When Alcohol Stops Working

I’ve heard over a thousand alcoholic stories — it’s starts off fun and exciting, in most cases. The person can usually hold their drink better than others. Although building a tolerance to alcohol is perceived as a good thing by most people, it’s one of the first signs pointing to early stage alcoholism – however, just because you can drink a lot without getting drunk, that alone doesn’t make you’re an alcoholic — there are other signs and symptoms that must be present — I get into that in other posts. 

The alcoholic usually drinks without serious problems for months, years or even decades. Alcoholism is progressive and goes through stages. In the early stage it’s hard to detect alcoholism, but usually the person gradually drinks more and more until people begin to notice. Friends aren’t going to criticize other friends, usually, just because a person drinks on a regular basis, as long as serious problems don’t crop up. Friends usually comment indirectly how you are a party animal, maybe a spark plug at parties. They’re amazed at how much you drink without getting wasted.

It’s in the middle stage and late stage that drinking begins turning from endurance sport and fun into a serious condition that concerns friends and families. This doesn’t mean an alcoholic doesn’t have any problems until middle stage alcoholism — there are usually enough signs of a problem in early stage alcoholism to suggest a person seek consultation. It’s hard to convince someone, though, in early stage alcoholism they have a problem, because the alcohol is still working in their eyes. For the progressing alcoholic, however, alcohol stops working like it did before. The person is drinking just to feel normal — the high is short and elusive. It’s seems to the person like they’re going from bad hang-over and shaky hands to the first few drinks of the day, which makes the person feel somewhat normal, to drunkenness. The body is affected in many ways by alcoholism — one way is liver damage. When the liver is not functioning correctly, not detoxing the system, alcohol takes a more direct route to the blood system, and a person who once had a high tolerance is now getting wasted on a regular basis.

When a person drinks heavily on a regular basis, addictively, the body’s poisoned and the brain’s altered. This is the point the person begins to have very serious problems, including life threatening problems. It’s best to get treatment in the early and middle stages of alcoholism, before serious damage is done. The end of practically all the alcoholic stories I’ve heard has to do with alcohol no longer working. Alcoholics who get treatment struggle with the desire to return to drinking like it was in the beginning, but that’s gone. Some alcoholics accept that it’s over and they adjust to a new reality –others chase the old days in to some very dark places, including premature death. The same holds true for any other addictive drug, they work until they don’t. When you first think something is wrong, or when others first begin telling you something is wrong, reach out.