Many variables affect the detox timeline, including your body weight, drinking history, and age. If a person takes moderate amounts of alcohol for an extended period (4-5 years or more), he might be at risk of developing relapsing disorders when he wants to stop drinking.
High Point Treatment Center: High Point Treatment Center operates several locations in drug rehab massachusetts, including in New Bedford, Brockton, and Plymouth. The center offers a range of addiction treatment programs, including detoxification, inpatient treatment, and outpatient treatment.
Often, alcohol intake affects more than your physical health. Alcohol changes your mood, behavior, and relationships. Finding the right alcohol rehab center is essential, as alcohol detox is dangerous without medical supervision! Read to learn how long alcohol detox takes.
After You Stop Drinking, What Do You Expect?
When you stop drinking, your body will undergo a detoxification process. It is a natural process that removes any toxins that have built up in your body over time. When you drink alcohol, these toxins are released into your bloodstream and stored in your liver. When you stop drinking, they begin to be released by your liver.
When you stop drinking, you will experience the following:
- Changes in mood (e.g., irritability or sadness)
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- Insomnia
- Nausea or vomiting
- Tremors
- Anxiety
- Sweating
Within two to six hours of your last drink, minor detox symptoms may appear. Heavy drinkers may experience them for up to a week, while lighter drinkers usually experience them in 1 to 3 days. It is rare for withdrawal symptoms to persist.
How Detoxification Works
The doctors give thiamine supplements (vitamin B1) 80% of alcoholics have thiamine deficiency. The signs are fatigue, constipation, and appetite loss. Thiamine helps the body break down alcohol, so taking it can help reduce the amount of alcohol absorbed into your bloodstream.
Another option is to eat healthy foods that will nourish your body and slow the absorption rate of alcohol. It means eating lots of fruits, vegetables, lean protein (like chicken breast), and complex carbs (like whole grain bread).
Lorazepam is given to patients with ethanol withdrawal symptoms trying to detoxify from alcohol use. It reduces anxiety and pain associated with withdrawal symptoms. If it doesn’t help, they give phenobarbital.
When detoxifying your body, it’s essential to do it safely. If you’ve had liver problems or seizures in the past, it’s best to talk to a doctor before starting a detoxification regimen.
Alcohol Addiction Signs
Alcohol addiction ruins lives, but it’s also one you can beat. If someone is struggling with alcohol addiction, here are some signs to look out for:
- If drinking has caused problems at home life and relationships
- If your drinking has led to legal trouble or health problems
- Drinking affects performance at work or school
- Drinking alone
- Drinking in secret
- Skipping work/class to drink
- Experiencing blackouts
- Short-term memory loss
- Extreme mood swings
- Isolation from people
How Treatment Helps
If you’re trying to quit drinking, a few medications can help.
- Disulfiram is a chemical compound that helps to reduce the craving for alcohol. It works by causing unpleasant reactions when taken with alcohol. These reactions include nausea, vomiting, and headaches.
- Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist that blocks the effects of alcohol in the body. Naltrexone also treats opioid dependence.
- AcamprosateIt helps reduce the cravings for alcohol and helps with anxiety.
When You Abuse Alcohol Does the Body Recover?
It depends on how much and how often you drink, how well your body can metabolize alcohol, and how quickly you can get into a treatment program.
The liver is responsible for breaking down alcohol and eliminating it from your bloodstream. When you drink, alcohol passes through the stomach and into the small intestine, where it’s absorbed into the bloodstream. From there, it travels to the liver, where enzymes break it down into acetaldehyde (even more toxic than alcohol.
Breaking down alcohol takes about 60 minutes per drink, so as you continue drinking over time, your liver becomes overwhelmed by all that extra work. This constant stress on your liver can lead to severe damage that may not be reversible.
Alcohol affects every organ in the body, and your system will need time to adjust when you stop taking it. As long as you’re not dealing with liver cirrhosis, you should be able to recover within a few months. Depending on your problem’s severity, recovery could take weeks, months, or even years!
Your alcohol test results depend on several factors, including age, alcohol intake duration, and body weight. A medically supervised detox can ensure that you emerge from the whole process without problems or complications. If you are ready to quit drinking, consider undergoing detox. Detox programs are available in clinics that flush your system over a week, to holistic methods like yoga or sauna sessions.
