Alcohol Detox

Alcohol

Detox

Alcohol Detox
Center

Even the very prospect of detoxing from alcohol can be downright terrifying, especially if you choose to do it on your own. Once your body has become chemically dependent upon alcohol, abstaining for any extended amount of time can make you feel as though all of your systems are failing. Surprisingly, in many instances, this isn’t far from the truth. The effects that alcohol use disorder have on the brain and body are severe. After months or even years of training your body to rely on alcohol, it can enter an intense state of distress without it. In fact, most people experience tremors, sweating, and nausea within just six to eight hours of their last drink. Worse still, these withdrawal symptoms can heighten and progress for several days. If they aren’t properly managed, they may even last several weeks. At Southern California Detox Center, we provide detox services for making alcohol withdrawal shorter, safer, and far easier to endure. With our help, you can successfully overcome this major hurdle in your recovery, and can finish your detox fully prepared for the next phase of addiction treatment.

Many people make the mistake of trying to detox on their own. Going “cold turkey” at home isn’t just unnecessarily difficult; it’s also incredibly dangerous. For heavy drinkers and those who’ve suffered from alcohol use disorder for long periods of time, withdrawal symptoms will invariably spiral out of control.

Absent of medication and other forms of support for mitigating early withdrawal symptoms, some withdrawl symptoms can include:

When you detox in our posh Manhattan Beach facility, our team will make sure that your early withdrawal symptoms never have the opportunity to spiral out of control. Not only will we work hard to minimize these early symptoms, but we’ll also leverage a variety of proven therapies for relieving the physical and psychological stress that you feel. We’ll regularly check your vital signs, and use a number of needs-specific techniques for helping you achieve and maintain mood balance. We believe that committing to detox is one of the best things that people with alcohol use disorder can do to help themselves. We also believe that this process shouldn’t be overly uncomfortable, overly hard, or excessively long.

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Why Alcohol Detox Is So Challenging

It’s not uncommon for people to confuse alcohol abuse with alcohol addiction. Although the two conditions can look very much alike, there’s one distinct difference between them. With alcohol abuse, heavy drinkers have the ability to consciously choose to stop drinking. Detoxing for these individuals won’t be comfortable, but it won’t cause their bodies to send out blaring distress signals. Sadly, those who’ve reached the stage of full-blown addiction no longer have this choice. After having developed a chemical reliance upon alcohol, it is no longer possible for a person to safely quit drinking at will.

What Damage Can Alcoholism Do to the Brain?

Alcohol use causes various forms of brain damage. The longer that a person drinks, and the more alcohol that’s regularly consumed; the more severe this damage will ultimately become. Prolonged alcoholism causes changes in brain chemistry and brain functioning, and it can even result in a smaller brain size. Among some of the most important changes that occur are those that happen along the brain’s reward system. When you drink alcohol, you likely feel more confident, less stressed, and happier overall. This is because alcohol triggers a release of “feel good” chemicals known as neurotransmitters. By constantly triggering artificial releases of “feel good” chemicals, people who drink heavily can actually cause their neurotransmitters to burn out. Once this burnout occurs, the brain’s reward pathway is no longer able to function properly.

Alcoholism & Damaged Reward Systems

There are multiple problems that a damaged reward system can cause. To start, many alcoholics find themselves having to consume more alcohol to achieve feelings of euphoria and happiness. As their tolerance continues to increase, they may need to drink large amounts of alcohol just to feel normal or capable of functioning. Given that neurotransmitters aren’t just for making you feel good, their burnout means that countless systems and functions throughout the body will suffer. For instance, some neurotransmitters play a hand in controlling your balance and physical coordination, your memory, and your ability to feel motivated. Others have an impact on cognition, and on automatic movements such as the measured beating of your heart. Drinking too much alcohol and for too long, can actually make it difficult for your body to effectively manage these processes when you abstain. This is why people frequently experience:

• Rapid and dramatic changes in their body temperatures
• Excessive sweating and chills
• Chest pains and heart palpitations
• Dramatic drops or rises in their blood pressure
• Significant changes in their blood sugar

How Our Medical Detox
Can Help

As a southern California detox, we’ve got countless interventions that we can leverage to make the individual detox process as smooth and comfortable as it can possibly be. We leverage medications for helping the body:

• Adapt to functioning without alcohol
• Repair its reward pathway
• Clean itself of all alcohol and any residual toxins

We’re committed to taking a whole-health approach to helping our clients achieve sobriety and wellness. Thus, we diligently provide access to good nutrition, supplements that promote healing and physical recovery, and therapies for alleviating psychological distress. We’re also prepared to help our clients deal with the challenges of post-acute withdrawal symptoms (PAWS). These secondary and largely psychological symptoms typically arise after all physical withdrawal symptoms have abated. Our team can quickly and effectively alleviate the depression, malaise, anxiety, insomnia, and other issues that PAWS creates. Best of all, once you’ve made it past these hurdles, you can immediately begin working on maintaining your sobriety over the long-term by transferring seamlessly into our residential rehab program.