Alcoholism is a disease characterised by continuous heavy drinking. Until people with alcohol use disorder admit to problems with alcohol and stop drinking, the risk of alcohol use disorder continues which affects both physical and mental health.
Alcohol starts to injure the brain once it reaches the bloodstream.
Excessive consumption can lead to Alcohol-Related Brain Damage, or ARBD, which is a type of brain disorder caused by alcohol consumption. Brain shrinkage caused by alcohol abuse is permanent, as alcohol kills brain cells and grey matter.
For more information and effects click ‘Learn More’.
Family Recovery Compass is a newsletter for friends and family members who feel trapped between supporting a loved one in addiction, and protecting their own wellbeing.
Every week, we tackle one specific situation in addiction family dynamics, and deliver practical decision-making frameworks and exact dialogue scripts – that help you respond with confidence instead of reaction.
Every month, we bring you an unfiltered recovery conversation with someone who’s either experienced addiction firsthand, or works closely with those in recovery.
No sanitised success stories – just practical insights on what actually works in recovery, that you can apply, in your life too.
Recovery capital is the internal and external resource used to begin the recovery process and maintain sobriety. This combines personal, social, and community support to provide a joined-up approach that supports the addict through recovery.
Do you or a loved one need addiction treatment for alcohol or drugs? Thousands blindly walk into addiction treatment in expensive rehab centres and find that the reality doesn’t meet expectations.
If you’re considering rehab treatment, first check our ultimate guide for complete instructions on how to find the right rehab centre for you.
Take-home Naloxone kits help families and loved ones respond quickly in an opioid overdose emergency, until emergency services arrive. Kits contain nasal or injectable forms of Naloxone.
Changes in legislation mean Naloxone kits are now more widely available from pharmacies and drug services, including Abbeycare.
For additional information, click ‘Learn More’ below.
Overcoming alcohol addiction means first ceasing alcohol intake, and taking care of physical and chemical withdrawal symptoms.
Detoxing from alcohol means undergoing withdrawal from alcohol, but with the assistance of prescribed medication and detox phase, to substitute in place of the alcohol itself.
Alcohol rehab focuses on tackling the problems underneath alcoholism, such as grief, trauma, depression, and emotional difficulties, in order to reduce continuing drinking after treatment.
Inpatient services at an alcohol rehab programme provides 24 hour access to specialist care.
Alcohol home detox provides a means of semi-supervised addiction treatment in the comfort of your home. It’s often suitable for those with inescapable practical commitments, or where a reduced budget for treatment is available.
An at-home detox is the most basic detox option available from Abbeycare, and assumes you have support available, post-detox, for the other important elements of long-term addiction recovery.
The term alcoholism refers to the consumption of alcohol to the extent that the person is unable to manage their own drinking habits or patterns, resulting in side-effects that are detrimental to the quality of life and health of the alcoholic, or those around them.
An alcoholic is someone who continues to compulsively abuse alcohol in this way, despite the negative consequences to their lives and health.
Immediately following treatment, the early stages of recovery and abstinence are most vulnerable to lapses.
At Abbeycare, a structured and peer-reviewed aftercare plan is usually prepared whilst still in treatment. This comprises social, peer, and therapeutic resources individuals draw upon, following a residential treatment programme for drug or alcohol misuse.
Clinically managed residential detoxification is:
– A structured detox that uses medication-assisted treatment and regular physical health observations
– Takes place in an inpatient rehabilitation unit or hospital
– Typically lasts from 7-10 days, but in Abbeycare, it is incorporated into a 28-day rehab programme
Family Therapy at Abbeycare Scotland or Gloucester is realistic, compassionate, and appropriate for families and loved ones of addicts.
Family therapeutic interventions in residential rehabilitation have been designed to support those living with or caring for participants entering the Abbeycare Programme.
Support for families in a group setting allows for a safe, constructive, and confidential place to listen and share common experiences.
Inpatient rehab is drug and/ or alcohol treatment in a rehab centre, where patients remain on-site for the duration of inpatient rehabilitation.
It includes detoxification from drugs, therapy (group work and 1-2-1 sessions), and aftercare planning. Inpatient rehabs typically last 28 days, but this varies on an individual basis.
Long-term treatment at Abbeycare has been developed for those suffering from alcohol or drug addiction. Completing a long-term drug and alcohol inpatient programme may be the solution to problematic substance use.
Motivational Enhancement Therapy can be used by trained addiction recovery therapists to elicit internal changes within and promote long-term recovery from substance use disorder.
All the answers to addiction can be found within with this comprehensive and successful therapy concept leads to behavioural changes, reflective listening, self-motivational statements, and a comprehensive recovery process.
Outpatient drug or alcohol rehab is daytime treatment as opposed to living in a treatment facility.
Outpatient treatment is similar to inpatient in terms of the methods used to treat substance abuse. Where they differ is in their approach to recovery.
Abbeycare’s prison to rehab is a 12-week structured rehab programme which involves direct transfer from prison. The suitability of the candidate is decided by prison staff.
Short-term residential treatment programmes are the chance to press the reset button and access a therapeutic programme designed to create recovery from the use of alcohol and drugs.
Feeling stuck in a rut. Want to stop but can’t seem to achieve sobriety?
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The 12-step programme was created by alcoholics anonymous (AA), and is specifically designed to aid addicts in achieving and maintaining abstinence.
The central ethos behind the programme is that participants must admit and surrender to a divine power to live happy lives. Ideas and experiences are shared in meetings, and help is sought in an attempt to achieve abstinence.
Abbeycare’s policy to respect your privacy and comply with any applicable law and regulation regarding any personal information we may collect about you, including across our website and other sites we own and operate.
WE can be reversed by administering ≥500 mg intravenous thiamine (aneurine), as this reverses symptoms in 73% of patients [3].
Research indicates that all alcohol-induced WE patients show symptom reversal when taking 100-1500mg of aneurine [4].
Administering 100-1500mg of aneurine for WE prevents progression into Korsakoff syndrome and irreversible neuronal damage when administered before neuronal death.
For more advanced cases, 600mg/day of orally administered aneurine combined with 300mg/day of intramuscular aneurine for 2+ months during rehab and aftercare fully reverses WE [5].
Korsakoff Syndrome
Korsakoff syndrome cannot be reversed due to irreparable cell death to the frontal lobes and thalamus; however, patients are given 500mg aneurine intravenously 3 times/day for 3 days to prevent further neuronal cell death [6].
Korsakoff syndrome differs from potentially reversible forms of alcohol-induced dementia due to neuronal death and anterograde amnesia, or the inability to form new memories.
10% of alcohol-dependents have irreversible Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, though progression is slowed through clinical management and 1500mg/day aneurine supplementation for 3 days, followed by 250mg/day until clinical improvement slows [7].
Animal studies on rats indicate that irreversible brain damage and Korsakoff syndrome are caused by a 60% reduction in neural plasticity, measured by hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor [8].
In abstinence, there is a 1.6-fold increase in hippocampal neurogenesis, resulting in new neuronal formation and repair [10].
Research on abstinence following alcohol addiction demonstrates that 5.2% increases in neuronal volume occur in the thalamus over 7.5 months into recovery, indicating a reversal of neuronal damage [11].
50% of alcohol-dependent patients show some form of learning and memory impairments, but the reversibility of these impairments depends on the extent of neuronal death [13].
Can Thiamine Deficiency Be Reversed?
Aneurine deficiency can be reversed through intravenous (100mg), intramuscular (100mg) or oral supplementation of aneurine, depending on the severity of the deficiency [14]
Although aneurine deficiency can be reversed, axonal degeneration and brain damage persist in those who are treated with daily aneurine injections for 12-13 days, indicating supplementation does not always fix alcohol-induced intellectual decline [15].
Aneurine deficiency reversal in animal studies on rats demonstrates that aneurine supplementation improves cellular turnover by 60%, measured as a ratio between choline and n-acetyl aspartate [16].
Vitamin B1 deficiency causes a 26-fold increase in inflammatory cytokines, preventing recovery from vitamin B1 deficiency [17].
Can You Partially Recover From Alcohol-Related Dementia?
Partial recovery from alcohol-induced dementia takes from 4 weeks to 7 months; however, the extent of recovery depends on neuroplasticity, age, and the volume of damaged neurons [18].
Partial recovery from alcohol-induced dementia depends on whether complete abstinence has been maintained or patients have relapsed during recovery.
Longitudinal studies indicate that relapsing during a 6-month recovery period causes episodic memory to worsen compared to active addiction, whereas those in abstinence returned to normal episodic memory functioning [19].
Partial recovery from alcohol-induced dementia occurs due to the reversal of vitamin B1 deficiency and neurogenesis of damaged brain areas; however, this depends on a patient's degree of alcohol-related brain injury.
How Does Age Change Whether Alcohol-Induced Dementia Can Be Reversed?
Research studying alcohol's effects on brain volume indicates that the frontal superior cortex decreases volume by 3ml every 45 years, suggesting less reversibility with age [21].
Brain plasticity becomes limited with age, lowering the brain's potential for neurogenesis during recovery from alcohol addiction.
Rat studies demonstrate that younger rats (8 weeks old) show 7.5% more improvements in spatial learning than older rats (70 weeks old) following abstinence from alcohol, showing younger brains are more likely to show dementia reversal [22].
How Do Genetic Predispositions Change Whether Alcoholic Dementia Can Be Reversed?
APOE-ε4 alleles change the reversibility of alcohol-induced dementia by causing 83.3% increased reelin levels, resulting in 45% lower scores on a general intellectual functioning test compared to controls [23][26].
Females carrying the ApoE4 genotype are genetically predisposed to developing alcohol-related brain atrophy, therefore hindering the recovery process [24].
Those with ε2/ε3 allele bearers exhibit deficits in visual memory compared to ε4/ε3 carriers, suggesting this group of people is more likely to present with irreversible dementia [25].
About the author
Philippa Scammell
Philippa Scammell MSci holds an integrated Master's degree in Psychology
from the University of York and has completed undergraduate statistical studies at Harvard University. Philippa has substantial experience in inpatient psychiatric care (Foss Park Hospital York), Research in Psychology at University of York, and group therapy facilitation (Kyra Women's Project). Philippa writes on clinical psychology and addiction recovery. Content reviewed by Laura Morris (Clinical Lead).
