What are alcohol use disorder symptoms and signs in teenagers, women, men, and the elderly?
Signs that indicate a person is intoxicated include the smell of alcohol on their breath or skin, glazed or bloodshot eyes, the person being unusually passive or argumentative, and/or a deterioration in the person's appearance or hygiene. Other physical symptoms of the state of being drunk include flushed skin. Cognitively, the person may experience decreased ability to pay attention and a propensity towardmemory loss.
Alcohol, especially when consumed in excess, can affect teens, women, men, and the elderly quite differently. Women and the elderly tend to have higher blood concentrations of alcohol compared to men and younger individuals who drink the same amount. Alcoholic women are more at risk for developing cirrhosis of theliver and heart and nerve damage at a faster rate than alcohol-dependent men. Interestingly, men and women seem to have similar learning and memory problems as the result of excessive alcohol intake, but again, women tend to develop those problems twice as fast as men.
Elderly people who drink excessively are at risk for having more serious illnesses, doctor visits, and symptoms ofdepression, with less life satisfaction and smaller social support networks compared to senior citizens who have never consumed alcohol. While binge drinking is often thought to be a symptom of young people, an often unknown fact is that a significant percentage of middle-aged and elderly individuals also engage in binge drinking. This behavior increases the risk for driving drunk, no matter what the age. That, in turn, puts the individual at risk for being arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol.
Teenagers who consume alcohol excessively have been found to be at risk for abnormal organ development as the possible result of the hormonal abnormalities caused by alcohol. This is particularly a risk to their developing reproductive system. Just a few of the other many dangerous effects of alcohol abuse and alcoholism in teenagers include the following:
In contrast to adults, teens tend to abuse alcohol simultaneously with other substances, usually marijuana.Male teens who drink heavily tend to complete fewer years of education compared to male teens who do not drink.The younger a person is when they begin drinking, the more likely they are to develop a problem with alcohol.Each year, almost 2,000 people under 21 years of age die in car crashes in which underage drinking is involved. Alcohol is involved in nearly half of all violent deaths involving teens.More than three times the number of eighth-grade girls who drink heavily said they have attempted suicidecompared to girls in that grade who do not drink.Teens who drink are more likely to engage in sexual activity, have unprotected sex, have sex with a stranger, or be the victim or perpetrator of a sexual assault.Excess alcohol use can cause or mask other emotional problems, like anxiety or depression.Drinking in excess can lead to the use of other drugs, like marijuana, cocaine, or heroin.
How do physicians diagnose alcohol use disorder?
As is true with virtually any mental-health diagnosis, there is no one test that definitively indicates that someone has an alcohol-use disorder. Screening tools, including online or other tests may help identify individuals who are at risk for having a drinking problem. Therefore, health-care professionals diagnose alcohol abuse or dependence by gathering comprehensive medical, family, and mental-health information. The practitioner will also either perform a physical examination or request that the individual's primary-care doctor perform one. The medical examination will usually include lab tests to evaluate the person's general health and to explore whether or not the individual has a medical condition that might have mental-health symptoms.
In asking questions about mental-health symptoms, mental-health professionals are often exploring if the individual suffers from alcohol or other drug abuse or dependence disorders, as well as depression and/or manic symptoms, anxiety, hallucinations, or delusions or behavioral disorders. Physicians may provide the people they evaluate with a quiz or self-test as a screening tool for substance-use disorders. Since some of the symptoms of alcohol use disorder can also occur in other mental illnesses, the mental-health screening is to determine if the individual suffers from a mood disorder or anxiety disorder, as well asschizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and other psychotic disorders, or personality or behavior disorders likeattention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD).
What are the stages of alcohol use disorder?
Five stages of alcohol and drug use disorders have been identified. The first stage is described as having access to alcohol rather than use of alcohol. In that stage, minimizing the risk factors that make a person more vulnerable to using alcohol are an issue. The second stage of alcohol use ranges from experimentation or occasional use to regular weekly use of alcohol. This or any of the more severe stages of alcoholism may involve binge drinking. The third stage is characterized by individuals further increasing the frequency of alcohol use and/or using the substance on a regular basis. This stage may also include either buying or stealing to get alcohol. In the fourth stage of alcohol use, users have established regular alcohol consumption, have become preoccupied with getting intoxicated ("high") and have developed problems in their social, educational, vocational, or family life as a result of using the substance. The final and most serious fifth stage of alcohol use is defined by the person only feeling normal when they are using alcohol. During this stage, risk-taking behaviors like stealing, engaging in physical fights, or driving while intoxicated increase, and they become most vulnerable to havingsuicidal thoughts.
What is the treatment for alcohol use disorder?
Prior to entering any inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation program for alcohol use disorder, the possibility that the person with this disorder could suffer from physical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal needs to be addressed. People who have a pattern of extensive alcohol abuse are at risk for withdrawal symptoms like tremors, hallucinations, and even fatalseizures. Those individuals will need to enter a detoxification (detox) program that includes the use of close medical support, monitoring, and prescription of medications like chlordiazepoxide(Librium) or clonazepam (Klonopin) to help prevent and ease the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.
There are numerous individual psychotherapeutic treatments for alcoholism. Relapse prevention uses methods for recognizing and amending problem behaviors. Individualized drug counseling specifically emphasizes short-term behavioral goals in an attempt to help the individual reduce or stop the use of alcohol altogether. Cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, like helping the individual with alcohol use disorder recognize what tends to precede and follow their episodes of alcohol use, are often used to address alcohol abuse. Some treatment programs include drug testing. Twelve-step recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are individualized drug-counseling methods. Motivational enhancement therapy encourages the person suffering from alcohol use disorder to increase their desire to participate in therapy. Stimulus control refers to an intervention that teaches the alcohol-use disordered person to stay away from situations that are associated with alcohol use and to replace those situations with activities that are contrary to using alcohol. Urge control is an approach to changing patterns that lead to drug or alcohol use.
Friends and family members of alcoholic individuals have often developed a codependent relationship with the substance abuser. Specifically, they often feel compelled to either help their loved one secure alcohol or to repair situations caused by the alcoholic's alcohol use. Social control involves family members and other significant others of the alcoholic in treatment.
For people in the first stage of alcohol use (having access but not having yet used alcohol), preventive measures are used. Therefore, limiting access to alcohol or other drugs, addressing any risk factors of the alcohol consumer or family, as well as optimal parental supervision for youth and expression regarding expectations are often recommended. The approach to those who have experimented with alcohol should not be minimized by mental-health professionals, since infrequent use can progress to the more serious stages of alcohol use if not addressed. Therefore, professionals recommend that the alcohol-consuming individual be thoroughly educated about the effects and risks of alcohol, that fair but firm limits be set on the use of alcohol, and that the user be referred for brief counseling, a self-help group, and/or family support group. People who have progressed to the more advanced stages of alcoholism are typically treated intensively, using a combination of the medical, individual, and familial interventions already described.
While group therapy can help teens stay sober, groups that include a number of teens who also engage in disordered behaviors can actually tend to increased alcohol use in this age group. Family interventions for alcoholism that tend to be effective for teens include multidimensional family therapy (MDFT), group therapy, and multifamily educational intervention (MFE). MDFT has been found to be quite effective. Longer-term residential treatment, often called rehab, of three to five months that addresses peer relationships, educational problems, and family issues is often used in treating alcohol use disorder in teens.
What is the treatment for alcohol use disorder
Prior to entering any inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation program for alcohol use disorder, the possibility that the person with this disorder could suffer from physical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal needs to be addressed. People who have a pattern of extensive alcohol abuse are at risk for withdrawal symptoms like tremors, hallucinations, and even fatalseizures. Those individuals will need to enter a detoxification (detox) program that includes the use of close medical support, monitoring, and prescription of medications like chlordiazepoxide(Librium) or clonazepam (Klonopin) to help prevent and ease the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.
There are numerous individual psychotherapeutic treatments for alcoholism. Relapse prevention uses methods for recognizing and amending problem behaviors. Individualized drug counseling specifically emphasizes short-term behavioral goals in an attempt to help the individual reduce or stop the use of alcohol altogether. Cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques, like helping the individual with alcohol use disorder recognize what tends to precede and follow their episodes of alcohol use, are often used to address alcohol abuse. Some treatment programs include drug testing. Twelve-step recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are individualized drug-counseling methods. Motivational enhancement therapy encourages the person suffering from alcohol use disorder to increase their desire to participate in therapy. Stimulus control refers to an intervention that teaches the alcohol-use disordered person to stay away from situations that are associated with alcohol use and to replace those situations with activities that are contrary to using alcohol. Urge control is an approach to changing patterns that lead to drug or alcohol use.
Friends and family members of alcoholic individuals have often developed a codependent relationship with the substance abuser. Specifically, they often feel compelled to either help their loved one secure alcohol or to repair situations caused by the alcoholic's alcohol use. Social control involves family members and other significant others of the alcoholic in treatment.
For people in the first stage of alcohol use (having access but not having yet used alcohol), preventive measures are used. Therefore, limiting access to alcohol or other drugs, addressing any risk factors of the alcohol consumer or family, as well as optimal parental supervision for youth and expression regarding expectations are often recommended. The approach to those who have experimented with alcohol should not be minimized by mental-health professionals, since infrequent use can progress to the more serious stages of alcohol use if not addressed. Therefore, professionals recommend that the alcohol-consuming individual be thoroughly educated about the effects and risks of alcohol, that fair but firm limits be set on the use of alcohol, and that the user be referred for brief counseling, a self-help group, and/or family support group. People who have progressed to the more advanced stages of alcoholism are typically treated intensively, using a combination of the medical, individual, and familial interventions already described.
While group therapy can help teens stay sober, groups that include a number of teens who also engage in disordered behaviors can actually tend to increased alcohol use in this age group. Family interventions for alcoholism that tend to be effective for teens include multidimensional family therapy (MDFT), group therapy, and multifamily educational intervention (MFE). MDFT has been found to be quite effective. Longer-term residential treatment, often called rehab, of three to five months that addresses peer relationships, educational problems, and family issues is often used in treating alcohol use disorder in teens.
Concluded.
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