Despite not seeming like it, alcoholism can often become as bad as drug addiction, with tens of millions of people being affected by severe physical and mental problems because of it worldwide. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), about 15 million Americans were suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) in 2015. At America’s Rehab Campuses, we get to see firsthand the damages inflicted by alcoholism every day.
The majority of the alcohol treatment centers in Tucson have dealt with teenagers at one point or another. Although, for the most part, it is adults who make for the larger mass of alcohol addicts, teenagers and young adults too can fall into the same trap. Alcoholism is not as insinuating as drugs, in the sense that neither it can trigger the addictive behavior as fast nor it will deliver the same type of withdrawal symptoms, at least in the initial phases.
Regardless, alcohol abuse can quickly undermine a drinker’s ability to reason, to control his behavior and, ultimately, to control his drinking urges. In 2015, as shown by the NSDUH, over 623,000 young Americans with ages between 12 and 17 had AUD and were showing tendencies related to alcoholism. But how can this be? Why do people become alcohol addicts at these young ages?
Bad choices, severe repercussions
Most of those who start drinking at early ages do so due to their desire to fit in with a specific group. Entourages often have damaging influences in the early stages of life, causing young adults to indulge in behaviors they usually wouldn’t. The many alcohol treatment centers in Tucson are here to try and correct that trend, but alcoholism seems always to be one step ahead.
One day’s bad choices will become the second day’s beginning of alcohol addiction, and by the time the patient will realize the implications, the situation may already be too far ahead for him to be able to control it. There are, in general, several hints that may expose the fact that the drinker has become alcoholic or that he is about to.
These include:
– Continually abusing alcohol, sometimes without any apparent reason
– Sometimes drinking alone
– Thinking about drinking most of the times and invoking various pretexts to consume alcohol, such as having fun, dealing with anxiety, the need to cheer up and so on
– Hiding drink around the house or hiding when drinking
– A constant state of hangover
– Increased irritability, a volatile mood, and anger when it is suggested an alcohol problem might be at bay
– Withdrawal symptoms like headaches, nausea, bad mood and even episodes associated with depression when no drinks have been had for over 6 hours or so
Those who manifest these symptoms and behaviors are in definite need of professional assistance in the best alcohol treatment centers in Tucson. Here, at America’s Rehab Campuses, we use a combination of medication, behavioral therapies, support group sessions and recreative activities to help the mind disconnect from the addictive pattern and allow the individuals to enjoy life at its fullest once more.
