Ensnared by Alcohol Abuse in Boise, Idaho
Alcohol abuse is a nationwide epidemic that has disrupted millions of American lives. There’s no state or city spared from its chaos and destruction. Boise, Idaho is no exception. Boise is the largest city in Idaho, and is the state’s capital.
People abuse alcohol for many reasons. A major precursor to alcohol abuse is mental illness. A lot of people who struggle with mental disorders might use alcohol to self-medicate. Though alcohol is a depressant, it can serve to dull the various symptoms associated with someone’s disorder. For example, those with anxiety may use alcohol to dull their persistent stress. Unfortunately, alcohol is a poison and a depressant, which will only lead to destruction. It may seem that self-medicating helps in the moment, but in a lot of situations self-medicating can exacerbate mental health issues.
Regardless of the reasons governing someone’s abuse, it is always a short term fix to a long term problem. Alcohol abuse may get you over the hump one day, but it does nothing to remove the issue. In many ways it just makes it worse in the long run as the problems never get dealt with and conflate with others.
Alcohol abuse not only has significant negative effects on someone’s psychology, but it also severs family ties and it’s extremely harmful to the body. Alcohol wreaks significant damage on the heart, liver, kidneys, brain, and pancreas. It is a sinister poison that doesn’t hold back its wrath on the mind, body, or spirit.
How Someone Develops an Alcohol Dependence?
Alcoholism is just another word for alcohol dependence, and when someone has transitioned from chronic use to dependence hey are in need of immediate help. When someone drinks alcohol, dopamine is released by the brain. Dopamine is the chemical responsible for feelings of euphoria and this feeling may become irresistible for people—especially someone who is going through a lot of pain in life.
There’s a bevy of people who can’t drink in moderation and consistently drink too much. Most of these people have a genetic predisposition towards abuse, so they are more sensitive to it. This group of drinkers will often begin to develop a tolerance, which makes it so they need to drink more and more to obtain the effects they crave.
Unfortunately, when someone continues to drink heavily it can lead to dependence. Dependence is characterized by an inability to resist alcohol regardless of the negative consequences associated with it. At this point, it’s imperative to try and get your loved one some sort of treatment.
Intervention
If your loved one is struggling with alcohol abuse, it may seem difficult to gauge when it’s appropriate to get them help. You may think that you need the leverage of a negative event to get them help, but that’s not the case. It’s better to be proactive and intervene before something terrible happens. When someone has crossed the line into dependence, it’s time to get them help.
Some common signs of dependence include: neglecting responsibilities, lying, and mood and weight changes. As you see these changes, it’s imperative to intervene. Interventions literally save lives. It may be intimidating to hold an intervention or you may have a lot of hard feelings towards the person due to their abuse, but you have to push through those feelings. There’s someone’s life on the line.
When you have decided it’s time to hold an intervention, you should contact A Better Today. A Better Today can give you the resources to hire an intervention specialist who’s trained in psychology and crisis management to assist your family. Before the intervention, the specialist will conduct an interview to outline the history of your loved one’s abuse. This is an important stage as the interventionist needs to get a good idea of how to orient the intervention.
After the interview, the interventionist will help your family develop a script. The script will include all of the personal statements that each team member will have prepared ahead of time. The interventionist will help the team members draft a statement that is both firm and loving. Statements that are filled with shame and attacks will only result in the person who needs help retreating deeper into their dependence. When the scripts have been created the interventionist and family will come up with a location to hold the intervention. The location isn’t something to take lightly. Some locations, such as a family house, can negatively trigger the individual in ways that disrupt the goal of the intervention. Most people would suggest holding an intervention in a professional space that’s neutral.
The goal of the intervention is to get the loved one into treatment. However, the family has to be ready for any kind of response—from flat out rejection to belligerence. The loved one is dependent on alcohol and will try their best not to give that up. Sometimes it takes several interventions before someone decides to seek out help. When the loved one makes the decision to get help it’s crucial to suggest that they travel for treatment. Traveling for inpatient treatment is important because it removes the person from the harmful environment that bred their abuse. There is an outpatient option, but inpatient is usually more successful, simply because of how thorough and all-encompassing it is.
At ABT, we offer state of the art facilities and provide 24-hour care to our patients. A lot of our staff have gone through treatment themselves and have an intimate understanding of dependence and the battle for sobriety.
Is Treatment Affordable?
Many people who are in need of help see paying for treatment as a potential barrier. The fact of the matter is: it doesn’t have to be. At ABT, we make sure to provide flexible payment options to meet you wherever you are financially. Also, ABT takes most major insurances and a lot of insurance companies are able to pay for most if not all of treatment.
Detox at A Better Today
Another thing that keeps people from seeking treatment besides affordability is the detox process. Detox cleanses the body of the alcohol but it is accompanied by withdrawal symptoms. The extent of withdrawal symptoms is determined by the history of abuse, however, it can be mitigated through the use of various medications—mostly benzodiazepines (which are sedatives). At ABT, we make sure that the patient is supervised during the detox, with a medical staff that will administer the medications and make sure the person is comfortable.
Before the detox process begins, the ABT staff will do an exam on the person where they will determine the best treatment plan. The entirety of the detox process shouldn’t take more than 14 days. It’s important to detox at a facility because of the potential severity of withdrawals. Withdrawal symptoms vary from more mild forms such as shaking and vomiting, to more extreme like hallucinating or having seizures. People have died from the seizures associated with hallucinations, but again, these symptoms can be mediated with the right supervision and medication. When the patient has completed detox they will be ready for the therapeutic dimension of treatment.
Treatment at A Better Today
A Better Today specializes in Cognitive Behavioral therapy, which is rooted in replacing negative thought patterns that lead to low self-esteem and abuse. Our team will come up with an individualized therapy plan that is crafted to meet your needs. We offer many forms of therapy including: group, individual, and art therapy. In group therapy the patient will be able to connect to the stories of triumph from other people going through similar situations. It will also help them re-acclimate back into society—as group therapy serves as a test group of sorts. In individual therapy the patient will be paired with a trained psychologist with a master’s degree. They will be able to learn the coping skills to survive in the real world.
At our facility we are trying to prepare people for long term success. Though alcohol dependence has no real cure, it can be managed and dealt with in positive, empowering ways. Everybody has a different timetable for completing treatment. We try to make sure that we give everybody space to have their own journey—there is no one-size-fits-all approach. After the treatment is completed, the patient will have the option of going to a sober living facility—which are staffed by ABT employees—or go back to their home. Though someone finishes treatment at the facility, the process of recovery is not over. It’s a daily grind. Fortunately, the ABT staff is dedicated to serving as a surrogate family in your recovery process. We are here to make today better as well as tomorrow.
