Alcohol Addiction Prevention

As a general rule there is a correlation between the price and availability of alcohol and the levels of consumption. However, increasing the price and cutting availability may not be sufficient to reduce problems as where the tax on alcohol is raised or its availability limited there tends to be an increase in smuggling and illicit drinking.

Drink-driving campaigns have been very effective and have changed the social acceptability of this behaviour, but there have been few large-scale campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of drinking too much. If it became less socially acceptable in the UK to drink in large quantities, this could have a huge impact on the extent of problem alcohol use.

In some countries it is obligatory for alcohol manufacturers to put warning labels on bottles, but research on the effectiveness of this measure has shown mixed results.

'Brief Intervention'

'Brief Intervention' refers to a situation where a patient is told by a health care professional that he or she has a problem with alcohol. The patient is then advised of the need to address the problem and their agreement is sought for a future plan of action to reduce their alcohol use.

Research to evaluate the success of the 'Brief Intervention' has shown it to be almost uniformly beneficial in reducing both the overall consumption of alcohol and episodes of binge drinking amongst those who are 'problem' rather than dependent drinkers.

Detoxification

Physically alcohol-dependent drinkers often require medical detoxification if they want to stop drinking. It can be dangerous for someone who is heavily dependent to go 'cold turkey' unassisted. Detoxification is usually achieved by gradually reducing doses of benzodiazepines, for example Librium (chlordiazepoxide) or Valium (diazepam). Vitamin B is also given to people undergoing alcohol detox, as vitamin B deficiency is very common amongst those who are severely alcohol dependent.

Psychological Approaches

A broad range of psychological therapies are used to treat alcoholism including motivational enhancement, cognitive behavioural therapy, marital and family therapy, aversion therapy and relaxation training.

Milieu Therapy

Milieu therapy involves the patient's social environment being manipulated for their benefit, for example a therapeutic community, in which patients stay at a residence where they lead a highly structured life. This approach can be used for substance abusers, or people with severe disorders that impair their ability to function in wider society.

The 12 Step Programme

The 12 Step programme is the basis of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is structured around the model that alcoholism is a disease, and requires complete abstinence for recovery. The 12 steps involve the patient acknowledging the problem alcohol presents and their powerlessness to control it, and then rely on group support and faith in a "Higher Power", or their personal interpretation of this. The AA approach is the most popular form of treatment for alcoholism in the United States. Research shows that it is at least as effective as other methods of psychological support and may be more effective in maintaining long-term abstinence. When linked to other psychological support programmes it is even more successful, particularly where an individual has associated mental health problems such as depression.

Drugs

Antabuse (disulfiram) produces a cocktail of highly unpleasant symptoms when taken in conjunction with even the smallest amount of alcohol. The effects of the drug can last for one to two weeks after the last dose was taken. There is relatively little research into the long-term effectiveness of the drug although if the drug is taken regularly the number of alcohol free days are increased. The drug is therefore useful in the short-term management of chronic alcoholic problems to enforce sobriety whilst the patient is receiving other supportive and psychotherapeutic treatment. Other drugs used to treat alcohol dependence are the opiate antagonists, for example 'naltrexone' and 'nalmefene'. Opiate antagonists are usually used in the treatment of heroin and methadone addiction as they "block" the feelings of pleasure and reward associated with those drugs, reducing cravings and making it easier to give them up. The drug 'acamprosate' has a similar effect in reducing cravings for alcohol, but it works in a different way. Research shows that these drugs are effective in helping people to maintain abstinence or reduce their number of drinking days.

Stop alcohol relapse - let hypnosis take the pressure off

The classic joke 'Giving up alcohol is easy! I've done it a thousand times!' has more than a grain of truth in it. Stopping drinking after a particularly bad episode, or at a motivated moment really is the easy part. Staying off alcohol - preventing relapse - is the difficult bit. The simple fact is that after a time it is easy to forget just how bad things had become before you stopped drinking. As with most thing, the pain fades after a while, your reasons feel more distant, and the motivation drops. Thoughts such as 'a little won't hurt', 'I can manage it now' or 'I deserve it' start to sneak in. And despite all your earlier good intentions, these thoughts seem all too logical. This is how all addictions work. Your brain has a craving and translates it into thoughts that get around your best defences. As soon as you start to argue with yourself, you are lost. The only way around it is not to listen to those thoughts at all. Simply dismissing them as the manipulative whisperings of alcohol addiction will keep you free of their clutches.