Alcohol addiction is a very serious addiction. There are many different negative effects of alcohol on the body, many of which are life threatening. Long term use of alcohol can give a person a wide variety of ailments, and some of them cannot be cured.

Recent studies have indicated that when a person uses large amounts of alcohol over a long period of time, they can begin to suffer from brain damage. It is very obvious that when a person drinks, their brain is affected in the short term. When a person reaches a state of inebriation on alcohol their speech can become impaired, their motor coordination can become impaired, even their memory can become impaired and the person can suffer from blackouts. Blackouts are a period of time when a person is drinking when they cannot remember events or entire periods of time during which they are intoxicated.

More recently however, it has been found that long term alcohol abuse can affect the brain more permanently than at just the specific period of time that the person is drinking. Brain scans of long time alcoholics have shown a reduction of brain mass in the person’s brain and sometime the person will suffer from specific brain disorders that are unique only to alcoholics.

One of the effects of alcohol is that it burns up a person’s store of thiamine or B1. B1 is a very essential nutrient that all organs, including the brain, are dependent upon for survival. B1 is a water soluble vitamin that the body does not produce on its own and a person needs to consume it everyday to be able to provide enough to their body. The problem with many alcoholics is that they do not necessarily eat a balanced diet everyday and their bodies often become deficient in many nutrients.

When an alcoholic’s body becomes deficient in thiamine, as eighty percent of all alcoholics bodies are, they have the potential to develop Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS). WKS has two separate syndromes. The first one is known as Wernicke’s encephalopathy which is acute, and Korsakoff psychosis which a debilitating and chronic condition. Wernicke’s encephalopathy symptoms include mental confusion, eye nerve paralysis, and difficulty with muscle coordination. They may have trouble walking and be disoriented. Not all patients with this disorder will suffer from all three symptoms so doctors need to take special care with patients who are long term alcoholics and keep a look out for patients who may have this disorder.

Eighty to ninety percent of those people who develop Wernicke’s encephalopathy will go on to develop Korsakoff’s psychosis. This is a condition where the patient develops long term learning impairment and memory difficulties. Patients with this condition are often very forgetful and get frustrated easily. Many times they will suffer from lack of muscle coordination as well. They may suffer from long term and short term amnesia and can quickly forget any current events.

For people who are suffering from WKS, in the early stages of this disease, thiamine is the best treatment to reverse effects. However, if the condition becomes chronic and brain damage more severe, thiamine treatment may not be as effective in some patients. In these situations support may need to be given to the patient and their family in the way of information and options for long term care and supervision for the person.

Another very serious complication from constant alcohol abuse can come in the form of fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome, also known as FAS is a birth defect found in some children whose mothers consumed alcohol while pregnant. There is not a set amount of alcohol consumed that will guarantee that a child will suffer from this syndrome or a lesser amount that would be guaranteed to prevent it. Some women who overindulged only once or twice while pregnant had FAS babies. It is shown that the more a woman drinks while pregnant, the more severe of a case of FAS her baby will have. For a while there was popular belief that a woman could have one or two glasses of wine a day and her baby would be fine. It has now been proven that this is not the case and it is definitely not recommended for anyone to drink while pregnant.

Children with FAS have a certain combination of facial features that are unique to these kids. These children often suffer from impulse control, anger control, developmental retardation, as well smaller than average head circumferences from a smaller amount of brain mass. Kids with this syndrome are often sentenced to a less than easy life from day one. FAS is the leading preventable cause of childhood developmental problems to date. This is not a disease that one is able to grow out of. It is a lifelong problem and the worst part of it is, that if the child’s mother would have just not drank while she was pregnant, her child would not have developed FAS.

There are many other preventable diseases that alcoholics can get.

Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death in America. All of these deaths are preventable, however alcoholism is a serious condition to overcome. There is a definite need for treatment for anyone who suffering from this addiction.

Narconon drug rehabilitation centers are not only for drug addicts. Narconon has been very successful in treating alcoholism as well. Narconon has a seventy six percent success rate which is the highest success rate for any treatment center to date.

No matter what kind of treatment an alcoholic or their family chooses, the longer the treatment the better. Alcoholics Anonymous(AA) is a good life long support group for those people who have completed a long term treatment. AA has been shown to be effective for those people who cannot go to a long term treatment center as well. If AA is going to be used alone, however, it is recommended that in the beginning that the person gets as heavily involved as possible with the group meetings. Some people who are suffering from alcoholism find that they need to go to AA meetings everyday.