those as rather than alternative, as adjunctive treatment to more standard treatments that we do know work from research., ,