Statistics from the Health & Social Care Information Centre show that in 2012 there were more than 1.2 million hospital admissions in England directly related to alcohol abuse or addiction. In 2012, doctors dispensed more than 178,000 prescriptions for medications relating to alcohol dependence. Both statistics show an increase over previous years.

The truth of the matter is that the UK has one of the highest rates of alcohol dependence in the world. Why that’s true is anyone’s guess. However, you don’t have to be among those statistics if you currently have an alcohol problem. You can get the help you need to fully recover.

Help is available through the NHS, alcohol charities, non-profit support groups, and private alcohol rehab clinics. Each one of these organisations brings different things to the table. As an independent referral service, our job is to help you sort out all the options so you can make an informed decision.

Assessing Your Alcohol Problem

It goes without saying that the level of alcohol dependence in one person may be substantially different when compared to someone else. So determining how serious your problem is should be the first step in seeking appropriate treatment. You need to know whether you are an excessive drinker, and alcohol abuser, or an alcohol addict (alcoholic).

Consider the following:

• Excessive Drinker – As an excessive drinker you may regularly consume alcohol in amounts greater than what is considered healthy. Yet intoxication is not a normal course of action for you. You also do not spend your days worrying about being able to drink or planning all your social activities around alcohol. This suggests you’re probably an excessive drinker.

• Alcohol Abuser – You may be an alcohol abuser if you casually drank more than once or twice per week or find yourself binge drinking on a regular basis. For you it is not a case of not being able to survive without alcohol; it is a case of believing that everything is made better with alcohol. You can live without drinking, but you don’t want to.

• Alcohol Addict – You are likely an alcoholic if your whole life revolves around drinking. You drink first thing in the morning; you drink throughout the day; you fall asleep with a drink in your hand. A very good sign of alcoholism is when friends and relatives are constantly expressing concern about your drinking habits. If you’re an alcoholic, they will recognise it before you will.

A doctor or other health professional with alcohol experience is the most qualified to assess your level of alcohol use, abuse or dependence. Our organisation can also offer a preliminary assessment based on the answers you provide to our questions. In either case, you need to get a proper assessment if you believe there is any chance you might have a drinking problem.

Types of Help Available

When you seek help for an alcohol problem, you’ll discover most programmes or services fall under one of the following four categories:

• Group Support – Support groups like Al-Anon exist to help alcohol abusers and addicts achieve and maintain abstinence. They do so through group counselling, mutual accountability, and other strategies designed to take advantage of a group of individuals all working to overcome together.

• Professional Counselling – A professional counselling service will offer alcohol counselling in addition to the rest of its services. This type of individualised counselling is normally scheduled on a weekly basis at the office of the counsellor.

• Detox – The chronic alcoholic will need to go through detox before he/she can ever hope to fully recover. Detox breaks the physical addiction to alcohol by forcing the alcoholic to be separated from both his/her drink and daily circumstances. It is an unpleasant experience, albeit one that can usually be completed in a week or so.

• Rehab – The most comprehensive type of alcohol recovery help is known as rehab. Alcohol rehab is a group of treatments all combined and offered over a long period of time. The best rehab programmes begin with 6 to 12 weeks of direct treatment followed by several months of aftercare.

Within the scope of these four treatment categories is also the question of outpatient or inpatient care. Choosing between these two options is critical for long-term success. Outpatient care might be the best option for one individual, while another would do better with inpatient care.

Outpatient Care

Outpatient care is provided by alcohol charities, professional counselling organisations, and the NHS. It’s called outpatient care because the individual visits a facility for only a few hours at a time. Afterwards he or she is free to leave and resume their normal daily activities.

The advantage of outpatient care is that it is both local and less time-consuming. The disadvantage comes by way of not being separated from those daily circumstances that might enable continued drinking. For some people, outpatient care is an open invitation to keep drinking while living under the illusion that they are actually being helped.

Inpatient Care

Inpatient care is defined as care made available through a residential treatment programme. Residential treatment requires the individual to live at a treatment facility, 24 hours a day, for the duration of the treatment. These types of programmes are offered by private rehab clinics and a handful of alcohol charities.

Inpatient care is the best option for the chronic alcoholic because it completely separates him or her from the life and circumstances they are used to. That separation forces the individual to deal directly with their alcohol problem. They have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

Because residential treatment involves both separation and a concentrated focus, these types of programmes tend to have higher success rates. Again, whether you choose inpatient or outpatient care depends on individual circumstances.

How to Get Help

If you need help for yourself or someone you love, you could take the next few weeks or months researching all of the options. However, why spend that time when we’ve done all the work for you? We are an independent referral service tasked with the mission to always stay abreast of addiction programmes throughout the UK. We know what’s available at any given time.

All you need do to get the appropriate help is get in touch with us. We will explain all of your options, make our recommendations, and assist you with admission arrangements. Just a few minutes from now, you could be getting the help you need. Please don’t wait; there’s no need to continue living with an alcohol addiction.

Addiction Recovery Resources in Wolverhampton

Once people become ready to break away from addiction, our local drug rehab centres will have the resources to help them on their way. By taking advantages of what is available, the individual will be greatly increasing their chances of success, so it does make sense that they should choose this option.

When deciding on drug rehab treatment, our team of experts can help you choose the right recovery option for you, whether you are fighting canabis, cocaine or heroin addiction. There are various drug rehabilitation centres in Wolverhampton. This is important because you will want to choose the right resources to help you to quit. Call us right now, or just text the word “help” to 66777 to find out more about drug rehab. UK experts often say it is the best way to beat addiction.

Why Do I Need Help to End My Addiction?

Do I really need help in order to end my addiction? This is a fair question, and it needs to be answered or else the individual will feel that these addiction treatments are surplus to requirements. There are examples of people who have managed to end their addiction problems without much help, and the individual may see this as even further evidence that they do not need any assistance. The reasons for why the person is encouraged to make use of the resources available for addiction treatment in Wolverhampton would include:

• · If the individual manages to quit using alcohol or drugs it may not be enough to ensure that they have a good life going forward. This is because by stopping the substance abuse, it will just put them back at square one, and the chances are that the reasons for why they fell into addiction in the first place will still be there. The aim of addiction recovery is not to help the person get back to square one – the real goal is to allow them to build a new way of life where they will no longer feel any need to use alcohol or drugs.
• · Most substance abusers will be able to stop drinking for a few days, weeks, or months – some may even be able to go a few years. The problem is not stopping, but in staying stopped. As soon as the individual relapses, they will be right back where they started, so stopping the abuse for a short time is not enough. The aim of addiction recovery is to help the individual break away from this behaviour for good.
• · There is no knowing how many times the individual will get the opportunity to end their addiction problems, and this means that they should treat every recovery attempt as if it were their last – it could well be. In order to get the highest chance of success the individual will need to make use of the best recovery resources. There is no real justification for them not to do this.
• · Most people who try to give up an addiction will relapse during the detox stage. This is because the temptations to quit will be particularly high due to withdrawals. By going into a rehab, the individual will be protected and supported so that they can more easily make it past this delicate stage of recovery. Once they are through their withdrawals, it will be easier for them to commit to long-term recovery.

Find Addiction Help in Wolverhampton

We will be able to help you find addiction help in Wolverhampton. There are some high quality options available to you locally, or you may consider other options further afield. Call us right now on 0800 140 4824 to find out more about your path away from addiction. Remember that you will not be expected to commit to anything just because you called us, but it will benefit you to learn more about your options.