An experiment like this would not be permissible by the scientific community (nor should it be permitted) but thinking this through may prove to be enlightening.  Here’s the experiment.  Let’s tie up a non-drinker in a chair and force-feed him or her with alcohol through the veins.

Depending how much alcohol this person receives, at some point, he or she will become alcohol dependent and will experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms if his or alcohol supply is shut off.  Once this person is addicted to alcohol, this person has a disease called alcoholism.  And once this point is reached, his or her primary mission each day will be to drink at least enough alcohol to avoid getting alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

As unrealistic and cruel as this “experiment” is, it points to at least one critical piece of information.  Most, if not all alcoholics were never tied up and forced to drink.  In other words, before a person becomes alcohol dependent, he or she first engages in abusive drinking.  By definition, when a person involves himself or herself in abusive drinking and is not alcohol dependent, he or she will not experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms when he or she stops drinking.  As a result, the person at this point does not have alcoholism disease.

This means that becoming an alcoholic is not as “innocent” as catching a cold or the flu.  The alcoholic at one point in his or her drinking “career” had a choice whether or not he or she would continue drinking in a hazardous and destructive manner.  In other words, alcoholics who at one point were simply alcohol abusers chose not to drink in a responsible manner and they played the key role in becoming alcohol dependent.

According to the alcoholism and alcohol abuse research findings, individuals who are going through alcohol withdrawal symptoms should not deal with these symptoms at home.  What they should do is to get professional medical help right away so that their urgent care center personnel, healthcare provider, doctor, or emergency room personnel can evaluate the severity of their alcohol withdrawals and recommend the best option for treatment.

Here’s some relevant information about alcohol rehab.  It is important to note that alcohol rehab is not only for alcoholics.  Stated another way, alcohol rehab is needed by people who are alcoholics as well as by people who are alcohol abusers.

The key difference between rehab for alcohol abusers and rehab for alcoholics is the following:  people who are not alcohol dependent but who drink in an abusive manner do not require treatment for alcohol withdrawal symptoms because with alcohol abuse without dependency, alcohol withdrawals are almost always a non-issue.  Knowing this, it would appear to be extremely important for alcohol abusers to get alcohol rehab “before” they reach the point when they are alcohol dependent.

When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I took a drug abuse class. At that time period, I did not comprehend that alcohol abuse in reality was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse, 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 individuals throughout the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol rehab and the diverse alcohol rehab facilities that are normally available to problem drinkers.

Some of the injurious outcomes linked to alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class absolutely startled me. The ruined lives and many problems experienced by most alcohol addicted people made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. In a word, I did not want to face the damage and destruction that alcohol addicted individuals almost always go through.

Ponder upon 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 consuming 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 issues before he or she becomes an adult?

What teenager wants to experience alcohol withdrawals when he or she tries to quit drinking? Why would a person engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause problems 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 centers on hazardous drinking?

These issues were so noteworthy that I discussed some of them in class throughout the school year. What was utterly incredible to me was the number of students who essentially didn’t care about the harmful consequences of hazardous drinking that I talked about. It was almost as if they couldn’t be bothered with the truth and how these results can wreck their lives. For the first time in my life I started to grasp a saying that my grandfather used to say to me throughout my teen and pre-teen years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.

Jamie is a thirty-year-old administrative assistant who has been ingesting alcohol in an excessive and abusive manner since her fiancée and she decided to break off their relationship. Indeed, for the past five months she has been drinking just about a bottle of wine every night, and on the weekends she also has been drinking more than a few shots all the way through the day.

After feeling down in the dumps because she was starting to ignore her health, Jamie finally told herself that she’s had enough, that it’s time to quit the self pity act, that it’s time to quit the irresponsible and abusive drinking, and time to get going with her life. So the following Saturday morning at 9:30 AM, she made up her mind to quit drinking completely and suddenly without planning or preparation.

When She Quit Drinking She Felt Sick, Her Head Was Pounding, She Started to Perspire Profusely, She Had Absolutely No Appetite, She Vomited Numerous Times, and She Was Extremely Moody and Stressed Out

When Jamie stopped drinking, she assumed that she would most likely be tempted to ”steal” a couple of drinks, but she never imagined that she would feel so dreadful. More exactly, just about an hour after she stopped drinking, she was extremely moody and anxious, she had utterly no appetite, she started to perspire extensively, her head was pounding, and she vomited several times.

When she called her best friend and told her that she had stopped drinking and that after a few hours she without any warning began experiencing flu-like symptoms, Carol, her best pal, told Jamie to call her medical doctor and clearly explain what she was experiencing.

She Admits to Her Medical Practitioner That She Has Been Drinking In an Abusive and Irresponsible Manner, That She Just Tried to Quit Drinking, and That She is Suffering Through Extremely Unpleasant Flu-Like Symptoms

So Jamie called her doctor, told him that she has been drinking abusively for more than a few months and that when she honestly tried to completely stop drinking earlier in the day, within a couple of hours she felt as if she had the most terrible flu-like symptoms that she had ever experienced.

Her physician informed her that she may be suffering from alcohol withdrawal symptoms and that she should have a neighbor or friend take her to the emergency room as soon as possible.

As soon as Jamie got off the phone, she got a friend to take her to the emergency room. Interestingly, all the way to the hospital, as sick as Jamie felt, the only thing she could think about was whether or not she might be an alcoholic.

It seems that her healthcare practitioner had phoned ahead and told the emergency room medical team to expect Jamie because when she got to the hospital, she was met by two ER workers who promptly asked her to lie down on the portable bed they had with them. After getting transported to the emergency room and undergoing a few important tests, it was corroborated that Jamie was in truth experiencing alcohol withdrawal symptoms and was in need of alcohol detox.

A medical practitioner gave her some medications to reduce the intensity of her flu-like symptoms and also gave her some meds to help get rid of the alcohol that was still in her system.

An Alcohol Dependency Doctor Explains in a Clear Fashion That She is Dependent on Alcohol and Then Goes Over What Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms and Alcoholism Stages Are

After an hour or two, Jamie was transferred from the ER and transported to the recovery room. After she was in recovery for about three-and-a-half hours, Doctor Robbins, an alcohol abuse and alcoholism specialist, came to see her. He took plenty of time and explained in a clear fashion that Jamie had experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms when she quit drinking because she had become addicted to alcohol.

He then mentioned the fact that with repeated and excessive drinking, the drinker’s brain slowly but surely gets acclimated to the alcohol so that it can carry out tasks and operations in a “normal” manner. When the individual then abruptly abstains from drinking, it can be stressed, the brain reacts by generating alcohol withdrawal symptoms. What is more, her physician also went over the different alcoholism stages that an alcohol dependent individual commonly suffers through as the disease gets progressively worse over time.

It is Determined that Jamie is in the Earliest Stage of Alcohol Dependency and She Receives a Favorable Forecast For a Full Recovery if She Gets the Alcohol Dependency Treatment She Needs

Fortunately for Jamie, it was determined that she was in the earliest stage of alcohol dependency and, as a result, she obtained a good forecast for a complete recovery if she will get the alcoholism therapy she requires.

Jamie told the healthcare practitioner that she will do whatever it takes to get sober and to re-establish her health and her life. She also stated that she has an excellent hospitalization policy that will more likely than not pay for most of the costs required for rehabilitation. It was obvious that Jamie was quite thankful about her positive medical forecast and felt reassured knowing that she will be able to get the alcohol dependency treatment she requires so that she can begin the road to recovery.