Alcohol Addiction and Recovery
Are You Addicted to Alcohol?
The terms alcohol addiction, alcoholism, and alcohol dependence all mean the same thing. No one term is more serious than the other.
Are you addicted to alcohol? Take the self-test questionnaire.
The Consequences of Alcohol Abuse
The four most common medical consequences of alcohol abuse are:
- High blood pressure
- Liver damage
- Red blood cell damage
- Depression
There is a simple blood test that can check for liver damage. Your doctor can check for liver damage by testing three liver enzymes (AST, ALT, GGT). These enzymes normally occur inside your liver cells. When your liver is damaged, the enzymes are released into your blood stream and show up on a blood test. Therefore the higher the enzyme count the greater the liver damage. The most accurate of these test for alcohol liver damage is GGT.
Even if you have liver damage, your liver can repair itself. Your liver is designed to filter toxins from your blood, therefore it's designed to take care of itself. All you have to do is stop drinking and it will gradually go back to normal.
Repeated liver damage can cause cirrhosis. Your liver is a remarkable organ, but it can only repair itself so many times. If you continue to damage it with alcohol abuse, after a while your liver won't be able to repair itself and it will turn into scar tissue. Cirrhosis is just the medical term that means part of your liver has turned into scar tissue.
But there's good news. Cirrhosis is not a progressive disease. If you stop drinking, any cirrhosis you have will not get worse as long as you don't have advanced cirrhosis. There's even more good news. Your liver is a big organ and you have more liver than you need. People can lose 30% of their liver in a car accident and still lead normal lives. So if you have less than 30% cirrhosis and you stop drinking, you can lead a normal life. Your doctor can do an ultrasound to see if you have cirrhosis, and estimate what percent cirrhosis you may have.
Alcohol abuse can damage your red blood cells. When your red blood cells are damaged by alcohol they swell up and increase in volume. Your doctor can do a simple blood test to check for that. It's called MCV (mean corpuscular volume). If your red blood cells are enlarged, they're usually repairable since they get recycled by your body every 3-4 months. Stop drinking and they'll quickly return to normal.
Depression is one of the most common, serious consequences of alcohol abuse. One study looked at 2,945 alcoholics. 15% were depressed before they began abusing alcohol. 26% were depressed while they were using alcohol, and 15% remained depressed once they had stopped drinking for an extended period. In other words alcohol abuse almost doubles the risk of depression.(11)
The post-acute withdrawal syndrome for alcoholism. Look at the post-acute withdrawal page to learn about those symptoms and how to deal with them.
Some less common but serious consequences of alcohol abuse are:
- Cardiac arrhythmias
- Impaired immune system
- Decreased bone density
- Peripheral nerve damage
- Gastrointestinal bleeding
- Heart attacks and cardiomyopathy
- Strokes
The broader consequences of addiction. Look at the disease of addiction page to learn more about the broader consequences of addiction.
Moderate Alcohol Use
If you're not sure if you're addicted to alcohol, try the following test. Keep an honest journal of how much you drink every day for 6 months, and see if you can stick to moderate drinking. It's important that you do it for at least 6 months, because it's easy to moderate your drinking for a short time.
If there are days when you drink more than a moderate amount, make note of the circumstances and identify your triggers. Then review your journal in 6 months. If you're happy with your use – great. But if you're not happy, or if you couldn't stick to moderate drinking, then that should tell you something.
Ultimately alcoholics decide to quit drinking, because they realize it's easier to not drink, than it is to control their drinking.
What is moderate alcohol use? The US Department of Health and Human Services, and the World Health Organization have created guidelines for moderate drinking.
- The US guidelines suggest no more than 1 drink per day for women and no more than 2 drinks per day for men. A drink is defined as 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine, or 1.5 oz of spirits.
- The WHO guidelines suggest no more than 2 drinks per day, and no more than 5 drinking days per week. They recommend 2 non-drinking days. Of course, you can't stockpile your drinks, and have them all at the end of the week.
How Big is A Drink? The Definition of A Drink.
A drink is 14g of pure alcohol according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The World Health Organization defines a drink as 10g of pure alcohol.
Each milliliter of pure alcohol weighs 0.79 grams. Therefore, you can calculate the alcohol content of a drink with the following formula:
- 1 can of beer (330 ml, 12 oz) at 5% (strength) x 0.79 (conversion factor) = 13 grams of alcohol
- 1 glass of wine (140 ml, 5 oz) at 12% x 0.79 = 13.3 grams of alcohol
- 1 shot of liquor (40 ml, 1.5 oz) at 40% x 0.79 = 12.6 grams of alcohol
Note that a 750ml bottle of wine contains 5 drinks. Therefore 2 drinks a day is less than half a bottle of wine a day.
Recovery and Relapse Prevention Strategies for Alcoholism
If you have decided that you are addicted to alcohol, this is your opportunity to change your life. Learn more about recovery skills and relapse prevention strategies in the following pages. You can recover from alcoholism and be happier.
Created: March 11, 2007, Last Modified: February 15, 2008