The Fitness Blog

There are many ways that alcohol misuse can affect our health and our social skills; After one or two drinks you start to feel more relaxed and more socialble as the alcohol reaches the brain and affects your cognitive abilities.
Alcohol consumption causes your heart rate to increase and you may feel a warm glow. This is caused by alcohol making the minute Veins in the skin widen, allowing blood to flow closer to the surface and lowers blood pressure.

Effects of Alcohol on your health

The effects of drinking excessive amounts of alcohol can be terrible. Alcohol health problems include slowed breathing and heartbeat, loss of consciousness, impaired judgment leading to accidents and injuries, anxiety, suffocation through choking on your own vomit and potentially fatal alcohol poisoning. Drinking too much alcohol can also effect you mentally (generally temporarily), making you feel guilt or anger for no apparant reason and even making you paranoid. You slurr your words, often don’t recognise your surroundings and drinking too much alcohol can result in memory loss.

Heavy drinking increases your calorie intake, resulting in it being partly responsible for adult obesity. In a medium-sized (175ml) glass of wine there are 125 calories and over 500 in a bottle. Thats approximately 1 quarter of the national guidline daily amount!

Hangovers – Headaches could be the least of your worries

Alcohol consumption can cause you to get a hangover the next morning, often being unpleasant to experience. You may get stomach ache, sickness, nausea and sometimes diarrhea, Alcohol abuse also has a dehydrating effect. Drinking alcohol can also make you feel depressed, guilty

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consuming more than the recommended amounts regularly you are putting your health in damger. Consuming larger amounts of alcohol increases blood pressure.

Alcohol consumption is often linked with mental health problems. It has been found that people suffering from depression and anxiety were twice as likely to be problem drinkers.

Extreme levels of drinking can occasionally cause ‘psychosis’, a severe mental illness where the person beleives others are plotting against them. Heavy drinking may lead to isolation and sadness.

Jesse had an exceptionally hard time maintaining a job. To be sure, because of her laziness and lack of motivation, she was without a job far more regularly than she was in work. And when she did land a job, she had an awfully hard time getting to work when her shift started, she regularly got less than great performance assessments, and she called off sick so habitually that she usually got fired a week or two after she began working. To no one’s disbelief, one of the consequences of Jesse’s poor employment track record was the fact that she was almost totally broke most of the time.

Despite Jesse’s less than passing work record and financial misbehavior, then again, somehow, someway she made it a point to drink irresponsibly from day-to-day.

So it came as no big surprise when Jesse got arrested for a third DWI. When she went before the court, the magistrate told Jesse that her alcohol-related actions was awful and, as a consequence, he was going to sentence Jesse to serve seven months in the municipal jail.

Time In The Municipal Jail To Think About The Disruptive Results of Irresponsible and Excessive Drinking

During her time in the city jail, Jesse was expected to learn more about alcohol facts, about the disruptive results of abusive drinking, and she was expected to get alcohol counseling. The judge highlighted the fact that unless Jesse gets professional alcohol rehab and learns how to live a life of abstinence, she will most probably be spending more than a short amount of time in the municipal jail.

Jesse articulated that she comprehended what the magistrate was proclaiming but she still proclaimed that placement in the county jail was not the most logical sentence. The magistrate saw things differently and claimed that it was his professional duty to keep alcohol addicted individuals off the streets who drive and drink and who receive one or more DWIs. To substantiate this view, the magistrate listed some revered, extensively researched alcohol statistics that underlined some of the unhealthy outcomes that are linked to abusive and excessive drinking.

Even though Jesse understood that she drank in an abusive and hazardous manner, she never felt that she was an alcohol dependent person. So it was a rude awakening when Jesse started to experience symptoms of alcohol withdrawal nearly four-and-a-half hours after after getting locked up in the city jail.

To treat her symptoms of alcohol withdrawal in a safe manner, Jesse was taken by ambulance to a rehab hospital for alcohol detox and then brought back to jail. While locked up in the municipal jail Jesse was given a mental health appraisal for her depression and undertook alcohol therapy but due to the fact that she got this rehab as something that was forced upon her, she neglected to take ownership of her hazardous drinking.

When her time in the county jail was finished, the judge without indecision told Jesse that she would be under stringent surveillance and would be mandated to take periodic alcohol tests.

Jessie’s Excessive and Irresponsible Drinking Prevents Her From Living in a Mature and Accountable Manner

After hearing how Jesse failed to take ownership of her drinking circumstances and how she unenthusiastically followed the therapy protocol while in the local jail, the magistrate knew that it was simply a matter of time before he would be seeing Jesse once again in court about her thoughtless drinking behavior. As the magistrate reflected on Jesse’s circumstance, he couldn’t help but think about how some individuals never ”get it” and learn how to live in and adult and effective manner.

When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I enrolled into a substance abuse class. At that time, I did not understand that alcohol abuse in reality was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse and especially about alcohol side effects, I read a lot about Alcoholic Anonymous, their meetings, how their programs have twelve steps, and how successful the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program has been for people all over the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol rehabilitation and the different alcohol rehab facilities that are frequently available to individuals who engage in heavy drinking.

Detrimental Effects That are Linked to Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse

Some of the harmful end results associated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class without a doubt terrified me. The ruined lives and many problems experienced by most alcoholics made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. In short, I did not want to face the disaster and devastation that alcohol addicted individuals almost always experience.

Reflect on this for a moment. What fifteen-year-old person wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What young person wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that ingesting alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What young person wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related difficulties before he or she becomes twenty-one?

What teenager wants to experience alcohol withdrawals when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would a person engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause difficulties in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after a person has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would a teenager want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that revolves around irresponsible drinking?

These issues were so important that I discussed some of them in class throughout the school year. What was utterly astonishing to me was the number of students who basically didn’t care about the negative effects of abusive drinking that I discussed. It was almost as if they couldn’t be bothered with the truth and how these results can destroy their lives. For the first time in my life I started to grasp something that my grandfather used to articulate all through my teen and pre-teen years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.

It’s Beneficial, Enlivening, and Important to Keep Away From the Damaging and Unhealthy Effects of Alcohol and Drug Abuse

And even at my young age, I also began to realize how important, beneficial, and enlivening it is in life to stay away from the unhealthy and debilitating consequences of alcohol and drug abuse.

When Janice was in high school, she had obtained a reputation as a person who studied much of the time and who rarely, if ever, drank with her classmates. She seemed passionate about “standing out” academically so that she would be able to find a career that she not only liked but one that also gave her a degree of security from a financial point of view.

After much contemplation, in due course she came to a decision that she wanted to be a lawyer. In order to accomplish this, nevertheless, she would first have to complete four years of undergrad education.

After Finishing High School Janice Gets Accepted Into A Famous Undergraduate University as Training For a Career as a Trial Lawyer

After Janice finished high school, she applied to and was accepted into a nationally ranked program in English. Her justification for this decision was that this subject would be a good foundation for law school and wouldn’t be similar to the preponderance of law school applicants who pick political science as their undergraduate major.

After graduating with a 3.8 GPA at the undergrad level, she applied to and was accepted at a celebrated law school at one of the Big Ten universities.

She enjoyed her legal studies but sometimes she was overwhelmed with all the work that was required at law school. Reminiscent to the way she handled herself in her high school and undergraduate days, however, she made friends effortlessly but almost never took part in social activities until the school period was finished.

After Being Jubilant With the Fact That She Had Done a Super Job on Her Tests, Janice Wanted to Let Her Hair Down and Have Some Fun

Janice was the type of person who worked in a vigorous manner to finish what she was doing and then would take some time off when she could. It just so happens, nonetheless, that most of the things she did between terms or during summer breaks did not have much of anything to do with drinking. Evidently, Janice was anything but a party-girl. Now that her final exams for her second year in law school were done and feeling overjoyed that she had done very well on her tests, nonetheless, she wanted to let her hair down and do something besides going to college for a change.

Drinking at a Local Saloon Leads to An Alcohol Overdose, Calling 911, and a Visit to An Alcohol Rehab Clinic

So Janice and some of her friends went to a local bar where they had a few wine coolers. As the hours flew by, Janice continued to drink without having a care in the world about research projects or tests the next day. In point of fact, Janice stated to her classmates how thrilled she was to party with her law school buddies.

As the evening went by, Janice and her friends continued to drink. In truth, she was having such a magnificent time that she didn’t want the night to come to an end. It was almost as if she was making up for lost time and making an effort to condense a year’s worth of fun and excitement into a single evening. Such a “game plan,” in most situations, does not work. In actual fact, when Janice went to the lady’s room and threw up, her pals started to feel apprehensive about her health.

About twenty minutes later when Janice started to speak in a confused manner, slur her words, and then fall unconscious, however, her pals immediately realized that they needed to call 911 and ask for emergency assistance because they believed that Janice was displaying alcohol poisoning symptoms.

Once Janice was in the alcohol treatment hospital, the head doctor verified what her pals had speculated, to be precise, that Janice consumed significantly more alcohol than her body could process and, consequently, she suffered from an alcohol overdose.

After the emergency room treatment team pumped her stomach until no gastric contents were noticeable, Janice was placed in the recovery room. After staying around five hours in recovery, Janice was then relocated to one of the regular hospital rooms. Fortunately, the most serious part of her hospitalization had passed and all of her vital signs returned to normal.

In response to Janice’s state of affairs, her pals thoughtfully telephoned her parents. Consequently, early the next day, her parents and her best friends went to the hospital to see how Janice was doing.

Janice Comes Close to Losing Her Life, is Thankful to be Alive, and Promises to Never Again Drink in an Abusive and Excessive Manner

Janice was attentive to the fact that she had narrowly escaped death and, consequently, was gratified to be alive. Her parents realized how relentlessly she worked in graduate school and how little she permitted herself to socialize with her classmates. Nonetheless, they also knew that Janice needed to avoid excessive drinking.

As a consequence, they recommended that in the future, whenever a drinking situation presents itself, that she always drink in moderation and responsibly. Janice was of the same opinion and promised her friends and her Mom and Dad that she would never again drink in an excessive manner. As stated by Janice, “I never had an inkling that I would become one of the alcohol abuse and alcoholism statistics in the local newspaper. I now understand that irresponsible and excessive drinking is not for me. I swear that this will never happen again.”

Fortunately, Janice was not only “school smart” but she also displayed a lot of common sense. Stated another way, she immediately knew that she had made a mistake and decided that she would never make the same mistake again. In point of fact, she now knew that she had involved herself in “binge drinking” and that even one instance of this type of alcohol abuse can end in a loss of life.

Dante was a seventeen year old high school junior who was exhibiting numerous alcohol-related difficulties at school. Therefore, the principal informed him that he had to see Miss Johnson, the school counselor, before he would be allowed to come back to school.

Later that afternoon when Dante went home after school, he had to go over his school situation with his parents. His Mom and Dad were “fairly traditional” and explained to Dante that getting suspended from school was not an acceptable educational plan of action. They told Dante that failing to graduate from high school would probably be like a lead weight around his legs that may hamper his educational attainment for the remainder of his adult life. In addition, Dante’s parents were extremely displeased that he was drinking in the first place and drinking with his buddies in the second.

His parents told Dante that although he may be a teen, he needs to comprehend fairly swiftly that drinking is the pathway to pain, financial problems, failure, and ill health.

It was apparent that his Mother and Father were completely in accord with Dante’s principal and informed Dante that he had better make up his mind to see Miss Johnson, the school counselor. After his dialogue with his Mother and Father, Dante in due course agreed to see Miss Johnson the next school day. So Dante phoned the school and made an appointment to see Miss Johnson the next morning before school.

The Psychologist Asks Dante if He Understands Why His Recent Alcohol-Related Behavior Caused Quite a Bit of Apprehension By the School Administrators

When Dante got to his scheduled appointment with Miss Johnson, she immediately went over all of the alcohol-related difficulties Dante had gotten into and asked him if he knew why his recent alcohol-related behavior caused quite a bit of anxiety by the school administrators.

Quite candidly, Dante was not sure why the principal explained to him that he had to see a school counselor. As he expressed to Miss Johnson, why should he see a professional counselor about his drinking activities? Because nearly all of his classmates drink about as much as he does, fundamentally, drinking shouldn’t be such a big thing. Stated more directly, if nearly everyone is drinking, why is this such a major problem?

Miss Johnson asked Dante when he started to drink alcoholic beverages. He said that some of his older buddies introduced him to drinking wine coolers when he was twelve or thirteen years old and in the seventh grade.

Miss Johnson explained to Dante that while his buddies may in fact drink more than he does and that they may be a bad influence on him, the facts are that he is the one who is getting discharged from school due to alcohol-related delinquency, absenteeism, and fighting, not his buddies. What is more, Miss Johnson also stressed the fact that Dante, and not his pals, is the one who is failing and who is missing at least one day of class per week because of his alcohol related difficulties. Lastly, Miss Johnson underlined the fact that due to his drinking situation, Dante is getting into a harmful cycle of abusive drinking that can in time wreck his life.

In short, Dante’s involvement with teenage alcohol abuse was beginning to foil his ability to function as an accountable young man. As verbalized by Miss Johnson, “Just because most of your peers drink beer, wine, hard liquor, or wine coolers does not mean that it is right for you.”

Dante Learns That In Due Course He Must Be Responsible For Himself In Order to Avoid Dangerous, Destructive, Unhealthy, and Damaging Consequences In the Foreseeable Future

Miss Johnson informed Dante that one’s friends can indeed influence a person in an unhealthy way, but that the individual herself or himself has to eventually take responsibility for himself or herself in order to prevent dangerous, destructive, unhealthy, and damaging outcomes in the future.

Luckily, Miss Johnson was very well equipped for her scheduled time with Dante. She showed him reports and research studies she had highlighted that outlined diverse drinking facts and statistics that targeted most people in general. Then she showed Dante quite a bit of information that applied chiefly to underage drinkers.

As an illustration, Miss Johnson stressed the difference between alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction and explained to Dante that drinkers who continue to drink abusively frequently become dependent on alcohol.

Miss Johnson also articulated the concept of binge drinking which she defined as follows: drinking five or more drinks in one sitting for males and consuming four or more drinks in one sitting for females.

The Counselor Articulates Numerous Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse Facts and Statistics

Then Miss Johnson articulated various alcohol facts and the following eight alcohol abuse statistics:

1. Alcohol addiction and alcohol abuse cost the United States an estimated 0 billion in 2005. This dollar amount was more than the cost linked to obesity (3 billion) or with cancer (6 billion).

2. More than one-half of U.S. adults have a close relative or family member that has or has had alcohol dependency.

3. More than 75% of female victims of nonfatal, domestic violence stated that their assailant had been drinking or using drugs.

4. In the United States on an annual basis, more than 33% of pedestrians killed by motor vehicles were legally drunk.

5. One national research study uncovered the fact that students are less likely to use alcohol if they are socially accepted by others at school and feel that teachers treat students fairly.

6. Research demonstrates that teens who use alcohol may remember 10 percent less of what they have learned than those who don’t drink.

7. Nearly ten to twenty percent of the individuals who drink in a hazardous manner in the long run develop cirrhosis of the liver (i.e., a scarring of the liver that can be fatal).

8. Up to 40% of the U.S. industrial fatalities and 47 percent of industrial injuries are associated with alcohol abuse or alcohol dependency.

Dante Gets A Relevant Wake Up Call Concerning the Long Term and the Short Term Outcomes of Teenage Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse

After Miss Johnson stated the aforementioned alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction facts and statistics, it was evident that what Miss Johnson made known to Dante was a realization for him. Why? Because for the first time in his young life, someone not only made the effort to put in plain words the long term and the short term effects of alcohol dependency and alcohol abuse, but she also took the time to support what she was saying with alcohol dependency and alcohol abuse facts and statistics that related to people in general, and principally to teens.

Indeed, it was almost as if a light went on and Dante at once comprehended why he should not be engaging in abusive and excessive drinking with or without his peers anymore. Dante thanked Miss Johnson for her concern and for the information she presented.

Miss Johnson then asked Dante how he felt about getting a physical exam and an alcohol evaluation for the alcohol abuse or alcoholism rehab he would probably need.

Dante thought about this for few minutes and then agreed to get a thorough physical examination and to go through a complete assessment of his drinking situation so that he could start an alcohol rehab program promptly.

Merissa and Augie have been dating one another for seven years. They met while taking the same philosophy class at a relatively small, country, private liberal arts college located in the far Western part of the United States. While they were only good pals at first, they eventually started dating when they were in their first year of college.

Since both of them came from very ”old school” backgrounds, neither one of them drank much beyond the experimental stage when they first started to date. As the time went by, nonetheless, they began to go to more sorority and fraternity parties, football bashes, keg parties, and happy hours. As a result, they gradually began to drink increasingly more the more they dated.

Their Social Life Usually Consisted of Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Professional Sporting Events, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Disco on the Weekends

After they graduated, they both found employment in a medium size city that was approximately seventy miles from their undergraduate college. Then they finally decided to move in with one another.

Given the fact that they were far removed from the college drinking scene, nevertheless, their social life as a rule consisted of going to parties with their friends, going to happy hour with their friends, going to professional sporting events, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, and going to the local bar with their pals on the weekends. In brief, Augie and Merissa started to drink in an excessive and hazardous manner.

Now that they were living with each other and beginning to get more serious about their relationship, then again, they started thinking about having children, buying a house, becoming more responsible, and getting married.

With any momentous transformation in a person’s life there is frequently something that causes the particular change in question. For Merissa and Augie the idea of buying a new house and having children was this “trigger.” In a word, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa started to reflect on their excessive and irresponsible drinking and the long term alcohol effects on their health.

How Would Their Hazardous and Heavy Drinking Affect Their Relationship With One Another, Their Ability to Have Children, Their Finances, Their Mental Health, and Their Relationship With Their Parents?

Would their hazardous drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending nearly all of their money on drinking if they were to start saving for a new house? How mature would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an excessive and hazardous manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term dreams, hopes, and aspirations while they still drank in an abusive and hazardous manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their abusive and excessive drinking do to their relationship? How would their heavy and abusive drinking affect their mental health?

From a different viewpoint, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their heavy and irresponsible drinking was becoming a thorny issue that they could not discount anymore.

After Giving Their State of Affairs Much Deliberation, Merissa and Augie Finally Understood That Their Hopes, Dreams, and Aspirations Would not be Completed if They Continued Their Abusive and Irresponsible Drinking

All of these uncertainties undoubtedly led to the same conclusion: Merissa and Augie needed to comprehend more clearly that they couldn’t continue their heavy drinking if their dreams, hopes, and aspirations were to be fulfilled.

Once they got to this conclusion, they informed their drinking friends about their plans to start a family, about their goal of buying or building a new house, and about their marital plans. They also told their drinking pals that they still wanted to pal around with them but that they would be drinking responsibly from this point forward so that they could start to realize their future aspirations, goals, and dreams.

Amazingly, all of their pals expressed relief because they too had been reexamining their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too often focused on drinking. They also thought that they would have to change substantially if they were to become more accountable and display more concern for their health, their careers, and for their goals in the next five or ten years.

After their frank discussion with their buddies about their dreams, aspirations, and goals, Augie and Merissa actually started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their pals. The fundamental reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same perspective regarding their excessive and heavy drinking and their relatively short and long-term goals, plans, and aspirations.

Ken eventually decided that he needed to go and see his family physician about his irresponsible drinking. At first, Ken thought he would be able to simply go on the Internet, look for some fundamental alcohol abuse and alcoholism information and establish whether or not he was dependent on alcohol. Not surprisingly, he located many websites that outlined some of the general symptoms of alcoholism. That’s the good news. The less positive news, regrettably, was that Ken showed evidence of numerous of these alcoholism symptoms.

Symptoms of Alcohol Dependency: Some Examples

For example, Ken was drinking quite a bit more than usual and he was beginning to have more impassioned arguments with his significant other. In the same way, for the first time in his young life he was going through sleeping problems. If this wasn’t enough, Ken time and again felt depressed and on an escalating basis he had been exhibiting limited attentiveness at his place of work.

In the same way, he felt stressed out and more nervous on a regular basis and for the past five or six months he displayed murky thinking at his place of work. Because Ken manifested all of these symptoms, he was rightly concerned about his drinking problems.

So Ken decided to place a phone call to his healthcare professional and schedule an appointment. As a matter of fact, this was rough for Ken because his family healthcare practitioner was also his parents’ family doctor. The origin of his worry was this: at the risk of embarrassing his family, he had to go and expose his careless and abusive drinking behavior to his family doctor.

When Ken arrived at the healthcare practitioner’s office, he overtly informed the healthcare practitioner about the fear he had about his irresponsible drinking behavior. When the family doctor asked what was prompting this consternation, Ken stated that he had gone on the Internet and read about dependency on alcohol and especially about alcoholism symptoms. He then stated all of the alcoholism symptoms that he plainly thought he exhibited.

An Inclusive Physical Exam and Outpatient Alcohol Rehabilitation

The family physician notified Ken that it was wise of him to focus on his drinking difficulties, he gave Ken an exhaustive physical assessment, and suggested that he enroll in an out-patient alcohol rehabilitation program that was supervised by one of his doctor friends.

What is more, when Ken mentioned that he had been feeling a sense of melancholy to a greater extent, the healthcare practitioner informed Ken that depression and alcoholism routinely occur in the same individual. For that reason, the family physician also suggested that Ken obtain counseling to tackle his gloom.

The Value of Coming To Grips With Your Drinking Problems and Getting Motivated About Making Successful, Positive, and Healthy Changes in Your Life

The family physician made it a point to tell Ken that he might not inevitably be alcohol dependent, but that he was without a doubt drinking in a hazardous manner. Stated another way Ken was displaying alcohol abuse signs.

The physician then told Ken that the reason he recommended alcohol treatment in the first place was because he wanted him to come to terms with his drinking difficulties, make sure that he stopped them from going downhill further, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that he had to entirely stop drinking.

To put it briefly, by effectively treating his problem drinking, Ken would be able to get his drinking issues under control and stop the negative series of events that could most likely lead to alcohol addiction.

Undeniably, Ken did not want to face the thought of getting admitted into an alcohol treatment center. Nor was he overjoyed about going to a counselor about his depression. Notwithstanding these fears, then again, Ken as a matter of fact experienced some psychological relief for the first time in quite a few months because in the end he quit making excuses for himself and finally made up his mind that he needed to do something constructive about his drinking activities.

With such a positive attitude, it was very likely that Ken would be successful in his alcohol rehabilitation as well as in his treatment for his depression.

When Janice was in high school, she had acquired a reputation as a person who studied much of the time and who rarely, if ever, had fun drinking with her classmates. She seemed highly motivated to “stand out” academically so that she would be able to pursue a career that she not only liked but one that also gave her a degree of security from a financial point of view.

After much deliberation, in due course she made up her mind that she wanted to be a trial lawyer. In order to accomplish this, nevertheless, she would first have to get four years of undergrad education.

After Completing High School Janice Gets Accepted Into An Illustrious Undergraduate University as Preparation For a Career as a Trial Lawyer

After Janice graduated from high school, she applied to and was accepted into a highly rated program in economics. Her justification for this decision was that this academic discipline would be good preparation for law school and wouldn’t be similar to the bulk of law school applicants who choose political science as their undergraduate minor or major.

After graduating with a 4.0 GPA at the undergraduate level, she applied to and was accepted at a greatly admired law school at one of the Big East universities.

She was enthusiastic about her legal studies but on occasion she was flooded with all the work that law school entailed. Reminiscent to the way she handled herself in her high school and undergraduate days, nonetheless, she made pals easily but barely participated in social events until the term was completed.

After Feeling Proud of the Fact That She Had Done Very Well on Her Tests, Janice Wanted to Let Her Hair Down and Do Something Besides Studying For a Change

Janice was the kind of person who worked relentlessly to reach her objective and then would take some time off when she could. It just so happens, nonetheless, that the vast majority of the things she did between terms or during summer breaks were unrelated to drinking. Needless to say, Janice was anything but a party-person. Now that her final examinations for her second year in law school were completed and feeling happy that she had done a super job on her exams, because of this, she wanted to let her hair down and have some fun.

Drinking at a Local Saloon Leads to Alcohol Poisoning, Calling 911, The Emergency Number, and An Ambulance Ride to An Alcohol Treatment Hospital

So Janice and some of her friends from the university went to a local tavern where they had a few shots. As the hours went by, Janice continued to drink without having a care in the world about research projects or examinations the next day. In fact, Janice told her friends how overjoyed she was to party with her friends.

As the evening advanced, Janice and her pals continued to drink. In actual fact, she was having such an incredible time that she didn’t want the night to come to an end. It was almost as if she was making up for lost time and making an effort to cram a year’s worth of enjoyment and fun into a single evening. Such a “game plan,” it needs to be emphasized, hardly ever works. In point of fact, when Janice went to the restroom and vomited, her pals started to feel uneasy about her wellbeing.

Around thirty minutes later when Janice started to talk in a confused manner, slur her speech, and then pass out, nevertheless, her buddies promptly knew that they needed to call 911, the emergency number, and ask for emergency assistance because they suspected that Janice was exhibiting alcohol poisoning symptoms.

Once Janice was in the drug and alcohol rehab hospital, the presiding emergency room doctor validated what her classmates had speculated, to be exact, that Janice consumed far more alcohol than her body could handle and, consequently, she suffered from an alcohol overdose.

After the medical team pumped her stomach until no gastric contents were noticeable, Janice was placed in the recovery room. After staying roughly six hours in recovery, Janice was then moved to one of the regular hospital rooms. Fortunately, the most life-threatening part of her hospitalization was over and all of her vital signs were once again in the normal range.

In response to Janice’s medical situation, her classmates considerately called her Mother and Father. Consequently, early the next morning, her Mother and Father and her best friends went to the hospital to see Janice.

Janice Comes an Inch From Losing Her Life, is Pleased to be Alive, and Promises to Never Again Drink in an Abusive and Hazardous Manner

Janice was conscious of the fact that she had dodged a bullet and, consequently, was pleased to be alive. Her Mom and Dad were aware how relentlessly she worked at school and how little she permitted herself to socialize with her pals. Nonetheless, they also realized that Janice needed to avoid hazardous drinking.

As a consequence, they suggested that down the road, whenever a drinking situation presents itself, that she always drink responsibly and in moderation. Janice agreed and gave her word to her parents and to her friends that she would never again drink in an excessive and abusive manner. In her own words, “I never pondered the fact that I would become one of the alcohol abuse and alcoholism statistics in the local college newspaper. I now realize that irresponsible and abusive drinking is not for me. I give my word of honor that this will never happen again.”

Fortunately, Janice was not only “school smart” but she also had a lot of common sense. In other words, she immediately grasped the fact that she had made an error and made up her mind that she would never make the same error again. In actual fact, she now knew that she had involved herself in “binge drinking” and that even one instance of this form of hazardous drinking can end in a fatality.

It is remarkable to articulate something that family members who have been unfavorably affected by the alcohol dependency of another family member apparently do not grasp. It appears that by shielding the alcohol dependent individual with untruths and dishonesty to those outside the family, these well-intentioned family members have basically created a condition that makes it easier for the alcoholic to persevere and advance with his or her damaging, detrimental style of life.

Clearly, rather than helping the alcohol dependent individual and themselves, these family members have in truth become enablers who have inadvertently helped deteriorate the alcoholic’s drinking problem even further.

Perhaps the real downside of this is that the alcohol dependent person will continue drinking in an excessive and abusive manner and experience various “alcohol side effects.” Some of these side effects include deteriorating relationships, considerable financial problems, legal issues (such as getting arrested for one or more DUIs), employment difficulties, diminished mental functioning, and poor health.

The Possibility of a Relapse is Real

According to the research literature and statistics on alcohol dependency, another key alcohol dependency issue concerns alcohol relapses. Relapses take place when an alcohol addicted person has effectively gone through alcoholism rehab and then returns to drinking a number of weeks or months later. At first thought, this predicament flies in the face of sound thinking and looks so improbable that it forces a person to wonder why anyone who has gone through the awfulness of alcoholism can return to drinking a short while after effective alcohol therapy and in turn after attaining sobriety. There are, for sure, many credible reasons for this.

It should be noted, then again that alcoholism research that has focused on the lasting outcomes of alcohol addiction has demonstrated-proven that long after the alcoholic has halted his or her drinking, key alterations in the way in which the alcohol dependent individual’s brain operates are still present. As a consequence, all a recovering alcohol dependent individual has to do to involve himself or herself in actions that correspond with the modifications that have taken place in the brain is to begin drinking once again.

The Need for A Drastic Lifestyle Change

There are other reasons why numerous recovering alcohol dependent individuals return to drinking a few weeks or a few months after attaining sobriety. According to the alcoholism research literature, to make an effective recovery, the alcoholic needs new ways of acting and thinking in order to deal more effectively with tough alcohol-related circumstances that will take place.

Conditions such as returning to the same alcohol addictive environment or to the same geographic location; interacting once again with friends from the days when the alcohol dependent individual was drinking abusively; or familiar songs, smells, or activities—all of these circumstances can bring about memories that can prompt psychological tension or push hot buttons that influence the recovering alcoholic to engage in excessive drinking once again. Sadly, all of these circumstances may not only contradict long standing alcohol recovery for the alcoholic but they can also result in relapse and therefore short-circuit one’s sobriety.

The Good News: Quality Help is Readily Available

In an attempt to “protect” the family alcohol addicted individual, family members can essentially cause unintentional destruction by enabling the negative drinking behavior of the alcohol dependent person.

The drug abuse research literature demonstrates the fact that most individuals who successfully complete alcohol therapy go through at least one relapse. Alcohol dependent persons and their family members need to know this so that they do not get crestfallen or beleaguered when a relapse occurs.

Fortunately, taking part in support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and follow-up therapy and training have resulted in more productive, long standing alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency rehab outcomes, have helped decrease alcohol relapses, and have helped recovering alcohol addicted persons achieve enduring alcohol recovery.

Heather is a fifty-six-year-old woman who is the top administrator in the human resources department at a large aluminum siding company. To trim down the costs linked to increasing absenteeism, employee alcoholism and alcohol abuse, poor employee work performance, work related injuries, and excessive sick days, Heather and the other VIPs initiated a number of programs that made the work environment considerably more safe, more productive, and healthy.

For example, thirteen years ago Heather and the other members of top management initiated an Employee’s Assistance Program so that all the employees had access to first-rate counseling for their personal problems that could negatively influence their personal well-being, work performance, and their health.

Top Management Erects An Avant-Garde Workout and Exercise Room Complete With Weights, a Professional Trainer During Business Hours, Exercise Equipment, Scales, Mirrors, and Exercise Charts

As another illustration, nearly eight-and-a-half years ago Heather and the other company executives constructed a modern exercise and workout room complete with mirrors, exercise charts, a personal trainer during business hours, weights, many different types of exercise equipment, and scales.

Moreover, approximately four years ago Heather and the other company administrators invested in a distillation system that filters all the drinking water that is available in the building complex. In a similar way, three-and-a-half years ago, Heather and the other company administrators started a “walking club” that is mainly intended for employees who want to enhance their cardiovascular system.

The VIPs Establish a Weight-Watchers Class and Employ a Weight-Loss Nurse to Supervise the Program

As another example, nearly two years ago, Heather and the other members of upper management instituted a “Weight-Watchers” class that at this moment in time meets every Tuesday and Thursday at 1:00 PM until 2:00 PM. Moreover, the company leaders hired a weight-loss trainer to run the program.

In the same way, two years ago Heather and the other company leaders launched a “Stop Smoking Club” for workers who want to learn how to stop smoking.

In the last twelve months, in conjunction with the Employee’s Assistance Program, Heather and the other members of top management launched an “Anger Management” class for employees who want to learn how to better manage their anger.

Top Management Puts Into Operation a Drug and Alcohol Testing Program

In the last two months, Heather and the other VIPs started a alcohol and drug testing program that is associated with their drug and alcohol abuse prevention program. Indeed, Heather is the main person in the company responsible for getting the message out to all the employees about the drug and alcohol testing program as well as the drug and alcohol abuse prevention program.

One of the fundamental elements of the drug and alcohol abuse prevention program is a class entitled “Alcoholism and Depression” that meets every Wednesday after work. The fundamental idea with this class is informing workers that abusive drinking and depression regularly occur in the same person. It is hoped that comprehending this information can help an individual address both medical problems and get the alcohol rehabilitation and mental health counseling he or she needs.

The Company Leaders Put Into Operation an Alcohol Statistics and Facts Class

Another fairly recent addition to the drug and alcohol abuse prevention program is a class entitled “Alcohol Statistics and Facts.” The reasoning behind this alcohol statistics facts class is the reality that many people fail to understand the total impact of the effects of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency without first getting exposed to some of the alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency statistics and facts that are available. Consequently, one of the goals of this class is to provide a range of alcoholism and alcohol abuse statistics and facts to help workers gain a better comprehension of the multitude of issues that are associated with irresponsible and abusive drinking and how they can stop these difficulties from coming about.

Most recently, Heather and the other members of top management, by way of observations from employees, started a class that focuses directly on acute drinking entitled “What is Alcoholism”? This class meets every Tuesday morning an hour before work and focuses chiefly on the differences between alcohol dependency and alcohol abuse, on the stages of alcoholism, and on the types of rehabilitation that are available for people who have alcohol drinking problems such as individuals who drink in an irresponsible manner.

Although every single one of these preventative maintenance and health programs was fairly expensive, top management believes that they are several thousands of dollars ahead by providing all of their employees with a safe, more productive, and healthy working situation.