Shannon's Journal Discussion

[Shannon]

Regarding alcohol not being physically addictive, I must heartily disagree. I used to work in a hospital during college. My job was to sit with patients who were a danger to themselves. Many were alcoholics going through detox. The physical symptoms of withdrawal can be so nasty it can literally kill you. I've been with people who have had no idea who they are, where they were, or unable to construct a coherent sentence because their brains were no longer getting the fuel (poison) it had adapted to. DTS, delirium tremens, is nooooo joke.

Physical addiction, and dosage dependent withdrawal, are hardly the same thing.

When you drink heavily and regularly, you can cause your body to become screwed up and it will require a slow decrease in alcohol consumption to back out of that situation. But that has nothing to do with physical addiction. It's a situation in which you cannot change the body chemistry too radically in too short a period of time without causing imbalances. Push it far enough and those imbalances can result in death - but it is a case where there is a requirement for slow removal of the toxin (alcohol), nothing more.

Go from drinking nothing ever to downing a 20 ounce bottle of liquor and see if that doesn't kill you just as effectively as suddenly and completely stopping a hard drinking long term drinker will. Both are the same situation: they are both a state of too much change for the body to deal with in too short a time.

Alcohol is not physically addictive. It can only be psychologically addictive. And it's misunderstandings like this one that perpetuate these ideas.

So what you're saying is this?
http://https://www.drugabuse.gov/publica...dependence

I get a 404 error on that. But ultimately, I'm not interested in debating it. If you disagree with me still, we will agree to disagree.