Tuesday, December 22, 2020

LGBTQ Alcoholism – Why Is It Increasing And How It Can Be Treated?

 

Major developments in society across the globe have provided awareness about the LGBTQ community among the people. Despite this, the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) community faces social stigma. Even a few cases have shown them facing threats and other major challenges. This has led the way to alcoholism and sometimes binge drinking among this community. However, the availability of versatile treatment options and awareness among LGBTQ helps reduce this problem manifold.

LGBTQ and Alcoholism: What’s the Relation?

UK has an increased number of LGBTQ population and is increasing more since the year 2018.

What’s more shocking is that the people in the UK and Europe have reported increased incidents of violence against them. The number has increased to almost 62%, making same-sex couples not hold hands in public. Even 1 out of 4 adults stated that they do not want their child to be identified as LGBTQ.

All these factors lead to the severe problem of alcoholism among the LGBTQ nationals. Alcoholism means heavy drinking or intake of alcohol to an extent where you are dependent on it. You think about having it every time that even means alcohol abuse. It becomes the most important thing in the life of people.

Along with alcoholism, some have turned to substance abuse, as keeping a secret and living a double life has taken a toll on their mental health. Almost 25% of LGBTQ in the UK has been stated to possess severe drinking problems or alcoholism compared to 12% of the general population.

However, the provision of Rehab Healthcare by RehabHC and the tailor-made treatment according to the severity of alcoholism will help the LGBTQ community to come out of this vicious circle quite early.

Other Grave Reasons to Opt for Alcoholism

Trying to live a double and secret life can be one of the reasons or non-acceptance by the parents, and society can be the other reason. But, there are many more reasons to opt for alcohol too. Let’s take a sneak peek into a few of them:

  • Hatred and attacks
  • Victimization and minority stress
  • Harassment at public and professional places
  • Sexual violence
  • Loss of family
  • Non-acceptance in the ‘faith-based support systems’
  • Mental and social stress
  • Humiliation

All these factors contribute largely to other risk factors or co-occurring disorders that eventually takes place among the LGBTQ community along with alcoholism. They move to alcohol as one of the coping methods.

Co-Occurring Disorders & Alcohol as Coping Method among LGBTQ

If we go down the history lane, the biggest Stonewall Riots led to the modern LGBTQ rights and laws. Still, many reforms and awareness need to be provided to make this world a happy place for everyone.

But, the present world is still hostile and only shows little acceptance towards these people. This made the LGBTQ community use alcohol as a coping method. It is prevalent in the social settings that made almost 90% of adolescents use it. In the name of binge drinking, they consume more than five drinks in a day to cope with the whole stress. Alcohol drinking is much more prevalent among the LGBTQ community and remains untreated too.

It not only stops here but along with alcoholism, the LGBTQs faces ‘co-occurring’ disorders too. These disorders relate to the problematic mental condition of the LGBTQ people. This has made a few members commit suicide, do self-harm, or opt for self-medication. A few common co-occurring disorders faced by the LGBTQ community are:

  • Anxiety and depression
  • Anger
  • Loneliness
  • Hopelessness
  • Low self-esteem
  • Eating disorders
  • Guilt and minority stress and much more

It is even seen that older women consume more alcohol than younger women and even males in the LGBTQ community. However, this can come to an end if help is taken at the right time from the professional and best London Alcohol Rehab centre like RehabHC. The LGBTQ community can get the required help and support at the right time.

Treatment for LGBTQ Community

To provide complete healing to the LGBTQ community, it is necessary to devise specialized treatment plans that can help them accept themselves as a part of society. Many professional Rehab Clinics UK as RehabHC follows a unique treatment plan along with the alcohol detox for alcoholism problem. A complete therapist treatment is also provided to the people who have undergone co-occurring disorders and trauma. They can speak to licensed therapists and find a solution to their problems and medications to help them come out of this condition. These Rehab clinics chalk out a unique and personalized treatment plan for each patient to cater to their physical and emotional needs. So, people from LGBTQ can also find a ray of hope with these dedicated experts and rehab clinics in the UK.




Sunday, December 20, 2020

How Can Children Be A Great Help for Alcoholic Parents?


 Alcoholic parents have too much negative impact on the kids. They not only ruin themselves but also destroy the lives of their kids. It is difficult for the little kids to raise a voice against alcoholism, but if you are a teen and above, it is time to get back your parents on the normal track of life and make your and your parents’ life easy. Things are not so easy as it sounds. If you find any of your parent is having an uncontrollable urge for alcohol and behaving abnormally if they don’t get it, you should know that he/she is an addict. Instead of getting disappointed with them, you can be of great help. Taking professional help for alcohol addiction is a great solution for your parents. If you consult the best rehabs like RehabHC, you can overcome the tough period and become the rescuer in your parent’s life from the addiction.

A Step You Need to Take Now

The bottom line is you should do every necessary thing to improve your parent’s condition. But, if he/she becomes abusive or has any risk from them, you should take professional help physically or mentally. There are rehabilitation centers where you should send them for alcohol detox. You may feel guilty or low while your parents act so, but this is the best you can do for your parents.

Sometimes, alcoholic persons can’t stop consuming alcohol even though they are willing to. This happens because alcohol damages their brain cells and disturbs their ability to logically thinking. So, you can give a call to the professional rehab center and let them do the best for your parents. You can call RehabHC to arrange the best schedule for your parents.

Why Your Parent Can’t Stop Having Alcohol?

This is a tough question to crack. Finding out the reason is tough, but you can try. You must have talked to them on this matter several times or acted in a way that you hoped could make them stop having it, but nothing worked. The alcohol keeps on damaging their system and snatching the peace of your life. Now, you need to admit the harsh truth no matter how much you talk to your parents or make them understand the destruction it is doing to your family, you can’t keep them away from alcohol. It is an addiction, and they don’t have any control over their urge. As alcohol reacts with brain functioning, it is impossible to bring them out from it without any professional help.

How can you Help your Alcoholic Parents?

The most important and basic way to help your parents get over alcoholism is to educate yourself about it. Once you understand it, you can see life from their perspective and understand why they can’t leave alcohol. Thus, you can make effective communication with them. Now, you need to identify the signs of alcoholism in your parents.

  • The urge to drink more alcohol every day to achieve certain effects
  • Neglecting the responsibilities at home and work because of too much drinking
  • Losing interests in activities that your parents usually enjoyed
  • Feeling always fatigued and unwell
  • Having a social life where alcohol is involved and avoiding the get together where it won’t be a part
  • Having withdrawal symptoms while not having a drink, especially after waking up in the morning
  • Lying constantly to you and other members of the family about having alcohol

Once you recognize these signs in your parents, you will be sure that he/she is an alcohol addict. The severity of the symptoms will make you understand how urgently they need professional help. But you should not get nervous or worried. Alcohol addiction can be treated, and you will get back your parents at their best condition to live a happy life.

Is it Possible to Make Them Take Professional Help?

Initially, this cannot be easy. If you find your parent is trying hard to stop drinking alcohol, you can suggest them to have professional help. You can arrange meetings with the professionals and make them take the therapies. But, the situation is not so easy always. Some parents don’t believe that they are addicts and they need professional help. This doesn’t mean that they don’t care, but it is the addiction that talks on behalf of them.

Here you get some idea of how to help your alcoholic parent say goodbye to addiction. The journey won’t be easy for you. You may need to take help from other trusted elders who understand your problem and take you through the journey. Rehab healthcare centers like RehabHC are the best place to take your parents to have a thorough treatment to recover from addiction.



Dual Diagnosis – How to Diagnose Mental Health Disorder and Alcoholism

 

A dual diagnosis is the way of treatment where alcoholism is treated due to mental disorder and vice versa. To state more clearly, a depressed soul finds it easier to depend on alcohol as self-medication. They find it relaxing and love to be in that self-oblivion to forget their stress. While drinking too much alcohol takes a toll on the brain cells, a person gets into severe mental illness that requires professional help. Without proper treatment for both alcoholism and mental disorder, dual diagnosis is required. Therefore, you need to find the best rehab healthcare center, like RehabHC, to get the best treatment for both.

What is Dual Diagnosis?

First of all, you need to know that drinking problems and mental disorders may not get associated with each other for every case. However, there is evidence where both of these cases have adjoined their path later.


In a dual diagnosis, the symptoms of alcoholism get a boost from mental illness, and the opposite happens a lot. Therefore, if any of the condition is left untreated, it will get severe in the future. The best drug and alcohol rehab in London will help you to get over this by providing the best dual diagnosis and other following treatments. This method is considered the best method for treating alcoholism and mental disorder in a rehabilitation center. Varieties of programs are initiated in the treatment method where lots of therapies are applied to the patient to treat both the issues together, instead of targeting one at a time.

If you are willing to get out from the black hole and have a life full of light, this is high time to consult the professionals from RehabHC where you can find the best rehab treatment to get over your issues.

Types of Mental Disorders Connected to Alcohol Abuse

Alcohol abuse can cause different types of mental illness, which can lead to alcoholism.

1. Depression

This is one of the most common mental disorders of human beings and often been ignored, which results in something serious like alcohol addiction. Depression can happen to anyone, irrespective of age, gender, and backgrounds, and it has symptoms like-

  • Losing interest in hobbies
  • Restlessness
  • Short-tempered
  • Loss of energy
  • Insomnia
  • Difficulty in concentrating

People suffering from depression often find quick relief from their stress through alcohol. But such self-medication in treating depression can have life-threatening outcomes if proper treatment is not started early.

2. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

This is another common type of mental disorder where the sufferer may have an uncontrollable obsession with something, leading to alcoholism. A person suffering from OCD may be obsessed with certain activities like washing hands repeatedly or properly fixing things. When they try to overcome this, it may cause anxiety in them. To get relief from that stress and anxiety, they succumb to alcohol, and very quickly, it turns into alcohol addiction.

3. Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder causes excessive mood swings that can give the patient a roller coaster ride. Their mood may fluctuate from too high to too low. Such conditions may cause serious mental and physical disorders. When a person is high, he can be abnormally upbeat, have tremendous energy, and feels too overconfident. At their low, they feel fatigued, completely stressed out, lose interest, and restless. Such conditions inevitably take the patients towards alcoholism as they find it the best rescue.

What are the Symptoms of Dual Diagnosis?

The symptoms of dual diagnosis depend on mental illness and how far it has taken the patient towards alcohol addiction. Knowing the symptoms will help you to identify your problems and seek medical help at the right time.

  • Isolating from the family and friends
  • Losing energy and motivation
  • Changes in appetite, sometimes too less or too much
  • Trouble in concentrating on any task
  • Increased anxiety, anger, and irritability
  • Neglecting professional and personal responsibilities

It is very important to figure out the symptoms of dual diagnosis at an early stage, else it can cause a severe effect on your mental and physical health, and there is a chance of lifelong misbalance. For the best treatment, you can consult RehabHC, one of the best London Alcohol and Drug rehab centers.

So, here you get the relation between alcohol and mental disorder, and dual diagnosis is the way to identify the root cause of your issues and treat both of them. If you are under the treatment of the best recovery centers, you will go through lots of therapies and medications. There are even aftercare programs to help you get over both the problems completely.

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Opiate Withdrawal – Things You Need to Know While Going Through it

 

Suffering from addiction is painful, not only for the addicts but also for the people around them. It will disturb the normal balance of your life and make it a complete mess, which can be disastrous. Whether it is heroin, prescribed opioid drug, opium, or other opiates, your life will be destroyed if you don’t go through heroin/opium detox at the right time. If you have any addict in your family or friend circle, it is time to come forward and provide any help to bring the person back to the right track of life. And to do that, you need to consult the best UK addiction treatment center like Rehab Healthcare.

Now, detoxification is also not easy. An addict has to go through withdrawal symptoms at the beginning of the treatment, which is crucial. Any triggers can drag him back again to the addiction. Also, the patient requires medication as well as regular counselling, mental, and emotional support to overcome the withdrawal syndromes. That can be possible when people around him know well how the withdrawal condition affects the person.

What is Opiate Withdrawal? What Can Be the Symptoms?


Drugs like heroin, opium, or other opiates have a strong impact on your brain and body. Therefore, when you decide to go through detoxification, you have to be ready to face the painful impact of withdrawal. However, you must have the will power to go through this and defeat addiction now, right? Here are certain types of symptoms you may suffer from like-

  • Diarrhea, abdominal pain
  • Chills, watery eyes, runny nose
  • Cramping, insomnia
  • Vomiting, nausea, anxiety

Besides these, many people also suffer from a type of flu that appears as a withdrawal syndrome. Such symptoms may become severe enough to make people give up on treatment and go back to the addiction, especially where the right treatment and support are not being provided. To avoid such situations, you need to consider the professional and experienced rehab or detoxification center where you can get proper care, medication, counseling, and other 24-hours help and support. It is time to consult the rehab centers like Rehab Healthcare.

Association of Opiate Withdrawal Symptoms with Detoxification

Recovering from opiate addiction means your difficult journey through painful withdrawal symptoms. Usually, the withdrawal syndrome affects the central nervous system, and you can get the signs of hyperactivity. Usually, the withdrawal symptoms appear within 4 hours of taking the last dose of heroin, and it may continue for 48 to 72 hours, and sometimes even for a week. This time is very difficult as the patient has to go through severe cravings for the drug and feel high anxiety and increased respiratory rate, repeated yawning, diaphoresis, stomach cramps, and mydriasis lacrimation, and rhinorrhea. Besides this, the patient may also develop tremors, twitching in muscles, chills, fever, hypertension, tachycardia, nausea, anorexia, diarrhea, etc. To control the withdrawal syndromes, the patients are often prescribed buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone, etc.

How is Opiate Withdrawal Diagnosed?

To start with the diagnosis of opiate withdrawal, you will initially need to go through a physical examination where the addiction specialist doctor will ask about your symptoms. You will also have urine tests so that the experts can monitor how much opiate is there in your body. They will also ask you about the history of any drug abuse and your medical history. You should answer properly and truthfully to cooperate with the caregivers to provide you the best support and treatment.

What Kind of Treatments are Provided for Opiate Withdrawal?

Opiate withdrawal is a difficult situation, and many addicts continue taking the drug only to avoid the treatment. Therefore, treating them within a controlled environment will be the best decision, and the chances of healing become greater.

Mild withdrawal is treated with medicines like aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, etc. Besides that, proper rest and having enough water is important. For more serious conditions, residential rehabilitation and other opioid medicines are important.

So, if you know someone close to you is suffering from opiate addiction, consult the best rehab center where they can get perfect treatment and help to go through the withdrawal.



Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Effects Of Methadone Addiction During Pregnancy And Its Potential Treatment

In simple words, methadone is a drug used for relieving pain. It is used for more severe cases like treating the withdrawal symptoms of people who are recovering from the addiction to morphine, heroin, etc. Methadone is a kind of drug known as opioids, and it is prescribed to patients suffering from other kinds of addiction because it is safer than other opioids. Methadone is considered the Medication-Assisted Treatment or MAT, and it is used to treat the effects of other opioids like heroin. In several rehab clinics in the UK like RehabHC, methadone is used for treating drug addiction.

Sometimes, people abuse methadone as a form addiction as well and have to be sent to rehab centers to get rid of methadone addiction. During pregnancy, methadone works better compared to other drugs, but what are the effects of methadone in pregnancy? Read on to know more.

How Using Methadone Affect Pregnancy?

Pregnancy is quite a delicate period where you have to be very careful. Therefore, any addiction can cause severe damage to you and your baby. If you take methadone during pregnancy, even as a treatment drug, it directly moves to the placenta. So, it is evident that methadone addiction will have an impact on the development of the baby. Although it is proven that methadone-based MAT is safer during pregnancy than any opioid prescription pills or heroin, too much consumption or addiction to it can cause neonatal abstinence syndrome.

As per the researches, it has been proven that methadone addiction can hamper baby growth. But, if a woman is already on methadone at the beginning of the pregnancy, she should not stop it without consulting the doctor. If a pregnant woman suddenly stops taking methadone if she was already on the dose, she may experience certain types of withdrawal syndromes, which can have ill effects on the baby. Besides, if you are already suffering from heart disease, electrolyte imbalance, breathing issues, liver or kidney diseases, thyroid, gall bladder, or pancreas issues, you should not take methadone as medicine.

Effects of Having Methadone during Pregnancy

Effects Of Methadone Addiction During Pregnancy And Its Potential Treatment

There are certain side effects of using methadone during pregnancy; even if it is taken as directed, it can cause dry mouth. If a woman is suffering from methadone addiction, she may suffer from several other complications during pregnancy, like

  • Sudden weight gain
  • Headache
  • Sore tongue
  • Mood swings
  • Problem in swallowing
  • Changes in vision
  • Urination problems
  • Dizziness
  • Stomach pain
  • Trouble staying asleep

If you have any of these symptoms while having methadone during pregnancy, you should immediately consult your doctor.

How is Methadone Addiction Treated?

At the best rehab centers like RehabHC, methadone addiction is treated by expert doctors and other professionals. Though methadone is not that harmful like other opioids, any kind of addiction is not safe while you are pregnant. At the best rehab centers, the staff provides detox treatment and compassionate care to eliminate methadone addiction. They arrange a proper rehabilitation program where the patients can access state-of-the-art-medical care, support groups, parenting classes, physical health monitoring, and mental health counseling.

While treating methadone addiction, you may go through certain types of withdrawal symptoms. This means her body won’t work properly without taking methadone. Now, if a pregnant woman suddenly stops taking it, it can be risky for the mother and the baby. Here are some kinds of methadone withdrawal syndromes that are treated in the rehab centers-

  • Yawning
  • Restlessness
  • Watery eyes
  • Backache
  • Anxiety
  • Chills
  • Insomnia
  • Diarrhea
  • Vomiting
  • Abdominal cramping

The addict goes through a medical detox program at the rehab centers, perfect for removing methadone addiction. There are proficient rehab centers where you can find a customized treatment plan for pregnant women suffering from methadone addiction. You will get non-judgmental care and a supportive environment to eliminate the toxic effect of methadone at the upgraded rehab centers like Rehab Healthcare.

Here you get to know how methadone addiction affects pregnant women and how it is treated at the rehab centers. If you know someone addicted to heroin or any other kind of opioid, you can consult the best rehab center in your vicinity. Even if it is about methadone addiction, the woman has to go through detox program for her baby’s sake. Not only pregnant women but lactating mothers should also stay away from methadone addiction. Methadone is often used to treat other kinds of addiction, but if you have any side effects, consult your doctor immediately.