What is Alcohol detox at home?
Alcohol detox at home often involves reducing or stopping drinking while staying in your own or a close friend or relative’s home. There are many ways to make home detox safer and more likely to succeed. Managing symptoms should be foremost on your mind, and the method you choose will affect your experience and whether you keep going or give up.
Who needs a Home Detox?
Every year, fewer and fewer people in the UK are drinking alcohol, and those who do drink aren’t drinking as much. The sober-curious movement has never been so big as people look to live low or alcohol-free lives. For some people who just want to cut down or quit drinking, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle, making different choices, plans and goals. They might feel some cravings that can be powerful, but overcome them by replacing the relaxing and dopamine-increasing power of alcohol with more positive, healthier options.
Switching to a healthier diet, regular exercise, or another activity or hobby which makes you happy can offer a great alternative to drinking.
Who Needs a Medical Detox?
The simple answer to this question is if you are:
- Struggling
- Thinking of giving up
- Believe your health or life might be at risk from withdrawal
A medical home detox can manage symptoms, offer counselling and advice and protect you from potentially dangerous health problems.
Quitting alcohol isn’t always as simple as stopping or even cutting down. For people who have been drinking heavily for a long time, withdrawal symptoms can hit you like a train, only 24 hours after you stop.
Why do I get Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms
Everyone reacts to alcohol differently, and the same goes for alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Some people may be able to stop and only have mild cravings and symptoms such as headaches, sleepless nights and fatigue. Others, sometimes even drinking the same amount, will find themselves with chronic insomnia, vomiting, migraines and shaking.
These symptoms are caused by alcohol depressing your central nervous system. Alcohol makes you feel relaxed by acting like the relaxing neurotransmitter GABA. This is how alcohol gives you that calm, sedated feeling when you drink it, but there is a dark side to this effect.
When you use alcohol frequently, your body believes it is too sedated and calm and drops your natural GABA levels. This is why, over time, you need more and more alcohol for the same effect.
Eventually, your body becomes so used to being sedated with alcohol that when you don’t have alcohol in your system, you feel tense, anxious and unable to calm down and sleep. At its worse your central nervous system cannot function, you begin to shake and hallucinate. These symptoms are called Delirium Tremens, and they can be terrifying and fatal.
What can a Medical Home Detox do for Withdrawal?
Sedating your body with medication can provide the bridge you need to get past the worst of alcohol withdrawal. For many people with the right support system, this can be done at home. There is a range of medications that can do this for you and are very safe when taken short-term and highly effective at managing the most serious symptoms.
See below for the stages of a home detox:
- Speak with a detox doctor about your drinking, symptoms and medical history
- Receive medication or collect from a pharmacy
- Take the daily prescription as instructed
- Taper off medication once symptoms are manageable
- Attend online or in-person counselling* (optional)
- Create a plan for staying sober and avoiding triggers
Addiction Treatment At Home
Home Alcohol Detox
An alcohol home detox is a managed detoxification at your home (or another safe environment) to gradually remove yourself from your alcohol dependence. It is usually undertaken using sedatives and/or other medicines, including vitamins, to alleviate withdrawal symptoms and unpleasant and dangerous side effects. Alcohol home detox for many people can be an alternative to an alcohol residential rehab stay.
Online Counselling
There are many reasons why people become addicted to substances. Among specific causes (such as trauma, bereavement, and habitual increase), there is always the underlying need to change how they feel. Counselling can help with goal setting and achieving, building healthy relationships with others, improving self-confidence and self-worth, moving forward from the past, breaking the pattern of unhealthy behaviours, living life as a sober person, improving confidence and self-esteem, and learning self-acceptance and self-love.
Supplements
Supplement popularity is on the rise, and with good reason. They can help support people physically and mentally, and might just provide that extra piece of support people need to overcome addiction as part of their recovery. As well as B vitamins (B-Strong and thiamine) that most people who drink too much should be taking, we found out about a one-a-day supplement called Desistal.
Desistal contains three main ingredients that help people who want to cut down or quit alcohol: Bacopa Monnieri, Apple Cider Vinegar, and MCT. These ingredients combine to combat the negative effects of alcohol withdrawal by replacing the alcohol your brain has been using for energy, helping restore your physical and mental well-being.
Mutual Aid & Anonymous Fellowships
Mutual Aid is a term used to describe a range of support groups where people with drug or alcohol issues discuss their problems and look after each other. There are many different types, with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) being the main example.
This works on the principle that through sharing your own experiences with others in the group, you will offer support and help to one another. In essence, it means one addict (or ex-addict) helping another. SMART Recovery is an alternative to AA and aims to empower people with practical skills, tools and support so that they may manage their addictive behaviour and lead satisfying and meaningful lives.
Alcoholics Anonymous Online Meetings >
Narcotics Anonymous Online Meetings >
SMART Recovery Online Meetings >
Other Places To Get Help
Your GP
Often, the first place most people go is their own doctor. Your doctor should know about your health and can often help. Sometimes, but becoming less common these days, is medical help for addiction from your GP in terms of detox. It’s worth asking. However, more and more GPs are now referring patients to the local addiction team.
Local Addiction Team
Most areas in the UK have a local addiction team, usually run by the NHS and local government council. How this is organised depends on how the local authority has decided to set this up. Sometimes, these services are outsourced to other providers. Your GP or a Google search for “addiction team” plus your town, city or area should come up with the local NHS addiction team.
Need Help?
There are many ways to contact us, and ALL are fully confidential:
02072052845 – call our helpline to speak to a telephone counsellor
Website live chat – click on the Live Chat button for instant messaging
Facebook – message us
Send us an email – send us a message via our website
Rehab Guide is a FREE addiction helpline, providing expert treatment services and support across the UK for any substance or behavioural addiction.
John has dedicated his life to finding treatment for those with addictions and supporting their families.
A business manager for 20 years in the construction industry John’s own experience of addiction led him to found his own rehab centre group in Scotland.
John qualified as a counsellor for people with substance misuse during his time working as a therapist and manager for the foundation. He also trained as an interventionist and appeared on ITV as a consultant helping families impacted by addiction.
He has helped thousands of people in recovery and his knowledge of the rehabilitations process and the addiction experience is unparalleled.