Mentally unhealthy people - do not know that they are sick. Alcoholism, in this regard, is no exception. Almost all alcoholics are very similar to people with mental disorders. Alcoholics do not consider themselves sick.they do not have the consciousness of their illness. This fact complicates the course, prognosis and likelihood of curing chronic alcoholism. In narcological practice this phenomenon is called alcoholic anosognosia.
Alcohol clearly affects the nervous system and the brain of the alcoholic, distorts the perception of his own drinking personality, he can not perceive the true face of his painful predilection.
On the other hand, patients with alcoholism, unlike non-alcoholic mentally ill people, behave like they do, communicate, do something, being sober. And at the same time, if drinking comes, the drinker loses all the remnants of the human, rational and rational in himself. It's like a passing insanity.
Alcoholism is not without reason attributed to the narcology, that is, the section of psychiatry, in which they study and treat the emerging mental disorders against the background of taking psychoactive substances. After all, chronic alcoholism leads to the appearance of alcoholic psychoses( correctly to say - metal psychoses).The patient experiences at the same time fear, the idea of persecution, hallucinations, as a rule, a horrifying nature. He can in this state cause harm to himself and be dangerous to others. How to help the patient? Only in a narcological or psychiatric clinic!
But not only psychoses in the second and third stages of alcoholism, but also anosognosia itself, on the basis of alcoholism makes patients with alcoholism similar to clients of a psychiatric profile. The psychological characteristics of the patients succumb to such persistent changes for the worse, that they can not expect any trustworthiness on their part.
Chronicly drinking person becomes embittered, lying, resourceful, irritable, he ceases to be open and sincere even with people close to him. Constantly on his mind, hides from his relatives his intentions and tries in every possible way to satisfy the constant growing unhealthy attraction to alcohol. The alcoholic can endure and drink not only all the money from the family, but also the normal things to be exchanged for a bottle.
Alcoholism requires not only a full-fledged treatment, the patient's desire for recovery, but also a very long rehabilitation of alcoholics and establish a definite period of dispensary supervision over them.
Now, in narcology and psychiatry, the order has been put in such a way that it is possible to forcibly treat patients of alcoholics when alcoholic psychosis occurs or when patients violate the rights of public order. That is, while the alcoholic has not transgressed the line of the law or has not gone mad from vodka to a hang-over, to force it to treatment it is impossible.
How to help a patient with alcoholism if he does not want to be treated? How to help alcoholics if they are not aware that they are sick? These questions are very similar to rhetorical ones.
Each step of alcoholic illness is characterized by an even greater degradation in the psyche of the alcoholic, an even greater immersion in the abyss of unconsciousness and darkness. All fine human qualities are usurped, spirituality, morality, and morals of a person are erased. Yes, treating alcoholism in general is a thankless task, especially for the alcoholic family. How much one has to go through humiliation, a thrill of nerves, shame, fear, sleepless nights, how much is spent uselessly or with little return of material and financial resources to the patient and to smooth out his antisocial actions.
A sick person, dependent on ethanol, is constantly attracted to alcohol as a psychoactive substance. Compulsive( uncontrollable, at the level of passion) desire to drink occupies the entire value system in the worldview of the drinker. The alcoholic can not live without alcohol. Sober he can and understands that this is the way to death, dementia and illness. But as soon as he "anointed his lips" with vodka, everyone can not stop. Drinks up to "opoy", unconsciousness.
With this way of life, the alcoholic and his loved ones, even stuttering about the harm of coding from alcoholism, somehow becomes blasphemous. After all, if coding has side effects and can hypothetically shorten life, then what, permanent abuse of alcohol is less harmful?
Psychological deformation of a person
Psychological deformation of the person is clearly manifested in the second stage of alcoholism. The attitude and perception of the patients with alcoholism undergo total and catastrophic changes. Alcohol encephalopathy, step by step, makes you aware of the deep organic pathological changes in the brain, brain cells are dying.
In the family of an alcoholic, discord and decay, work is lost, all life is slipping.
Psychological degradation of a person is associated with damage to brain cells. Appear not only the deterioration of memory, attention, quality of thinking, but also comes asthenia, apathy, lack of will, exhaustion, instability and imbalance of nervous processes.
Affective experiences are intensifying. Irritability can quickly be replaced by complacency, especially when drinking what is. In a state of affect, the patient can become dangerous both for himself and for others. And, after leaving the affective state - he will not remember anything. But this does not relieve the responsibility of the drinker!
One of the bright signs of alcoholics is the ability to convince a friend, a member of his family, that he needs a little money and that he will certainly return them tomorrow. This focus can be repeated with the same person repeatedly. The passion for drinking encourages "creative abilities" to get money for alcohol. Alcoholics lose their sense of duty! And this is a moral and moral quality.
And, almost any alcoholic says that it can easily and easily stop drinking. And he does it with absolutely sincere look of the child. Trustful people believe him, and give him money to borrow, which he will never return.
