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23 January 2019

Drink Responsibly

Drinking wine can seem be a pleasant thing for many people, however it is possible to develop an issue with it and drinking alcohol can become an issue for some people. If you think that you have a problem with drinking and it's starting to affect your life then you should perhaps think about getting help. There are many different routes to recovery you can take, the first of these is to go to your GP to get help. 

There is plenty of addiction help available for people from all walks of life.

Do think you might have an issue?

Alcohol dependence operates on a spectrum. Just under 8.7% of men and 3.3% of women in the UK show signs of being alcohol dependant, Being alcohol dependant means that you feel like you will not be able to function without it. Drinking becomes an important  or sometimes the number 1 factor in your life.

Get medical advice before you stop drinking if you have physical withdrawal symptoms for example shaking, sweating, nausea before the first drink of the day. It can be dangerous to stop drinking too quickly without the proper support if you’re experiencing symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

Are you alcohol dependant? It could be surprising for you to hear that you don't always have to be drinking extreme amounts of alcohol to become alcohol dependent. Anyone who regularly drinks will have some degree of alcohol dependence. According to Dr. Nick Sheron a liver disease specialist based at the university of Southampton.

Alcohol dependence has a spectrum at one end of the scale you have people who are mildly dependant, this might be people who can’t think of a friday night without getting a bit tipsy, and then at the other end you have people who value alcohol as being more important than their jobs, families or even life itself.

Many need to get help from specialists at public funded or private rehab

People who drink heavily tend to keep increasing the amount they drink because they develop an alcohol tolerance. Tolerance is a psychological response that we have to any drug, the more that you consume the more you need to have the same affect.

Part of this dependance is because the wiring in the brain changes with alcohol consumption . This change will mean that you will need to drink more in order to feel the affects, and take away some of that control.

60% of whether you will become alcohol dependant depends on genetics, the rest is due to free will and environmental factors. If there are alcoholics in the family then you are much more likely to suffer from becoming an alcoholic - for this reason you need to be aware of the risks.

If you think that you're struggling with alcohol dependence then you should go to your GP and tell them. Forms of support and treatment such as alcohol rehab could be the solution.