Alcohol affects the brain, which means it affects every part of your daily life, including your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Drinking alcohol can seem like a right of passage in American culture. However, in excess, it is a disease that experts call alcohol use disorder. Alcoholism puts you at greater risk for serious health problems, including liver disease, heart disease, cancer, and impaired brain functions. In addition, it doesn’t only affect you, but your entire family as well. Are you concerned that your own alcohol consumption has gotten out of control or that someone you care about is at risk? If so, then it’s time to get help at an alcohol addiction treatment center like Crossroads. Reach out to our team today at 877.978.1667 to find out more about treatment options.
Understanding the Daily Effects of Alcoholism on the Brain
Over time, excessive drinking can leave its mark on how your brain functions. This change includes learning and memory issues and developing mental health conditions or making existing conditions worse. Your everyday routine can be significantly affected if you become unable to perform simple physical and mental tasks. In addition, drinking affects fine motor skills, and heavy drinking can cause blackouts or even memory loss.
Long term alcohol abuse also brings with it daily mental effects that can only worsen over time, like:
- Making existing mental health conditions worse
- Anxiety
- Intense cravings
- Depression
- Irritability
- Panic attacks
- Chronic sleep issues
If you’ve begun noticing the impacts of alcohol on your mental health or cognitive functioning, it may be time to seek substance use treatment at an alcohol addiction treatment program.
How Alcohol Impacts the Organs
In addition to its effect on brain function, lifelong excessive drinking has severe consequences for many organs, including:
- Liver cirrhosis
- Steatosis (fatty change)
- Fibrosis (fibrotic scarring)
- Heart arrhythmias
- Stroke
Some of these effects can have detrimental effects on your health. For instance, your heart may have trouble functioning, limiting what you can do. As you slow and stop your alcohol intake, your health may be able to improve.
Other Impacts of Alcohol Use
In addition to the serious physical and mental health risks from alcoholism, your job and relationships will be negatively affected. There’s an endless list of social issues brought on by dependence on alcohol. These issues include:
- Poor work performance
- Avoiding household responsibilities
- Money problems
- Hurting relationships with those close to you
- Dependence on alcohol for any social situation
- Alienating your children
- Mental health problems and co-occurring disorders
- Becoming unreliable and/or untrustworthy
- Developing unhealthy relationships that enable drinking
- Legal issues related to alcohol consumption
If you are facing several of these problems due to your alcohol use, it’s time to seek treatment. At Crossroads, we’re proud to provide alcohol addiction treatment for women. Please get in touch with our team today at 877.978.1667 to learn about the treatment options available.
Getting Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder
Unfortunately, as you continue to drink, your alcohol addiction only worsens, and your life gets out of your control. Crossroads created the alcohol addiction treatment center to support recovery for women in Maine and the New England area as a whole. Our evidence-based addiction treatment therapy offers a variety of opportunities to get the help you need. Treatment can include everything from local therapy groups to one-on-one sessions with our caring and professional treatment team.
Our therapeutic approaches include:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical behavior treatment (DBT)
- Trauma therapy
- Group therapy
- Individual therapy
Please don’t suffer from alcohol addiction alone. Get help from Crossroads today.
Let Crossroads Help You Overcome Addiction
At Crossroads, we offer substance abuse treatment programs that use evidence-based approaches, holistic therapies, and gender-responsive treatment. Our rehab center is set on a beautiful campus in picturesque Maine. We offer a range of treatment options, which we can tailor to the needs of the women we support. In addition to our alcohol addiction treatment center, we also offer treatment for:
- Drug addiction
- Benzo addiction
- Cocaine addiction
- Heroin addiction
- Fentanyl addiction
- Opiate addiction
- Opioid addiction
- Marijuana addiction
- Meth addiction
- Methylphenidate addiction
The Crossroads team is standing by to answer your questions. Call us at 877.978.1667.
