As we know, alcohol is a dangerous drug in and of itself. But when combined with other substances, it can be even more so. According to this MSNBC article, in 1983 only 92 people died at home from combinations of medication and/or alcohol and street drugs. In 2004, that number was 3,792, an almost 3200% increase over 1983.

Among the most dangerous alcohol-drug combinations are benzodiazepines and alcohol. Benzodiazepines are drugs like Valium and Xanax that are used to treat depression and anxiety. Like alcohol, they are “downers.” When taken with alcohol, they become much, much more dangerous, and can lead to overdose and death. Non-benzodiazepine depression management drugs like Prozac should also not be taken with alcohol as that combination can be fatal as well.
Prescription painkillers are also extremely dangerous, and join benzodiazepines at the top of the list of risky combinations. Vicodin, OxyContin, and codeine can all create hard to control and unpredictable effects when used in conjunction with alcohol, and lead to overdose and death.

This is only covering the prescription drugs – street drugs do not mix well with alcohol either. Using marijuana with alcohol may not lead to overdose but it can certainly get you sick quicker, as toxins are absorbed more quickly when they are used together. Combining cocaine and opiates like heroin with alcohol on the other hand can be as lethal as doing so with some of the prescription drugs above. Drugs from the opiates family (which includes codeine) should never, ever be used with alcohol as serious central nervous system depression and death are possible. When used with alcohol cocaine actually becomes more threatening, since the body turns the by-products of the mix into cocaethylene, which is deadlier than cocaine itself.

Of course, abusing illegal drugs is obviously risky behavior. Your prescription drugs if properly used can be just as risky. Alcohol makes risky behavior even riskier in both cases. If you are drinking you should be aware of whether your medications could adversely interact with alcohol. Alcohol is a powerful drug, and when combined with other drugs, it can become more than our body can handle.

This article was written by Robyn Schelenz, a Home Health Testing blog contributor. Home Health Testing is an online company that specializes in home drug test, nicotine, and alcohol test sales.

After these tests and evaluation, pharmacological interventions are performed, oral and intravenous, allowing recovery of neuronal functions of the brain structures that have been damaged by alcohol (NMDA, serotonin, and GABA systems, for example), so treated neurons can maximize your ability to use oxygen and quickly normalize neuronal membranes. The main achievement of this procedure pharmacological hospital is to provide the amount of medication necessary to ensure alcohol detox comfortable and safe, without craving and without withdrawal symptoms. By increasing the capacity of the treated neurons to use oxygen available, the neuronal membrane functions are normalized quickly.

Simultaneously, the alcohol detox treatment in specialized centers include attention to nutritional and psychological aspects of the patient: on the one hand, it is to maintain an adequate fluid balance, electrolyte correct deficiencies and address deficiencies in nutrition addiction that often accompany the patient. In this aspect, the nutrition of the brain in these specialized centers alcohol detoxification involves an enrichment of the diet with salts, trace elements, amino acids essential for neuronal recovery.

On the other hand, offers the patient an individualized plan of psychotherapy, based on clinical history and psycho-diagnostic tests, for the patient to restore harmony in their personal and family life, to clarify misconceptions about the disease and promote changes in attitude and lifestyle. This psychotherapy and pharmacological control, are the process that the patient is ambulatory after leaving the hospital in rehab for alcoholism, and allows the patient to participate actively in their own derived therapeutics.

Under these conditions, alcohol rehabilitation has four immediate goals:

1. provide a safe withdrawal from alcohol dependence and allow the patient free of substance not prescribed
2. provide a withdrawal that is humane and that protects both the patient’s dignity
3. provide a recovery of cognitive and affective processes and
4. prepare the patient for ongoing treatment of their dependence

Once in the brain, drugs and alcohol affect chemicals called neurotransmitters. These are chemicals in the brain that control the flow of information between neurons or brain cells, forming synapses, while altering the mood and feelings of people.

Specifically, alcohol is a depressant of the central nervous system. It works in multiple areas, including the reticular formation, spinal cord, cerebral cortex and cerebellum, among many other neurotransmitter systems.

Therefore, to avoid withdrawal is necessary to restore brain functions that have been damaged by the addiction to alcohol. But this is possible only with alcohol detoxification. Neurons must be restored, so that after being treated to increase its capacity to use the oxygen available and it can be normalized cell interaction through cell membranes.  Only this pharmacological intervention, to be conducted in alcohol treatment centers specialized restores normal neural functioning of the brain structures harmed by alcohol, actually allows a detox without withdrawal symptoms and craving free. Besides, it allows the recovery of higher cognitive processes and emotion, such as attention, reading abilities, consciousness or serenity.

In short, the risk of serious adverse consequences for some patients experiencing alcohol withdrawal syndrome necessitates a medically controlled detoxification rehab for alcoholism.  This implies an advanced drug therapy, conducted by medical professionals, psychology and nursing and to provide an assessment supervised 24 hours a day with a withdrawal management in an environment or appropriate rehab hospital. Treatment, on the other hand, performed according to approved health policies and clinical protocols or procedures a controlled clinically.

Several studies have shown that among the advantages of the pharmacological treatment of alcohol detoxification inpatient ultrafast observed:

1. the patient is in a protected environment and therefore without access to substances such as drugs or alcohol
2. the rapid neural recovery eliminates craving and suppresses withdrawal symptoms
3. Detoxification in an alcohol rehab specialist can be reached faster than in outpatient treatment.

On the other hand, treatment of inpatient alcohol detoxification prepares the patient for ongoing treatment of their dependence on alcohol or other drugs. During this hospitalization, patients may form therapeutic relationships with people responsible for the processing or other patients, and can increase your ability to make aware of alternatives to a life dependent on alcohol. Thus, detoxification is an opportunity to provide useful information to patients and to motivate them in time outpatient psychotherapeutic treatment.

In fact, withdrawal is the main obstacle to recovery from addiction to alcohol and the main obstacle to be overcome in the treatment of alcohol rehabilitation centers.

On the other hand, the risks of withdrawal for the patient and society are not limited to the severity of natural disturbances, especially when detoxification is conducted on an outpatient basis. Because patients in outpatient alcohol detoxification are at risk of self-medication to alleviate withdrawal symptoms and the interplay between this self-medication and physician-prescribed medicines may cause overdose or brain damage.

Some symptoms of alcohol withdrawal that may occur within a few hours after the last intake of alcohol, and typically peak between 24 and 36 hours after the last intake. Early withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, agitation, insomnia, diaphoresis, nausea, vomiting, tremors, tachycardia and hypertension.

But these early signs may be followed by attacks product of alcohol withdrawal, which can be recurrent and occur mostly within 48 hours after you have stopped drinking alcohol. The delirium alcohol withdrawal or delirium tremens, usually begins between 48 and 72 hours after the last intake, and is preceded by the first signs and symptoms of abstinence, although these symptoms can be masked or delayed by associated diseases or taking medication. Signs of sympathetic hyperactivity (such as tachycardia, hypertension, fever and diaphoresis or excessive sweating), are hallmarks of alcohol withdrawal delirium, and often profound. The mortality rate is estimated between 1% and 5%, but increases if diagnosis is delayed, if carried out inadequate treatment, or concurrent medical conditions.

In summary, alcohol withdrawal symptoms produces opposed to direct pharmacological effects of alcohol. In the central nervous system, alcohol interferes with the processes by which certain nerve cells are ordered to be turned on or aroused. Similarly, intensifies the processes by ordering certain cells to show restraint. Thus, ethanol acts as a nonspecific biochemical inhibitor of the central nervous system activity.

During withdrawal, as noted, the central nervous system experiences a reversal of this effect: the process of excitation is increased while the inhibitory processes are reduced. Such changes can result in a hyper activation of the central nervous system is suppressed when alcohol intake.

They have found that even in people with moderate withdrawal symptoms, you may feel that hyperactivity in the sympathetic nervous system, together with increased production of adrenal hormones cortisol and norepinephrine, which can be toxic to nerve cells.  Cortisol, on the other hand, can damage neurons in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that is considered especially important for memory and control of affective states.

Thus, repeated untreated alcohol withdrawal can result in direct damage of the hippocampus. And here we must remember that the hardness of the alcohol withdrawal syndrome carries a high risk of relapse, especially during its early stages. In part, because the craving for the consumption of alcohols l is easily provoked by thoughts of stimuli associated with the drug. Studies have shown that these relapses, ie, repeated periods of abstinence in the same person without proper treatment can lead to future abstinence with serious negative consequences. Many researchers believe that alcoholics who can not maintain abstinence should receive treatment centers specialized alcoholism, drug therapy to control symptoms of the withdrawal and thus reduce potential attacks and brain damage.

For these reasons, alcohol detoxification treatment without medical management and an appropriate level of care is a major health risk and even the lives of patients. Therefore, the specialized treatment centers for alcohol detoxification is the best alternative available today.