After the last drink, the withdrawal symptoms are appearing since the alcohol effect is gone. This is the primary cause of a hard time to quit and has many symptoms such as: sweating, craving for alcohol, trembling, nausea. After stopping alcohol, delirium tremens it may occur. Some people have confusion, agitation, shaking or even worse, convulsions(this can be fatal)
Detoxification helps to prevent withdrawal symptoms when the person is not drinking alcohol anymore. Chlordiazepoxide is very common when somebody needs a detox but there are also other medications like lorazepam , olanzapine and haloperidol. It is better for some kind of people to go to a specialist drug or an alcohol unit because they can receive there a proper care especially for those who had some previous attempts and they failed .These units have a better way to offer counseling and support and their staff is specialized in these problems.
If you have bad problems with alcohol or withdrawal seizures you can be admitted to hospital also. Detox in hospitals is mostly for those who experience learning difficulties or have other illnesses. Most of the times,after they got clean for the alcohol, some people are drinking again but there are medications for this situations. It is recommended to take them for few months in order to keep you away and keep you sober. One of the medicines which help with the alcohol cravings is acamprosate (naltrexone is an alternative for it) and another one is disulfiram.
The last one has some terrible effects if you drink any alcohol such as: a headache, palpitations, vomiting. For people with alcohol dependence it can be used nalmefene, a new treatment for reducing alcohol consumption and the patients who are using it should regularly be seen by a healthcare professional. Another treatment is called baclofen and it is supposed to reduce anxiety and craving.
Medicine indeed can help people to stay away from drinking but it sure needs a good and stable mind to use them properly. They say it is easier to quit drinking if you get counseling or another type of support like family and friends. There are many groups like Alcoholics Anonymous that are doing a great job for people who really need to stay off alcohol and people are feeling more comfortable there because all of them share the same problems and they can help each other. Sadly, most of the people go back to heavy drinking after treatment , they do it all over again and they need to have several attempts before they finally succeed to stop it for the rest of their lives. It really is a tough journey , dangerous and fatal in some cases but at the end things will slow down and become clear and life has a new meaning again.
