Solutions
Alcohol and its effects on the body
Hello and welcome to Solutions. This is the sixth episode of our fourth series of podcasts for Solution Focus Hypnotherapists and I'm Cathy Iland. Well I'm Trevor Eddles and we both experience solution-focused hypnotherapists. So this time we're looking at alcohol and its effects on the body and how Solution Focus Hypnotherapy can help people with alcohol issues. In many countries drinking alcohol is a social activity and one that can be actively encouraged. In the past people driving home from the pub are encouraged to have one for the road and in many groups heavy drinking is a word of showing a person's manliness and sometimes womanliness. But excessive alcohol consumption can have an obvious negative effects on a person's health and the World Health Organization WHO published this statement in the Lancet Public Health. When it comes to alcohol consumption there is no safe amount that does not affect health. It's hard to tell when humans first started consuming alcoholic drinks there's evidence from China from 5,000 BCE in order and from Iran and Egypt from 3,000 BCE in order and from many other places in the pre-Christian era. So alcohol use in society is a very old habit. So there are apparently four types of drinkers which are first-one social usually associated with moderate alcohol use to celebrate an event or make time spent with friends more often. Yeah secondly there's conformity drinking to fit in with others but usually drinking less than other people. The third one is enhancement drinking because it's exciting and these typically male extrovert, impulsive and aggressive people are looking to get drunk and take risks. And fourthly we've got coping which is using alcohol to cope with life and forget their worries. These are typically women and the habit can lead to alcohol-related problems. So a single unit of alcohol equals ten mils or eight grams of pure alcohol which is around the amount of alcohol the average adult can process in one hour. Yeah that's about half a pint of lower to normal strength beer, larger, solid, that's an APV of 3.6% or a single small shot measure of spirits which is 25 ml's or APV 40%. A small glass 125 ml's APV 12% of wine contains about one and a half units of alcohol. And the NHS website lists the short-term impact of drinking alcohol and it says one to two units the heart rate speeds up, blood vessels expand giving the warm sociable and talkative feeling associated with moderate drinking. Four to six units your brain the pulse associated with judgment and decision-making and nervous system start to be affected causing more reckless and uninhibited behaviour. People also feel light-headed with slower reaction times and worse coordination. Okay so then we're moving on to eight to nine units where reaction times become much slower, speech begins to slur and vision begins to lose focus. The inability of the liver to remove all the alcohol consumed then leads to a hangover in the morning. Ten to 12 units coordination is highly impaired and people feel drowsy, increase urination leads to dehydration and severe headaches, the excess alcohol upsets digestion leading to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and indigestion. And then over 12 units now this puts people at risk of developing alcohol poisoning. This is where excessive amounts of alcohol start to interfere with the body's automatic functions such as breathing and heart rate and the gag reflex which prevents choking. It can cause a person to fall into a coma and could lead to the death. There are other risks associated with alcohol misuse including accidents and injury. More than one in ten visits to accident and emergency, A&E departments are because of alcohol related illnesses and violence and antisocial behaviour. Each year in England more than 1.2 million violent incidents are linked to alcohol misuse. And there's unsafe sex. This can lead to unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections or STIs. And then people have this ability to lose personal possessions. Many people lose personal possessions such as the wallet or the mobile phone because of the drunk. And lastly we've got unplanned time off work or college and this could put your job or education at risk. Yeah and there are some groups of people who really shouldn't drink at all and they are first of all people under 18. Pregnant women, women who think they might be pregnant and women who are planning to become pregnant. People taking certain medications that can interact with the alcohol like cold and flu remedies, some antibiotic sleeping tablets, anti-depressants, antihistamines, benzodiazepines, opioids and anti-psychotic medications. People planning to drive or use heavy machinery. And certainly we realize that recovering alcoholics certainly shouldn't drink. And there are many health risks associated with long-term alcohol misuse. They include quite blood pressure and heart disease, strokes, pancreatitis, liver disease, liver cancer, mouth throat and esophageal cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, bowel cancer, and of course depression and anxiety, dementia, sexual problems such as impotence or premature ejaculation, infertility, weakening of the immune system, damage to the brain which can lead to problems with thinking and memory, and weight gain. Hmm well that's kind of put me off. Anyway, as well as having a significant impact on a person's health, alcohol misuse can also have long-term social implications. For example, it can lead to family breakup and divorce. Yeah or domestic abuse, unemployment, homelessness and financial problems. You're almost talking me out of having a drink now. Alcohol use disorder or AUD is the medical diagnosis for alcohol addiction, which is characterized by the inability to control alcohol consumption. So alcohol abuse is the regular and excessive consumption of alcohol that is still under your control. Alcohol abuse could develop into alcohol use disorder. Addicts usually develop withdrawal symptoms whenever the blood alcohol levels drop below the tolerance level that they've built up. The brain needs to adapt to the absence of that alcohol. Using alcohol to prevent this discomfort is called physical dependence. Using alcohol to experience mental effects is called psychological dependence. That's interesting. And the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, the fifth edition or the DSM-5, defines substance abuse disorders such as alcohol use disorder as mild, moderate or severe based on the number of diagnostic criteria met by that individual. And these diagnostic criteria include evidence of impaired control, social impairments, risky use and pharmacological criteria. So let's visit the WHO's opinion on alcohol. Now they say that alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive and dependence producing substance and has been classified as a group one carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. That puts it in the same group as asbestos, radiation and tobacco. As mentioned above, alcohol can cause different types of cancer and the risk of developing cancer increases substantially as more alcohol is consumed. Yes and even small amounts of alcohol can cause cancer. WHO research cannot indicate the existence of a threshold at which the carcinogenic effects of alcohol switch on and start to manifest in the human body. That means that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. So shall we look at what's actually going on when a person goes for a drink? Okay, so when a person is about to drink alcohol, they typically get dopamine released in the brain, making the experience pleasurable. When a person drinks, about 20 to 30% of the alcohol is absorbed by the stomach. The rest is absorbed in the small intestines. The liver takes about an hour to break down one unit. Alcohol is a depressant, which means it reduces activity in the brain. It reduces the amount of glutamate produced. Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter that is important in memory formation and regulating cognitive functions. The effect is that you get hazy. Okay, alcohol also increases the amount of inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA that is produced. This also slows down a person's thinking and their reaction time. In fact, with alcohol consumption, people become relaxed and sleepy. Their anxiety levels decrease so they become less inhibited in what they say and do. But also they become clumsier and have problems concentrating. People usually become more animated and smiley. Their heart rate increases, their blood pressure may rise and they become red-faced and that warm and fuzzy feeling starts around the end of the second bite if you drink. I remember it well, yes. When it comes to using solution photosipnotherapy for helping with AUD or alcohol abuse, the British Psychological Society, the BPS, is on board with the idea. In 2001 it said enough studies have now accumulated to suggest that the inclusion of hypnotic procedures may be beneficial in the management and treatment of a wide range of conditions and problems encountered in the practice of medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy. So with the focus clearly on what the client wants to achieve and using solution-focused questions to highlight not only the clients' motives but also the strength they already have that they can use to achieve their goal that will clearly help to motivate them to achieve their goal. The power of trance and the use of metaphors and indirect suggestions will also help to align the client's subconscious mind with the decision to change made by the conscious mind and that will also help to prevent self-sabotage which can happen with other treatments. The relaxation and the visualizations of trance will also help. Importantly, no therapy sessions should take place if the client is under the influence of alcohol. Many of the consequences of using alcohol can be helped by a solution-focused hypnotherapist who will have plenty of experience dealing with clients experiencing depression, anger or anxiety. So the current recommendation by the UK Chief Medical Officer is to drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week spread over three days or more. That's around six medium that's 175 mils glasses of wine or six pints of four percent beer. However as we said the WHO says there is no safe amount. Which makes having a couple of beers with a friend quite a risky activity for your health. You may be quite sad. I hope you found that useful, worrying but useful. Next time we'll be looking at artificial intelligence. Now we'll have a solution focused hypnotherapist. That sounds very exciting. So until then it's goodbye from me Kathy Leland. And it's goodbye from me Trevor Eddles. So we'll see you next time. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]