Alcohol and its effect on the human psyche

Alcohol is one of the most widespread of drugs. Why does it have such a large and solid influence on our souls and how negatively does it affect us?

The main component of all alcoholic beverages is denatured alcohol (ethanol, ethyl alcohol, CH3-CH2-OH). It is a colourless, highly flammable liquid substance with a characteristic smell.

Interesting:
The alcoholic beverages themselves undergo a process in which natural fermentation occurs. Yeast converts the sugar extracted from the fruit into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This is followed by fermentation and distillation of the alcohol.

How alcohol affects a person is individual. It depends mainly on the amount of alcohol ingested, the volume of alcohol in the drink, the speed of drinking, weight and the tolerance of the individual.
Either way, acute or chronic damage to health occurs.

Read also:
Alcoholism: Proven effects of alcohol on our bodies

Acute alcohol intoxication

Even a non-alcoholic can suffer serious alcohol-related health damage. This happens when a large amount of alcohol is consumed suddenly. This is most often seen in young people who do not know the extent of their drinking.

4 stages of alcohol poisoning:

1. Excitatory stage - There is an increase in energy, activity, sociability, euphoria and excitement. Paradoxically, vision deteriorates, reaction time slows down and there is a loss of muscle coordination.
2. Hypnotic stage - Primary alertness and increased activity turns into inactivity, sleepiness, there is a marked impairment of vision, speech and gait, reflexes decrease.
3. Narcoleptic stage - Vision deteriorates markedly, vision is double, blurred and incoherent, the patient communicates unintelligibly, babbles, usually does not respond, just looks into the unknown, falls asleep. He is more difficult to wake up and falls asleep again almost immediately upon awakening. Muscles are flaccid.
4. Asphyctic stage - This is the most severe stage, when somnolence progresses to a comatose state. The patient is unresponsive, breathing slowly and shallowly, there is general hypothermia, muscle hyporeflexia and relaxation of the sphincter on the stomach increase the risk of death by aspiration of vomit.

How much alcohol have I drunk and how much is in my blood?

Read on with us to find out:
What impact alcoholism has on a person's soul.
It destroys the individual, but it also destroys his or her immediate environment.

Alcoholism is a mental disorder

Interesting:
Alcoholism was first identified as a mental disorder in 1784 by B. Rush. This definition still stands today. Until then, it was considered a behavioral disorder that was directly related to the character of a particular person.

Alcoholism is therefore considered a mental illness when an individual is addicted to the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Not only alcohol addiction, but also other addictions are defined by the WHO as mental illnesses. They must be treated and treated according to this classification.

Not only is it a mental disorder, it is the mental disorder with the highest incidence. Up to 50% of patients admitted to psychiatric wards and psychiatric hospitals suffer from this disorder.

Interesting:
Chronic alcohol abuse reduces the average life expectancy of an individual by up to 10 years.

What causes alcohol?

• Organic and functional brain damage
• organic and functional damage to internal organs
• severe psychiatric disorders
• major social problems
• deterioration of the economic situation

Table with the different stages of alcoholism:

Mental illness caused by alcohol use

The effects of alcohol on cognitive function and the psyche as a whole are well known. However, the vast majority of the public mistakenly believe that these disorders are transient and only occur when drunk.

However, alcohol causes permanent and irreversible damage to the brain and psyche.

The most common psychological manifestations in a drunk person are:

• Euphoria, followed by depression
• thought spurt
• bad, even suicidal thoughts
• agitation, irritability
• psychomotor restlessness
• anger, aggressiveness

The most common psychological disorders caused by alcohol use:

• Depression
• Manic-depressive disorder
• Alcoholic dementia
• Korsakoff's psychosis and other amenics
• Alcoholic hallucinosis
• Paranoid psychosis

Alcohol-induced depression

Depression is a psychological condition or illness manifested by a morbid and often unjustified feeling of sadness. It is accompanied by a variety of somatic complaints such as general muscle weakness, nausea, vomiting, headaches and others.

Alcohol is not a solution to sadness and depression. In most cases, it is just a 'rationalisation', which means 'rationalising' drinking. The fact is that alcohol exacerbates depression. Alternatively, its long-term consumption is the cause.

In a smaller number of cases, mostly men, depression occurs first, then alcohol dependence. Gradually, both disorders deepen and intensify. However, the opposite also happens, with regular drinking leading to self-pity, feelings of inferiority and depressive thoughts.

Tip: Anxiety, fear, depression or other symptoms.

Affective disorder, where the individual sticks out

Affective disorder belongs to the psychiatric illnesses and like depression, it is classified as a disorder of mood, emotion and affect. In the patient, two opposing poles alternate, namely feelings of happiness and sadness, i.e. mania and depression. For this reason, it is also referred to by the term manic-depressive psychosis or bipolar disorder.

In affective disorder, the affected individual stands out considerably from the norm by an excessively pathological mood with a recurrent course.

For approximately 2 weeks, depression, sadness, loss of self-confidence, feelings of guilt, and even suicidal ideation predominate. This negative mood is followed by a week of increased physical activity, sociability, communicativeness, and thought spurts, along with psychomotor restlessness, distractibility, and irritability.

Alcoholic dementia and memory loss

Dementia occurs in chronic ethyl alcoholism before the individual has time to age (old-age dementia). This has been demonstrated in recent studies, which have also shown higher rates of impairment in men.

Interesting:
The risk of early-onset dementia occurs when men consume 60 g of alcohol per day and women 40 g of alcohol per day.

Alcohol actually damages the brain structures and its function, thus accelerating the onset of dementia by up to three times. In chronic and heavy drinkers, excessive and regular consumption of alcoholic beverages leads to liver damage and thus ammonia leakage into the bloodstream and brain. This further impairs brain function.

Read also.

Korsakov's alcohol psychosis

Korsakoff's psychosis is named after the Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Sergei Sergeyevich Korsakoff. It is also known as Meynert's amenation or amnestic syndrome. It is caused by organic damage to the brain (mamillary bodies and thalamus) due to alcohol.

In this disease, short-term memory (minutes, hours, days) is profoundly impaired, similar to dementia of old age. The biggest problem is remembering and retaining what is learned or memories of various events in the memory. The individual replaces and masks these "windows" with imaginary memories - confabulations.

The progression of the condition brings with it total disorientation and permanent, irreversible damage to the intellect. The patient loses not only a sound mind but also his previous social background, thus gradually losing his previous life.

Alcoholic hallucinosis

Hallucinosis caused by chronic alcohol use is called alcoholic hallucinosis and is very similar to schizophrenia, paranoia and other disorders in which the patient sees or hears non-existent things. It is therefore a psychotic disorder resulting from chronic alcohol dependence (10 years or more).

Sleep disturbances (insomnia), relationality and tension dominate the antecedents. The disorder itself is manifested by a sudden onset and rapid development of symptoms. Significant anxiety, auditory hallucinations and persecutory delusions (feelings of being persecuted by someone) are prominent.

Alcoholic hallucinosis may not persist. Alcohol abstinence causes the hallucinations and delusions to disappear in the vast majority of patients with this disorder. In a small number they persist and progress to paranoia.

Interesting experience:
A middle-aged man was admitted to the trauma ward and was treated for multiple fractures. The cause of the physical trauma was a deliberate jump in front of a train. The reason for the jump was voices commanding him to do so. During his stay in the hospital he saw shadows coming out of the walls. There was, of course, a history of alcohol.

Paranoid psychosis

Have you ever heard that alcoholics see white mice? You think they're making it up? No! They really do!

Paranoia and paranoid psychosis represent the most serious problem in clinical psychiatry. Paranoia means "outside oneself". It is a severe mental disorder that is difficult to manage and treat.

Patients suffer very often (sometimes permanently) from auditory, olfactory and visual hallucinations. They hear voices whispering to them what to do. They smell different smells (e.g. smoke) and fear that someone is deliberately trying to suffocate them. They see mice, human figures, but also alien beings.