Signs that Your Wine Habit is Becoming a Real Addiction
What makes one cross the line – instead of occasional alcohol consumption “on holidays”, start using it regularly? Most often it is a desire to “relax”, relieve excessive internal stress, remove the consequences of psycho-emotional stress. On the other hand, it may be the influence of the environment where it is customary to regularly consume alcohol. In the absence of a desire to control alcohol consumption, its intake gradually becomes more frequent, turning into a daily one, being the risk of the formation of addiction and diseases it leads to.
Sings of addiction
Dependency and addiction are always formed according to one scheme. A person performs an action pleasant for him or her or uses a psychoactive substance. In response, the brain releases the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens – the pleasure center. It creates euphoria, improves mood and motivation. When the action of dopamine ends, the person either returns to normal life or decides to repeat the action. If he chooses the second path every time, then over time he may develop an addiction.
Here are 5 signs that can help you recognize an unhealthy relationship with typical pleasure sources such as wine.
Take back control of your life and start on the road to recovery now.
1. You feel bad if you are not doing “what you love”
Your life is impacted by a new routine. The day begins with a glass of wine and ends with it. If for some reason the routine is disrupted, and you are not allowed to return to the source of pleasure, you will feel empty or irritated inside. Far from the source of pleasure, you feel uneasy: you experience anxiety and fear. You may feel distracted, unable to think.
If you are not very interested in meeting non-drinking friends, and before you go to a restaurant, the first thing you think about is how to do without a car in order to have a “normal drink”, it’s time to change something in your habits. Try filling your calendar with non-alcoholic activities such as jogging, pottery classes. If the wine has become a daily tasty ritual, you can set yourself the task of finding a new favorite drink – even if you have to try a hundred varieties of tea and other non-alcoholic drinks for this.
2. You are ready to do anything to get that drink
If necessary, you will drive to the other side of the city at two in the morning, skip work, steal, lie. There are no risks. You spend too much money on your addiction. The bills have not been paid, but your bottle of wine is always with you. At home, you can get into scandals, at work you can face dismissal, but it doesn’t really matter. You continue to follow your habit and you will defend your right to do so. You cannot live a day without a source of pleasure and sometimes even hours.
3. A hangover disrupts your plans
A hangover may be partly related to the characteristics of the body and the type of alcohol, but its main reason is the amount of alcohol consumed. Of course, this happens sporadically to everyone, but if you wake up with a headache in the middle of the week, cancel appointments, skip work, saying that you are “sick” – you may be drinking too much.
You may not sleep well or forget to eat. Feel tired, beaten. You might have regular headaches. You don’t have time to lead a healthy lifestyle, and this affects your appearance and well-being. Before it’s too late, prioritize your morning wellness and high productivity. Missed workouts due to a hangover are just one example of the negative impact alcohol has on health and life in general.
4. You drink more than you planned
A safe amount of alcohol is considered no more than fourteen units per week – this is about one and a half bottles of wine. In this case, not only the total volume of alcohol per week is important, but also its reasonable distribution. It is believed that binge drinking, when a person drinks four to five servings in a short time, also increases the risk of addiction, even if it only happens on weekends. If you regularly promise yourself not to drink more than a couple of glasses at a party, but you can’t keep your promise and stop in time, it’s time to think.
In addition to drinking more than you planned, you might be drinking more than before to get the same good feeling. The ability to drink a lot, almost without feeling intoxication, is an alarming sign, not a reason for bragging. To easily keep track of how much you drink, you can download readily available mobile applications to your phone.
5. Can’t remember what happened yesterday
In the case of strong intoxication, the memory is “turned off”, and individual periods or events are simply not remembered. The next morning, you might not be able to remember where your wallet is, how you got home, how the party ended. This amnesia is a sign of addiction. Yes, waking up in bed with a stranger is not normal. Healthy people don’t have memory gaps, but with alcohol addiction, it is not surprising.
Sometimes people addicted to alcohol even refuse to believe others and accuse them of lying. This is how they protect themselves from reality. So if they tell you that you broke a window at a party, hit your best friend and sang obscene songs all over the house, and you don’t remember anything at all, then this is not a conspiracy. You really need help.
This can be a difficult journey, but you don’t have to go it alone. Let us be your guide and provide you the environment needed to regain control of your life and begin the path to recovery.
Prevention of alcohol addiction
Prevention of alcohol dependence and addiction should be done way before it starts: if you notice that you have become indifferent to alcohol, that sometimes you drink it just because, that you need a larger dose than before in order to achieve the same level of intoxication. The first preventive measure is to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed in one sitting.
Secondly, experts recommend working with the reason that stimulates alcohol intake (problems in family relationships, in relationships with the opposite sex, with work). It should also be remembered that alcohol cannot be used as a sleeping pill, that it is not the best way to relieve anxiety, guilt, and other negative emotions. You may need to work out some of these points with a psychologist if you want to avoid alcohol addiction.
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