Deciding to stop drinking is a major undertaking. However, deciding to stop drinking and how you’re going to go about the process – on your own or with medical assistance – is just as important of a decision. For some, quitting at home is the best approach. For others, quitting alone may even lead to dangerous complications or death.
Understanding the real differences between detox at home and medical detox for alcohol treatment can help justify personal decisions based on safety and success – not shame or perceived weakness.
The Difference of Severity
Not everyone with an alcohol use disorder requires medical detox. A person who has spent the last year enjoying three beers each night has a different risk than someone who’s had a fifth of vodka daily for 10 years. One has a strong physical dependency; the other does not.
It is only dangerous when physically reliant upon alcohol to the extent that the brain and body will rebel if suddenly cut off. Those who drink a fifth of vodka daily are those who need medical help; those who have experienced severe symptoms of withdrawal in the past, those with a history of seizures or delirium tremens – and those who have comorbid conditions that impact withdrawal complication.
Thus, those with milder to moderate levels of dependency at home who have not experienced severe symptoms before may be able to quit at home without medical assistance, but the risk is never known until one begins withdrawing, at which point symptoms can become severe and fatal.
Medical Support Makes The Difference
The best part about going through the detox process in medical alcohol detox centers is that treatment is monitored 24/7 by trained professionals. Each person going through withdrawals will have their vital signs checked regularly, ensuring that no one has dangerously worsening symptoms.
Monitoring blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and dehydration ensure professionals can keep patients alive. Patients can go from feeling okay in the morning to deathly ill in the afternoon, so a facility offering alcohol detox in massachusetts recognizes the rapid progression of withdrawal symptoms where symptoms likely go unnoticed – or treated too late – at home.
If someone’s blood pressure skyrockets, they respond immediately. If someone shows signs of seizure or delirium, they respond immediately. At home, these signs are handled too late in an emergency setting.
Medication Access
Detox facilities can utilize medications that homes cannot. Benzodiazepines can stave off seizures or help minimize withdrawal effects. Other medications mitigate symptoms like nausea, racing heart, or tremors. Other facilities use medications to help cravings long-term support.
This means that these medications are not just for comfort – but also safety. Benzodiazepines administered in the right clinical arena possess reduced risk factor thresholds for life-threatening complications. Their timing and doses matter when considering personal and comprehensive medical assessment; detox at home means people are left on their own with dosing possibilities that create more risk than reduce them.
Those quitting on their own rarely have access to these options – or if they do, they’re billing themselves without personal and medical considerations – leaving them at personal risk for adverse reactions.
The Comfort Level
Alcohol withdrawal is difficult on the body. Nausea, vomiting, sweating, trembling hands, anxiety, insomnia, and intense cravings all attack from day one making someone physically miserable for days on end.
Those in alcohol detox centers get help with these symptoms along with proper nutrition and a controlled environment. Those at home fighting alcohol withdrawal must still go grocery shopping, deal with alternative responsibilities, or hide the symptoms occurring from family members.
It’s easy to give up detoxing at home when it’s too uncomfortable. It’s difficult to quit at a facility when staff help keep your spirits high through the worst of it so that you get to the other side without fighting temptation before success.
Compartmentalized Support System
Going through any major life change needs structure and purpose – something given easily by providing medical care. A treatment facility for alcohol detox provides a schedule and checkpoints with professionals whose job it is to ensure a successful recovery.
A person detoxing at home with a limited support system – especially without one – is destined to be overwhelmed by the volume of structure-less environment devoid of comfort and support.
Those misguided believe that psychological support is unnecessary in a non-medical detox setting; however, such professionals have seen it all and know what patients are feeling, making it easier to get through more than just physical symptoms but also psychological ones.
At home means no support – it means worrying about groceries, cooking food, worrying about whether or not someone sees you struggling without a drink in hand. In contrast, medical alcohol detox means no distractions from getting through this as safely as possible.
When Home Detox Works
For those with milder dependency levels, detoxing at home exists conditionally but safely with proper support. This usually indicates people who have not been drinking for long stretches daily but conditioned themselves into routines – but not severe enough routines that they’ve complicated issues down the line.
With support systems at home who allow time off for recovery or make arrangements to ensure comfort elsewhere without risking relapse means that success at home is possible – but not likely without medical intervention for check-ins and safeties along the way.
Even then, it’s better to check in with a doctor, get verification of support systems willing to stay with you during the first most vulnerable nights – then re-evaluate.
This dilemma fails when people overestimate their abilities as they downplay a drinking issue or underestimate how hard it would be to quit.
Success Rates
Higher completion rates for medical interventions signal why they are superior options to treating alcohol use disorder withdrawal compared to those attempting on their own.
When it gets too hard because your body is overcoming you, many people give up and drink again. Using this theory of success against dismal alternatives where people fail multiple times for years – thinking they’ll get it next time – deludes them into deeper paths of shame until help is found somehow down the line.
There’s no getting it right more than once in a medical facility after making the decision to drink; when drug and alcohol teams get involved they’re not shaming you – they’re there to help because you’ve proven there are bigger problems than quick-fix solutions in medical detox recovery centers.
Making A Decision
The ultimate decision as to whether to quit at home or seek help arises not from money concerns but safety concerns from honest assessments of your situation – how bad your patterns are – and whether it’s worth the risk evaluating these symptoms or going independent struggling through every aspect of life while getting safe for those mentally and physically compromised.
Anyone with extreme dependence must seek a facility. Anyone who’s had severe complications before or has accompanying health complications should get help instead of causing additional threats to existing problems. When no one is sure what’s right medically, they should rely upon those who’ve seen it all before.
People thinking they can go it alone must have an air-tight plan before attempting anything on their own – and even then – with check-ins from those who’ve seen it all prior – not just those who’ve beaten similar battles themselves along the way – for higher safety numbers and potential outcomes.
Quitting alcohol isn’t exciting enough on its own – it should entail no additional risk whatsoever while people work together within an integrating system for those who’ve experienced the worst parts so that getting through this preliminary stage isn’t complicated by extra expectations when it’s just too hard on your body already for days-at-a-time.
For many fighting against alcohol use disorder, it’s better – and necessary – for safety concerns among all others.
