DRS helpline phone number
Who Answers?

Calls to the website’s main number are answered by best treatment center LLC and Intervention, a call center that specializes in helping individuals and families find resources for substance use disorders.

Guide on Alcohol Rehab

Last updated on: Friday, 12 May 2023

Alcohol rehab should focus on detox, individual counseling, and aftercare. Choosing a facility that will meet your needs is essential, with many treatment options. To help with this, we gather info on alcohol detox to help you make an informed decision. The page will also inform you how to recognize the signs to help someone with an alcohol problem.

GET A CALL BACK

  • What You'll Learn

Getting help for Alcohol Addiction

Alcoholism (often referred to as alcohol use disorder, AUD) afflicts millions of Americans. It can be hard to realize when alcohol consumption has become a problem. Alcohol addiction can be insidious since drinking is a socially accepted activity. Alcoholism is often sensationalized on TV or in movies, but alcohol use disorder can be much more subtle in real life. Some people are called ‘functional’ or ‘high-functioning’ alcoholics. In this instance, although the person has a drinking problem, they can have a good job and family life. This can make it much easier for someone to deny or not realize that they have a problem. An alcohol use disorder is much easier to handle if caught early and dealt with swiftly. The first step is to realize that the problem exists.

When is Alcohol Use a Problem?

Character holding other character because he is too drunk

Lack of Control

This could be an uncontrollable urge to drink or a person’s inability to stop thinking about drinking. A person may have tried to stop drinking and failed. It can also manifest in an inability to limit the quantity of alcohol one drinks. If someone says they will only have one drink but often end up drinking a lot more, it can be a sign of a problem.

Character drinking while driving

Dangerous Situations

When one’s drinking becomes dangerous, this can be a sign that it needs to be addressed. For example, if someone drinks in risky situations, including when someone is driving or has to drive after, or when a woman is pregnant or caring for young children. Another risky situation is mixing the medication with alcohol, no matter the reason. A red flag for this kind of behavior is when a person’s drinking gets them into legal trouble.

Character laying on a bench drinking alcohol

Necessity

When a person needs alcohol to perform certain activities, it can indicate an alcohol use disorder. Some people start needing alcohol to relax or fall asleep at night. Inversely, some people need a drink in the morning to get going and have a good day. Others might need alcohol to be social or feel confident when meeting other people. And when a person does not drink, they can start having negative thoughts or feelings and will use alcohol to escape those.

Character drinking bottles of alcohol

Tolerance & Withdrawal

These physical aspects could mean a person has an alcohol addiction. If a person develops a tolerance, they will need to drink more to feel the intended effects of alcohol. And this tolerance compounds the withdrawal problem. When a person stops drinking alcohol, they will start getting withdrawal symptoms, which can be very hard for them and make them drink again.

Character hitting woman while drinking

Lies

A common aspect of denying an alcohol problem is lying. If someone close to them asks them how much they drink, they lie to make it seem like less of a problem. They can also deny drinking altogether. This can also manifest in hiding alcohol in different places, so people won’t find it. Another sign of this can be making excuses for drinking and even causing their loved ones to make those excuses.

Character sitting on the street drinking alcohol

Life Problems

When drinking becomes a problem in one’s life, it indicates a problem exists. It is even more apparent when the person continues drinking despite those problems. Here are some examples of the problems drinking can create:

  • It interferes with things the person used to enjoy doing
  • Dropping important activities or doing them less often because of their drinking
  • Lessening of responsibilities or dropping responsibilities
  • Losing friendships or having other related issues because of their drinking
  • Becoming angry and hurting people when drinking

Alcohol Detox and Rehab

When an individual has been using alcohol for a long time or in large amounts, an alcohol detox is necessary. A person should not stop alcohol abruptly without medical supervision because withdrawal from alcohol can lead to many complications and can be life-threatening. Therefore, alcohol treatment should always begin with a medically supervised detox. Once this is complete, an individual can begin their alcohol rehab without the threat posed by alcohol withdrawal.

Due to the availability of alcohol and its prevalence in many social activities, it is recommended that an individual attend a program that lasts at least at 4 to 6 weeks. This will ensure that the person suffering from alcohol use disorder can address the issues that lead to the onset of their unhealthy drinking habits. It also gives the individual enough time to learn the proper tools and coping mechanisms to remain alcohol-free.

Helping Someone with an Alcohol Use Problem

When someone you love is struggling with alcoholism, it is vital to take the necessary steps to help them. It can cause a lot of strain in a relationship, and specific patterns of behaviors come up, and they should be identified so that you can successfully help the person. One of the first things to realize is that it is not your fault, even if the alcohol says so. Their actions are their own, and blaming themselves or taking things personally focuses on the actual problem, their drinking.

Do Not:

Enable the person

  • Enabling refers to behavior making it easier for the person to keep drinking and for their addiction to worsen. Your intentions might be good, and you might be trying to help the person, but it keeps them from facing the real problem and realizing the severity of it. Enabling can take on many forms, but some classic enabling behaviors include the following: Ignoring the person’s alcohol-related behavior. Acting like nothing is wrong and not saying anything is a form of enabling. Things such as missing work and unexplained absences when you know alcohol is at play should not be ignored. Although it may seem like confronting the problem head-on will make it worse, not addressing it will just let it develop.

Shift Blame

  • An addict will often blame situations or other people for their drinking. Going along with that is not helping them in any way. It gives them a pass to keep doing it. Another point is that blaming their general behavior on things other than their drinking covers up the problem. For example, if a person has become more aggressive or violent now that they drink, blaming their stressful work life or even yourself for this behavior is not helping the alcoholic. Aggression and violence are never okay and should never be accepted or excused.

Make Excuses

  • Making up excuses or lying about your loved one’s drinking or actions is never the solution. Sometimes pride or fear of consequences for your loved one can cause you to lie about what is happening to them. This behavior again gives them free rein to keep drinking and behaving as they do. It keeps the person away from the consequences of their action and the pain caused by their drinking.

Do:

Seek Treatment

  • People can sometimes put off getting alcohol professional help, thinking they can get the person into an alcohol detox to stop drinking. The truth of the matter is that professional help is needed. You can try to stop the person from drinking by all means, but controlling the alcoholic does not handle their alcoholism. Seeking treatment is the best option to handle their substance use issue.

Real-Life Stories about Alcohol

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ARTICLE

MARCEL GEMME, DATS

AUTHOR

More Information

Marcel Gemme has been helping people struggling with addiction for over 19 years. He first started as an intake counselor for a drug rehabilitation center in 2000. During his 5 years as an intake counselor, he helped many addicts get the treatment they needed. He also dealt with the families and friends of those people; he saw first-hand how much strain addiction puts on a family and how it can tear relationships apart. With drug and alcohol problems constantly on the rise in the United States and Canada, he decided to use the Internet as a way to educate and help many more people in both those countries. This was 15 years ago. Since then, Marcel has built two of the largest websites in the U.S. and Canada which reach and help millions of people each year. He is an author and a leader in the field of drug and alcohol addiction. His main focus is threefold: education, prevention and rehabilitation. To this day, he still strives to be at the forefront of technology in order to help more and more people. He is a Licensed Drug and Alcohol Treatment Specialist graduate with Honours of Stratford Career Institute. Marcel has also received a certificate from Harvard for completing a course entitled The Opioid Crisis in America and a certificate from The University of Adelaide for completing a course entitled AddictionX: Managing Addiction: A Framework for Succesful Treatment.

MICHAEL LEACH, CCMA

MEDICAL REVIEWER

More Information

Michael Leach is a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant, who has over 5 years of experience working in the field of addiction. He spent his career working under the board-certified Addictionologist Dr. Rohit Adi. His experience includes working with families during their loved one’s stay in treatment, helping those with substance abuse issues find treatment, and teaching life skills to patients in a recovery atmosphere. Though he has worked in many different areas of rehabilitation, the majority of his time was spent working one on one with patients who were actively withdrawing from drugs. Withdrawal and the fear of going through it is one biggest reason why an addict continues to use and can be the most difficult part of the rehabilitation process. His experience in the withdrawal atmosphere has taught him that regardless of what approach a person takes to get off drugs, there are always mental and emotional obstacles that need to be overcome. He believes having someone there to help a person through these obstacles can make all the difference during the withdrawal process.