A person can undergo alcohol detoxification either voluntarily or involuntarily. When the detox process is voluntary, the person has come to the realization on his own that he needs to rid his body of all traces of alcohol, and enters into the detox phase himself, hopefully under medical supervision. When the process is involuntary, the person may have become so sick as to have needed admission to a medical facility, or may have been incarcerated, began to experience withdrawal symptoms, and been transferred from the correctional facility, jail, or prison to a medical facility for medically-supervised detoxification.
Even after a person has undergone alcohol detoxification, whether at a detox center or a medical facility, he may still be in denial about the severity of his alcohol addiction. He may try to excuse himself by saying that it was only one time that he got so drunk that his life was in danger, or that he was already sick and shouldn’t have been drinking anyway, or the alcohol reacted with a medication that he normally wasn’t taking, or any other reason he can think of. The fact of the matter is, however, the initial problem of alcoholism is still there, and he still has not faced up to it.
It is important that a person work through denial before or as soon as possible after entering an alcohol detox center, so that the drug treatment program will be more effective. However, the fact that a person is still in denial is no reason to postpone treatment. If family members or loved ones can get a person to a detox center, and get him admitted, the staff members can work with him on overcoming his denial.
For more information on denial and how to help a loved one who is in this stage, please log on to http://www.detox-center.com/ or call 1-866-923-1134. We will help you in any way we can to see that your loved one gets the help he needs.
