The first step for many alcoholics is a detoxification center — a medical facility where medical personnel help them sober up and treat them for the physical symptoms brought on by alcohol withdrawal. It can take anywhere from three to six days for heavy drinkers to purge all of the alcohol from their bodies. During this period, which is known as withdrawal, alcoholics can suffer severe, even life-threatening physical and psychological reactions.

The symptoms of withdrawal include trouble sleeping, disorientation, hallucinations, convulsions, and seizures. The most extreme form of withdrawal is known as delirium tremens, DTs, a condition that is accompanied by acute anxiety and fear, agitation, fast pulse, fever, extreme perspiration, and hallucinations. Detoxification centers are staffed by doctors and other personnel who monitor and help alcoholics with their withdrawal symptoms. In severe cases, doctors can administer medication to lessen the symptoms.

Once detoxification is complete, alcoholics can seek help in many different settings. Hospitals, private clinics, residential facilities, self-help groups, and private medical practitioners all offer programs aimed at helping alcoholics stop drinking. In the United States, it is estimated that each day more than seven hundred thousand people receive medical help for alcohol addiction. By far the largest number of alcoholics seek treatment through outpatient programs. In outpatient programs, alcoholics visit a care center for only part of the day to receive counseling and help in quitting.

Treatment programs almost always include alcohol education classes and some form of group or individual therapy. In individual sessions, only the patient and therapist are present. In group therapy sessions, patients share their experiences, feelings, and concerns with other alcoholics. In both cases, the discussion is usually guided by a trained therapist, sometimes a psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor.

One of the most important aspects of group therapy is that the alcoholic realizes that he or she is not alone in fighting the disease, that many other people have been struggling for years with the same problem. Jane, a recovering alcoholic, explains how such sessions helped her:

Listening to other people talk about what happened to them, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had this problem. There were other people who drank too much and wanted to quit but couldn’t. That made me feel better. The most amazing thing was that even though everyone was different, they all had pretty much the same things happen to them, and I could understand just how they felt.

Outpatient programs offer services of varying intensity and duration, some for only for a few hours several days a week. The patient visits the care center for these sessions but does not stay there overnight. All programs try to help alcoholics understand how alcohol addiction works and how to deal with it in their daily lives. Treatment is based on the experiences of recovering alcoholics and the professional staff treating them as well as research on human behavior.

Some treatment centers also prescribe drugs to help people stay sober. One commonly used drug is Antabuse, which reacts with alcohol to make people sick if they drink. Recent research has led to the development of other drugs that can help ease the drinker’s craving for alcohol. One such promising drug is Naltrexone, which helps quell both the physical and psychological components of this terrible compulsion.

Although treatment programs vary in the forms of care they give recovering alcoholics, one aspect of treatment is a given for almost everyone: an introduction to the concepts of the self-help group known as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). This group’s principles are universally accepted and taught in alcohol treatment programs, almost all of which recommend that their patients attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to stay sober.

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