Health

Do You Have to go to Hospital to Detox from Alcohol (UK)?

Deciding to stop drinking alcohol is difficult enough without having to face going to hospital. Is there another way?

Alcohol has become a real problem in modern society. It is readily available in shops over the counter within the UK. Anyone who’s over the age of 18 can buy it, no questions asked. Other than for ID, of course. This has led us down a dark path of alcohol addiction. It is becoming as popular as drinking is.

Alcohol as a cultural problem

Here in the UK, the NHS estimated that they see 18% of all alcohol addicts. That is: that only 18% of everyone in the UK who is addicted to alcohol comes to the NHS and asks for help. This is a sign of how culturally acceptable it has become here in England and Wales to be addicted to alcohol. But it is also a sign of how stigmatised asking for help with addiction has become.

Studies have already shown that addiction is a disease. It isn’t something people can just recover from without the appropriate guidance and medications. There are two sides of addiction. We can continue to pick up the pieces and treat the problem as it manifests itself, or we could start looking at addressing why addiction in the UK is such a problem.

In the case of alcoholism, if we had tighter controls around the sale and governing the taxation of it, we would see less people suffering alcohol addiction[ii]. However, regardless of how much we try to control it on a governmental level, it will always remain a temptation for those in need. When we fall into grieving or mourning, when we are suffering from crippling debt – if we have lost our jobs and we don’t have the emotional coping tactics to deal with that, we will try to use a crutch. Alcohol is a crutch. A readily available one.

The Alcohol Detox Process

When you decide to stop drinking, you’ll have to go through the alcohol detox process. The longer you drank for and the more you drank, the worse the detox process will be. Whether you go through the detox process in hospital or not, depends on your doctor’s advice. Serious, frequent, or heavy drinkers should always be medically supervised when they detox from alcohol.

On the other hand, if you are a mild drinker who is worried that they are developing an addiction, you have a few choices. You could opt for a seven day detox and rehab programme at a rehab clinic near you. There is a wonderful organization named Help4addiction, which can guide you in the direction of a suitable clinic. They have a free consultation service, so take advantage of that and arm yourself with the information you need to quit.

You can also go through detox for alcoholism at home, providing you meet the criteria. To meet it, you must have a mild addiction and have no other health conditions. Otherwise, detoxing in a rehab clinic, instead of a hospital, could be your best alternative.

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