Recoverycoach’s Weblog

Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs around, not only because of its availability and acceptance, but also because of its damaging effects and dangerous detox. Many alcoholics who have tried to stop drinking on their own have reported very uncomfortable symptoms, and sometimes these symptoms have proved to be fatal. Alcohol detox symptoms are dependent on the severity of the alcoholism and length of time abuse has be going on. During alcohol detoxification, the patient is medically monitored during the removal of the alcohol from the system. During this removal, alcoholics may experience mild to sever symptoms such as sweating, headaches, delirium tremors (DT’s) leading to seizures, anxiety, increased heart rate, insomnia, agitation and sometimes death. The process of detox can be very complicated, again depending on the severity of the addiction. Many times, medical staff will utilize medications to ease some of these symptoms. Often, drugs in the class of benzodiazepines, such as Clonazepam and Diazepam are anticonvulsants used to assist with anxiety and calm the muscles. These benzodiazepines are low level tranquilizers, and during the detoxification process, they play a beneficial role in relaxing the alcoholic and decreasing many of the physical symptoms of the withdrawal process.
With the use of mainly these two drugs, medical staff finds more success in making alcohol detox more comfortable and safe for the patient undergoing this process. Despite all the medical care one is able to receive during the detoxification process, alcohol detox always runs risks and for very severe cases of alcoholism where the patient has experienced cirrhosis of the liver or other organic diseases caused by drinking, the detox process can last several weeks to months for medical care. Most cases of alcohol detoxification, however, take anywhere from 3 to 10 days.