Understanding Alcoholism – 3 Stages of Alcohol Addiction That You Need to Know

Understanding Alcoholism – 3 Stages of Alcohol Addiction That You Need to Know

No one starts drinking alcohol to get addicted!

While sipping a glass or two with your friends, celebrating happiness or relieving stress, nobody knows that it can become their permanent habit – an addiction.

Alcohol can turn in an addiction, which can engulf your health, aggravate mental wellbeing, make you socially awkward, and destroy life.

According to a report published by the World Health Organization, 3 million people died in 2016 due to a harmful level of alcohol consumption and alcohol bears the burden of more than 5 percent of global disease.

Despite all these facts, people still become an alcohol addict just because nobody is ready to take the initiative in understanding alcohol addiction at the individual level. For people, it is a normal thing: people drink alcohol, and yeah, some of them get addicted. It is alright. But it is not alright: for the person, family, and society at large.

But now it is time to understand alcohol addiction and take appropriate measures to curb its usage. All those 3 million people who died due to alcohol were precious enough to not die just because of alcohol addiction.

Here are given different stages of alcoholism so that you can identify the alcohol habits of your loved ones before they fall in ‘no-way-back’ category:

Early Stage:

The early stage of alcohol is hard to figure out because, at this stage, evident symptoms don’t start appearing on the scene.

They have not started becoming socially awkward, behaviorally different person, mentally unstable, and physically weak.

However, they start to undergo slight, naïve changes. Which include:

• Increase in alcohol consumption in one go
• Desire to drink more often
• Feel slightly restless without alcohol consumption
• Find pointless reasons to have a drink

If you or your loved ones are feeling such changes in their alcohol consumption patterns, then it means that you have entered or started to enter in the first stage of alcohol addiction.

Though at this stage, things are not pretty serious, but they can get out of hand if you do not keep a check and balance.

Middle Stage:

At this stage, signs of alcoholism start appearing and alcoholics get the hunch that something has gone wrong. They start developing changes physically, emotionally, mentally, and socially.

Sleepless nights and lost appetite slip in their life. And shaking, vomiting, sweating, uncoordinated body movements, increased heartbeat, blackout, and permanent hangover become part of their life.

They start to avoid social gathering, make their own world where they live with their alcohol. Depression, stress, and anxiety start getting hold of them, and they feel mentally and emotionally weak.

Most of the alcoholics we witness usually belong to this stage. And as you would have witnessed, it is a serious stage, and if left untreated, then it can end up in a deadly end.

Last Stage:

The last stage alcoholics are those which we see in movies: homeless, jobless, eccentric, dirty people who seem to have lost their mind.

People, who unfortunately enter in the last stage of alcoholism, live for alcohol, with alcohol and due to alcohol. Yes, alcohol becomes their lifeline, and they think themselves lifeless without it.

Besides paralyzed life, this stage alcoholics also develop hepatitis, cancer of liver, guts, and other alcohol-related diseases. And the end? Loss of a precious life, grieved family – death!