Mr. Huang, 54, has been drinking more than 1 pound a day and has been drinking for nearly 30 years. In the past year, Mr. Huang has frequently called the police because of his body, and under the advice of his family, Mr. Huang has to try to quit drinking. On December 5, Mr. Huang suddenly appeared to talk nonsense and beat people. On December 8, 64-year-old Mr. Huang was transferred to the Department of Critical Care Medicine of the Second People's Hospital of Hunan Province for treatment because he could not walk, did not know anyone, and had multiple organ failure.
Yang Yongkang, deputy chief physician of the Department of Critical Care Medicine of the Second People's Hospital of Hunan Province, said that after long-term (more than half a month) alcohol abuse, alcohol interacts with a variety of neurotransmitter systems of the brain and then affects brain function, resulting in physical dependence and psychological dependence on alcohol. After developing alcohol dependence, the brain tries to antagonize the inhibitory effect by increasing excitability, which neurobiologically manifests itself as a tolerance to the sedative effects of alcohol.
When alcohol is abruptly interrupted or reduced, these compensatory changes are no longer antagonized by the presence of alcohol, resulting in tremors, delirium, convulsions, confusion, psychomotor and autonomic hyperexcitability, and even induce some cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.
Since quitting alcohol is so harmful, is it not necessary to quit?
In this regard, Dr. Yang Yongkang believes that the harm of not quitting alcohol may be greater, and long-term excessive alcohol consumption, or alcohol dependence, can lead to a wide range of neuropsychiatric or neurological system diseases, cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases and malignant tumors. The reason why Mr. Huang's condition is so critical has a lot to do with his long-term drinking.
Physician Yang Yongkang suggested that drinking should be moderate, and there should be a method for quitting alcohol, which should be scientific and reasonable, step by step, and gradually control alcohol intake until alcohol cessation. If you have symptoms such as poor sleep, laziness, dazedness, emotional instability, and wild thoughts in the process of self-abstinence, you should seek medical treatment in time, and it is best to seek help from a professional addiction center.
Contributed by: ICU Zhang Jie
Editor: Cheng Jie
Image: From the Internet, intrusion and deletion