This steps involves stopping the alcohol consumption. This step is very difficult and requires extreme discipline and dedication. Detoxification is usually performed under inpatient setting since no alcohol is allowed under this setting. Alcohol withdrawal is treated with benzodiazepines. During detoxification alcohol treatment the medication is measured very carefully to prevent withdrawal symptoms and is then gradually reduced off until no withdrawal symptoms are evident. This usually requires a few days to a week.
Long-term abstinence and Rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation is process when an alcoholic is trained to develop skills that help him not to drink, to create a recovery support system and to work on ways to keep him from drinking again so that there is no relapse. Short- and long-term residential programs are available to achieve the same. Such short term or long term program are structured programs that provide therapy, education, skills training, and help develop a long-term plan to prevent relapsing. Short term programs last less than 4 weeks and long terms programs are from up to a month to a year long. Several medications are available to assist the alcoholic in abstaining from alcohol consumption. The most commonly used medication is disulfiram (Antabuse). It interferes with alcohol metabolism resulting in a metabolite that makes the person very uncomfortable and nauseated when consuming alcohol. Other medications used in preventing relapse are naltrexone (ReVia), acamprosate (Campral), and a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
While choosing the drug rehab it has to be made sure that all the aspects of what caused the addiction problem in the first place have to be addressed.
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