The Reason Why Alcoholism Is Dangerous For The Elderly
It’s a known fact that the older an individual gets the more their tolerance for alcohol decreases. The reason being as a person ages their bodies metabolize alcohol slowly than when they were still at a young age. Being more sensitive to the effects of alcohol means that an elderly person can feel its effects right away causing them to stagger or go to sleep quicker. An elderly person’s reaction has a tendency to get slower as they grow older and when combined with liquor consumption it may slow down even more. This is the reason why some elderly people have died from a heart attack due to their heart slowing down from excessive alcohol intake.
Rehabilitation facilities and alcohol treatment program centers not just help young adults and middle aged men and women get treatment for their addiction they also help treat the elderly with a dependency for liquor. Such alcohol treatment centers make sure that they’re able to help a person overcome their addiction despite of their age. But sometimes they focus on treating an elderly from alcohol addiction because they are more prone to quickly suffer from its negative effects. Because the physique of an elderly person is weak they would immediately display the side effects of alcoholism such as brain damage and liver disease.
The main reasons why some elderly individuals develop an alcohol addiction is that they desire to feel much better. Some older people suffer from mild despression symptoms where they would turn to alcohol consumption in an effort to self medicate their despair. What they do not know is that drinking alcohol only worsens their depression simply because alcohol is a depressant.
Since older people have more weaker bones, muscles and immune system they are more prone to contract illnesses or medical conditions due to their alcohol dependency. Liver disease and cirrhosis are just some of the medical conditions brought on by alcohol addiction. The worst medical condition an elderly may suffer from is permanent brain damage. Because their bodies are weak then the side effects of alcohol abuse can affect them a lot quicker than they predicted. Studies show that a person 60 above is able to experience the negative effects of alcohol addiction in as early as 2 weeks since they started drinking. They would only feel the early stages of the complication which is partial loss of memory and insomnia. If they still continue with their addiction then chances are they would feel its severe effects in under a month.