Binge Drinking is Dangerous - Stop That Habit

Dangers of Binge Drinking

One of the most dangerous drinking pattern is binge drinking. It creates damaging effect to the life of a person including his physical, emotional and psychological behaviors. The habit can also destroy anyone’s social life together with his intimate relationships and his interaction with family members and friends. While the negative effects may not be obvious at the early stage of the habit, it can escalate quickly, without warnings. It is best to give some consideration and attention on this matter before it controls one’s life.

Binge drinking can easily cause alcohol poisoning. Excessive alcohol intake in a short period of time can damage the internal organs especially the liver and the brain. The drinking pattern is associated to many symptoms of diseases which can lead to mortality. It is indeed dangerous and life threatening.

If the person continues to engage into this kind of habit, he can develop a full blown alcohol addiction. In reality, it is not necessary for a person to drink everyday to become addicted. Drinking excessively in a habitual pattern can also lead to alcoholism. If the constant binge drinking takes place, it will penetrate into the system, creating a strong dependency to the substance. Quitting may be difficult and withdrawal symptoms may likely to occur. If not treated properly, worst comes to worst, alcohol withdrawal symptoms can lead to fatality.

When drunk, many people encounter accidents due to impaired judgment. Binge drinking and driving is the leading cause of road accidents. A person who is under the influence of alcohol and is driving is a live target of a car accident. In spite of government’s warning, print ads and TV commercial about the effects of drunk driving, there are still many people who seem to ignore the consequences.

According to some studies, 55 % of people who commit suicide are binge drinkers. Alcohol intoxication can trigger suicidal attempt due to weak reasoning. If a person is already in struggle and drinks without control, the alcohol generates many negative thoughts and emotions, making him to feel more depressed.

Generally, heavy drinkers experienced blackouts and hangovers. Alcohol has chemicals that affect the brain and gradually decrease the energy and metabolism to think and to reason. It can also weaken the consciousness level of the brain.

On the same side, when alcohol is consumed in excessive amount, the positive hormones of our body will react with the poisonous chemicals in alcohol and will shows symptoms such as headaches and migraines.

Withdrawal Symptoms of Binge Drinking

Related Articles: Dealing with Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms

Individuals who have been constantly abusing alcohol (binge drinkers) will suffer from alcohol withdrawal symptoms when they stop drinking. It is true indeed, studies also reveal, it is not necessary for individuals to be alcoholics to experience these negative effects. Binge drinkers, who drinks heavily in one occasion are common targets as well. Though, binge drinkers can only experience mild to moderate withdrawal symptoms, there are still health issues associated with the condition. It is best to solve the problems on hand before they develop into bigger problems. Always remember that alcohol withdrawal symptoms can escalate rapidly and develop into full blown symptoms.

There are many people who are engage on binge drinking nowadays. In a recent research, 75% of people who drinks engage in binge drinking and the number is still growing. A vast of individuals is still in the terrible habit even though they know there are many issues involve. They continue to become binge drinkers even though they are familiar with the consequences. It is one’s expectation that this group of people can generally fall into the cliff and suffer the penalty.

While binge drinking is generally associated with the youth, there are also adolescent people who definitely fit into the same category. Individuals who practice this kind of habit consciously continue to do it because they simply enjoy the “sensation” and the “euphoria it brings”. It only means that most of those people intentionally abuse alcohol in a given time. Binge drinkers put their lives at risks and place their health at the edge of a cliff. Even those who binge drink rarely may be getting a lot of problems regarding their physical and psychological aspects.

There are several symptoms that binge drinkers may experience after heavy alcohol consumption. The most common withdrawal symptoms of binge drinking are:

headaches
body aches
joint aches
tremors
sleeplessness
vomitting
agitations
nervousness
lack of self-confidence
paranoia
fatigue
seizures and
hallucinations

Binge drinking can lead quickly to alcohol intoxication. This situation is life-threatening. And because drinkers can likely to increase the possibility of becoming an alcoholic, it is common to have withdrawal symptoms even on early stages. If someone binge drink heavily, there is a great deal of harm, physically and psychologically. In addition, withdrawal symptoms are likely to occur and without knowing the events, an individual can be trapped to binge drinking, making it difficult to get out of the cycle.

My Advice: Always Think of the Negative Side While Quitting Alcohol

Thinking, not the Positive - but the Negative

Many articles I’ve read in the internet suggest a person to be a positive thinker whenever he is trying to quit drinking alcohol. For those writers, positive thinking helps an individual cope up with alcohol addiction, overcome alcohol withdrawal symptoms, deal with all the negative effects of that dependency to one’s life and lead that person to the road of recovery. But I will reveal to you a different approach; be a negative thinker. Think the negative side of the coin when you are attempting to go alcohol free. I know that many of you will raise their eyebrows. Many of you will have a hard time accepting this quit drinking alcohol approach. What are you saying, dude? Negative versus positive?

Let me explain myself. In the past, I drink whenever I encounter negative situations: personal issues, financial difficulties, domestic problems, stress at work, issues with my wife, etc. These negative situations make a huge impact on me and provide me reasons to turn my head into binge drinking and substance abuse. I believed that time that alcohol is my best friend and can help me forget and ease my burdens. And because of that frequent drinking, it affects my behavior, and point of views and life, in general. Many problems arose and got engaged into lots of troubles.

This is common for all alcoholics, trying to escape from the outside world and shutting themselves by drinking alcohol, carrying with them the belief that they can get away from all of their troubles just by simply using alcohol as an escape door. What they don’t realize is that they are just creating additional problems and allowing these problems to go into their lives. With this cycle, they are just adding insult to injuries, ending up hooked to alcohol addiction and having huge amount of unresolved problems.

But now that I have decided to quit alcohol, I get encouraging thoughts out of these pessimistic scenarios. I always think of these negative situations. I did this when I am in the initial stage of my program. Instead of going into counseling, I tried to be more creative in going alcohol free in order to overcome my urge to engage in drinking again.

I think of the times that I got into trouble, I remind myself of the many mornings that I can’t get up for work because of headaches and hangovers. I recall ending up in jail because of drunkenness. I remember the times on which I can’t remember a thing that happened last night because of blackout episodes. I think of the diseases associated with too much alcohol, the health issues. I consider the broken relationships, lost jobs, irresponsible decisions, the social concerns, and many more. I make myself reflect on these negative situations and create positive thoughts that I have time to repair my life. These negative situations provide me eagerness and determination to win over challenges and push me to become a positive thinker because of the effects of the negative side.

Negative situations motivated me not to drink again. Never again. If others quit alcohol by doing the positive approach, I will stick in thinking these dreadful events that happened to me. And I will make good things out of these.

Thinking these negative situations that I have been through makes me a stronger person. I always think that I can avoid these harmful events by simply not drinking alcohol. I should not turn my head to alcohol whenever there are real life problems because I am only adding burdens to those existing problems. Thinking the negative side or the darkest hours will help you realized that there is a huge need to quit alcohol. These motivational approaches can be effective considering the fact that most alcoholics may not bring back their positive behaviors immediately. So we will try to get positive atmosphere from the negative side. The main goal of this approach is to pinpoint all the harmful situations and incidents that occurred during the time you are abusing alcohol and turn it into motivations that will promote your determination and willpower.

If you really want to quit drinking alcohol, you will force yourself to accomplish this for the betterment of you and for the sake of the people you love. Every time you feel drinking or having trouble overcoming the symptoms, think of the negative side. It will not only help you to quit alcohol but will also makes you realize you still have time to improve your life.