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According to WHO, today there are more than 20 million people living with schizophrenia on the planet, and every year their number increases by almost 4 million. If the trend does not change, then, according to researchers, in the near future this mental disorder has every chance of becoming one of the five most common diseases on the planet. And today it is included in the list of the most dangerous.
What is schizophrenia
Many people learn what schizophrenia is from fiction books or cinema. Just remember the main characters from A Beautiful Mind or The Cursed Island, who suffer from mental disorders. But real life is not a thriller or a drama film, and people with mental disorders are not separated from us by a TV screen. They often live closer than they would like. Therefore, you need to understand what schizophrenia really is, how to behave with such people and whether it is possible to drink alcohol with them.
Schizophrenia is a severe chronic disease accompanied by mental disorders. The disease usually affects the brain of people over 20 years of age, although there are exceptions. This disease can hardly be called rare or new in psychiatry. But despite this, this disease still raises many questions among specialists. In the scientific world there is not even a single answer to what schizophrenia is: an independent disease, a complex of mental disorders, or a complication that occurs against the background of alcoholism.
Also, even specialists find it difficult to determine at first glance whether a person has the disease. Externally, the disease can manifest itself with a variety of symptoms, many of which resemble severe mental illness or other mental disorders. But most often, with schizophrenia, the patient begins to hear voices that remind him of a receiver turned on in his head, he develops pseudohallucinations and the feeling that someone is controlling everything around him. Schizophrenics find it difficult to control their thoughts; they perceive them (as well as their actions) as something alien. In addition, such people are characterized by retrograde amnesia and a delusional state.
Clinical picture
What doctors say about alcoholism
Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Ryzhenkova S.A.:
I have been studying the problem of ALCOHOLISM for many years. It’s scary when the craving for alcohol destroys a person’s life, families are destroyed because of alcohol, children lose their fathers, and wives lose their husbands. Often it is young people who become drunkards, destroying their future and causing irreparable harm to their health.
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Relationship with alcohol addiction
Doctors have long discovered that most people with schizophrenia are addicted to cigarettes. More precisely, many of them use cigarettes as a sedative. But smoking is not the only bad habit of people suffering from this mental disorder. Experts say that schizophrenia and alcohol are also closely related.
The fact that schizophrenia and alcoholism often occur in parallel in patients is a well-known fact for researchers. But which disease occurs first and whether one of them is the root cause for the development of the second still remains a mystery to the scientific world. This question has divided specialists studying the relationship between schizophrenia and alcoholism into three scientific camps.
The first view alcohol as something that helps smooth out the manifestations of mental illness. In particular, in their opinion, schizophrenics in a state of intoxication can be calmer; many of them, after drinking alcohol, lose anxiety, tension, and delusional ideas.
The second group of scientists is confident that the relationship between schizophrenia and alcoholism not only exists, but that the diseases significantly enhance each other: the signs of schizophrenia against the background of alcohol only worsen, as well as the consequences of alcohol abuse in schizophrenics.
Representatives of the third group are confident that alcoholism and mental disorder, until a certain time, can “coexist” quite peacefully in the same body, without affecting each other. But as soon as schizophrenia reaches a severe stage, everything changes.
Alcoholism causes schizophrenia
Schizophrenic disorders almost never manifest themselves immediately in an acute form. As a rule, the disease “gains momentum” slowly and is almost invisible at first. In the initial stages of the disorder, patients may occasionally experience a state of emotional stress, from which many escape with alcohol. But the longer a person abuses alcohol, the more his tension increases, and signs of inadequacy appear. It will take very little time for the mental and nervous system disorders of an alcoholic to become noticeable to others. And a person in such a state is already, so to speak, fertile ground for the progression of schizophrenia. The danger of this condition is that every day the patient will feel more and more emotional instability and irritability, from which he will increasingly run away into alcoholic euphoria. As a result, the symptoms of both diseases will only get worse.
It would be a mistake to assume that every case of alcoholism leads to the development of schizophrenia, but if a person has a tendency to develop mental disorders, then there really is something to worry about. In particular, experts have noticed that if a person’s behavior (as a rule, these are young men and boys) shows traits of a schizoid character, then he automatically falls into the risk group for developing schizophrenia. Such people are usually closed, uncommunicative and poorly socialized. As a rule, many of them had to endure ridicule and bullying from relatives or peers. People with schizoid “inclinations” usually seek salvation in alcohol: in a state of euphoria, they feel smarter, more successful, and more beautiful. But alcohol abuse in this case serves as a catalyst for the development of mental illness.
Another case where alcoholism can lead to the development of schizophrenia is improper treatment of alcohol addiction. In particular, there are examples when a mental disorder arises against the background of an alcoholic’s coding with the help of a “dummy.” In such cases, quack doctors assure the patient that any dose of alcohol will lead to his death. As a result, vodka becomes an obsession for the patient, he soon breaks down, but after taking a dose of alcohol, the person begins to live in anticipation of imminent death, which ultimately leads him to madness.
In addition, complications in the form of mental disorders can arise as a consequence of treating an alcoholic with the use of psychotropic drugs. In some cases, neuroleptics and sedatives, instead of calming the patient, on the contrary, make him irritable, withdrawn, and further intensify his hallucinations (unlike, they can be not only auditory-verbal, but also visual). The outcome of this condition is schizophrenia.
Is alcohol dangerous for schizophrenics?
It is difficult to immediately and unequivocally answer the question of whether schizophrenics can drink alcohol. There is evidence from many studies that confirm that in patients who drink, the symptoms of the disorder are smoothed out, and the schizophrenic becomes less aggressive. But this is only in the later stages of a mental disorder. And at the initial stage of the disease, alcohol, on the contrary, only exacerbates schizophrenic attacks.
But even if we are talking about advanced schizophrenia, you should not consider alcohol as a medicine. It doesn’t matter whether a person suffers from mental disorders or is completely healthy, any body perceives ethanol as a toxic substance. Regular alcohol abuse destroys the liver, kidneys, blood vessels, causes heart disease, and disrupts hormonal balance. In addition, we should not forget about the harmful effects of alcohol on the nervous system and human psyche. Often, against the background of alcoholism, insomnia develops or nightmares begin to occur, the patient becomes aggressive, and this is extremely undesirable in schizophrenia. In addition, alcohol often makes schizophrenics angry and hysterical, and increases their signs of amnesia. The peculiarity of alcoholism against the background of schizophrenia is that the patient, as a rule, drinks alone, but even the absence of people does not save him from drunken hysterics and aggression. For some, against the background of alcoholic schizophrenia, libido increases or, conversely, disappears.
How is alcoholic schizophrenia treated?
Schizophrenic disorders are not only necessary, but simply need to be treated. But this must be done in conjunction with the treatment of alcoholism. In this case, therapy consists of several stages.
The first phase of treatment is detoxification of the body. Before giving the patient any medications, the digestive tract and bloodstream must be cleared of ethanol residues. Otherwise, very severe adverse reactions are possible. The second phase is a general strengthening program that allows you to restore the body’s strength, which it will need to fight diseases. Treatment of schizophrenia in the third stage is therapy using medications. It is worth noting that at this time the patient is prescribed drugs that develop an aversion to alcohol and affect the patient’s psyche. As a rule, drug treatment for schizophrenics includes drugs from the group of antipsychotics, tranquilizers and sedatives of plant origin. Neuroleptics (usually Thorazine, Neuleptil, Oxazepam, Thioridazine) are necessary to relieve psychosis. Tranquilizers, such as Sibazon, Pimozide, Alprazolam, are necessary to eliminate anxiety, depression, tremor, they improve the patient's sleep and mood, and calm him down. The third group of medicines are herbal remedies (for example, herbal teas) based on thyme, currant leaves, oregano, and mint. The final phase of treatment for alcoholic schizophrenia is rehabilitation. It is necessary to achieve lasting treatment results.
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Until relatively recently, schizophrenia was perceived as a disease that could not be cured. Nowadays, there are medications that relieve the symptoms of mental disorders. If proper treatment is followed, people with schizophrenia have every chance of becoming part of society and leading a normal life. But in order to expect an improvement in your condition, you will have to give up alcohol, which not only aggravates mental disorders, but also causes many other diseases.
Drawing conclusions
If you are reading these lines, we can conclude that you or your loved ones suffer from alcoholism in one way or another.
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The literature presents three main points of view about the influence of alcoholism (alcohol dependence) on schizophrenia:
1) Alcoholism softens the course of schizophrenia, since many schizophrenics who drink are more safe than non-drinkers. Yeshe E. Kraepelin drew attention to the fact that among alcoholic tramps there are many schizophrenics without signs of a very deep defect.
2) Alcoholism aggravates and aggravates the course of schizophrenia, since after many days of drinking (binges) there is often an exacerbation of the endogenous disease and the occurrence of psychotic states.
3) Alcoholism does not mitigate the course of schizophrenia; it all depends on the course of the endogenous disease. Alcoholism joins a relatively favorable current schizophrenia (or is combined with it); alcohol abuse often completely stops as the condition worsens and the deficient symptoms increase. Patients with “nuclear schizophrenia” stop drinking if they previously abused alcohol; patients in the initial state do not drink.
It is believed that in the 20th century, the development of the problem of the combination of schizophrenia and alcoholism began after the work of K. Graeter (1909). It was he who proposed the original interpretation of the combination of symptoms of two diseases, modification of the picture of schizophrenia due to the summation of symptoms; he also interpreted acute and chronic hallucinosis in patients with alcoholism as the result of a combination of two diseases, and also considered it necessary to distinguish some painful conditions from various forms of schizophrenia, including simple schizophrenia.
Even before K. Greter S.A. Sukhanov (1906) considered alcoholic hallucinosis (alcoholic paranoia) as a combination of premature dementia with alcoholism. In Russian psychiatry, the works of S.G. were very important. Zhislina, I.V. Pavlova, V.M. Shumakov, G.S., Vorontsova, employees of the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry. Numerous dissertation studies have been completed. The relevance of the problem of the combination of two diseases is reflected in foreign literature.
The main direction of research is studying the problem not only according to data from hospitals, but also according to data from psychoneurological dispensaries, which gives an epidemiological aspect to the consideration of the patterns of the course of the disease and allows us to trace the modification of symptoms and adaptation over decades. It turned out that the most productive way is to study the patterns of combination of two diseases, taking into account the form of schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum diseases.
In accordance with ICD-10, we are usually talking about paranoid schizophrenia with episodic and continuous course, schizotypal disorder, and schizoaffective states. In accordance with the classification of A.V. Snezhnevsky, it is advisable to consider the combination of alcoholism or chronic alcohol intoxication with low-progressive (sluggish) schizophrenia, fur-like, paranoid, recurrent (periodic), nuclear (malignant), which began at a young age and occurs with a predominance of catatonic-hebephrenic and paranoid symptoms.
Patients with alcoholism and schizophrenia
There are two groups of patients depending on when alcohol abuse began - before the onset of schizophrenic symptoms or after its onset.
Schizophrenia and alcoholism are two very serious pathologies; the fact that they, when certain circumstances are combined, sometimes go hand in hand greatly aggravates the situation. However, medical experts have been arguing about how often these diseases merge and what is the cause-and-effect relationship between them for more than 100 years. Can alcohol cause schizophrenia? Research in this area paints a clinical picture with varying rates. Schizophrenia and alcoholism occur simultaneously in 10% of cases, both among schizophrenics who suppress the disease with alcohol, and among alcoholics who provoked attacks of the disease by heavy drinking. There are frequent cases of suicide among patients, due to the fact that patients lose control over their own lives.
Signs and properties of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia– a multiform mental disorder caused by the disintegration of the ability to think rationally and feel adequately. Schizophrenic pathologies are associated with errors in reflecting reality, characterized by a lack of connection with reality and interruptions in coherent speech. Patients suffering from schizophrenia exhibit perceptual disturbances and inappropriate emotional reactions. Manifestations of pathology are expressed by auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions against the background of impaired social functioning and performance.
The variety of manifestations has given rise to the position that schizophrenia is a disease that combines several separate syndromes.
The risk of pathology, according to research results, ranges from 4 to 6 diseases per 1000 people.
Schizophrenics often have a depressed, depressed mood, irrational fears and excessive anxiety. Patients have an increased risk of alcoholism and drug addiction, and they are distinguished by a tendency to suicidal resolution of problem situations.
However, the course of the pathology is not associated with the obligatory chronic development. There are cases of complete or partial recovery. If the patient poses a danger, compulsory hospitalization is carried out.
Currently, there are two points of view on the problem of the combination of schizophrenia and alcoholism.
- Adherents of the first point of view believe that in an alcoholic patient, schizophrenia goes more smoothly and softly, because with alcohol intoxication, tension and anxiety completely or partially disappear.
- Apologists of the second point of view argue that the pathological manifestations of schizophrenia and binge drinking feed each other, increasing the severity of symptoms. The extreme degree of insanity that accompanies alcoholism manifests itself intensively after a period of continuous drunkenness and activates delusional syndromes and hallucinations characteristic of schizophrenia.
Both pathologies occur separately and are not subject to mutual influence until schizophrenia reaches an extreme stage.
Research in this area has a long history, but to date experts have not reached a consensus on this issue. It was not possible to determine the internal relationships between the phenomena. Ongoing research demonstrates a different clinical picture of the course of pathologies.
Schizophrenia and alcoholism are determined by multifactorial relationships that are difficult to study, since causes and effects are in constant interaction, giving rise to a rapidly changing situation.
In some patients, alcohol provokes severe attacks of schizophrenia.
However, a situation may arise when a person uses alcohol to overcome intolerable psychological discomfort. Schizophrenia is accompanied by negative emotions, the appearance of delusions, and the inability to get pleasure, since the combination of melancholy and anxiety is accompanied by a decrease in the production of dopamine, and it is a determining part of the satisfaction system.
Alcohol activates the formation of dopamine, which makes the life situation of a schizophrenic less bleak and reduces emotional tension.
Alcohol as a stress reliever in schizophrenia
The emotional state of a schizophrenic becomes increasingly tense. Excitement develops into a discrepancy between mental acts and external circumstances. Qualities appear that are unusual for a particular individual. The desire to relax encourages the patient to drink strong drinks more often, increasing the volume of alcohol. Constant and intemperate libations lead to a functional disorder of the body, accelerating the process of personality disintegration. Characteristic features emerge that have crossed the line between human health and pathology. Adequate perception of reality becomes impossible. The personality begins to disintegrate into separate fragments.
The internal environment of a patient with schizophrenia stimulates alcohol intake. A person strives to increase his cheerful mood, tries to reproduce a state of carelessness, and is least of all concerned about the discrepancy between the arising sensation and objective circumstances. In this case, motor revival (fussiness or aggressive actions), shouting of phrases, and facial activity are observed. All available means are used to get rid of an irritated state or insensitivity. The disease atrophies volitional qualities and does not allow one to maintain control over the situation.
Personality disorder manifests itself in disregard for social norms, the ability to sympathize is lost, and aggressive tendencies appear. The behavior cannot be corrected; it is similar to a state of intoxication, but is characterized by a variety of forms.
Alcohol addiction aggravated by schizophrenia
An alcoholic suffering from schizophrenia tends to be completely alone and, as a rule, drinks all alone.
The patient behaves impulsively, his actions are guided by random impulses. He is susceptible to affective mood disorders, as he feels helpless and resentful.
Disturbed physiological functions of the brain are manifested by euphoria, excitement, loss of adequate assessment of the role of one’s own personality, and speech disorders. Malice and aggressiveness, increased sexuality or a complete lack of interest in people of the opposite sex, and foolishness appear.
Sleep is accompanied by painful dreams, sensations of suffocation, and attacks of oppressive fear.
Cases of complete or partial memory loss are common.
According to some researchers, alcohol initially makes the symptoms of schizophrenia more pronounced, but over time the disorders are smoothed out. Fears and dysphoric states become less pronounced, although more clearly defined.
However, strong drinks cannot be considered a therapeutic agent. A person with schizophrenia destroys his own personality through excessive drinking. The physiological and psychological state, deteriorating, leads the patient to complete degradation and degeneration.
You can start with drinking and end with schizophrenia
Alcohol addiction can lead to the development of schizophrenia.
Most often this happens to patients who try to limit social contacts because they are characterized by increased shyness and vulnerability. They experience fear of destruction, so their perception is not objective, but is replaced by fantasies. Constant frustrations cause psychopathological disorders. Closed people who do not know how to integrate into their social environment are often subject to ridicule. Mental discomfort is easily relieved by alcohol, and those who, for whatever reason, are rejected by peers or relatives, resort to it.
A drunk person feels smarter and more successful. This relieves psychological stress and optimizes emotions. Alcohol acts as an anesthetic. The attraction to alcohol enters a protracted, long-term stage. The amount of intoxicating drinks consumed initially increases, and over time, even a small dose causes severe intoxication. Alcoholic delirium appears, which is expressed in tremors, acute attacks of anxiety and an extreme degree of agitation. The patient loses the ability to navigate in space, he develops hallucinations that can no longer be distinguished from reality. Schizophrenia begins.
Alcohol addiction treatment
Treatment for alcoholism begins with cleansing the body of toxins.
The second task set by the narcologist is to normalize the patient’s physical condition. It is necessary to support the body, weakened by alcohol consumption, so that it gains strength and increases the chances of recovery.
During treatment of the disease, a health complex is prescribed, which includes:
- taking immunoprotectors that will protect against free radicals, increase cell activity, and cleanse toxins;
- physical therapy, including physical therapy and occupational therapy;
- walks that help restore mental balance.
Drug therapy is carried out in such a way that the drugs have a medicinal effect on both schizophrenia and alcohol dependence. Experienced specialists develop aversion reactions to alcohol-containing drinks. Return to a healthy state using psychological methods is prescribed after the main treatment.
Due to the inability of patients with schizophrenia to self-control, forming the body's reactions using the method of conditioned reflexes is considered ineffective.
There is a large group of medications that are prescribed for the treatment of alcohol dependence simultaneously with schizophrenia.
Narcologists use:
Psychotropic medications for mood or feeling disorders that optimize the risk of future psychosis. Neuroleptics relieve the characteristic manifestations of both psychosis and alcoholism and regulate psychotic tension.
Tranquilizers reduce anxiety and depressed mood, characterized by depression or sadness. They also help minimize tremors and hyperhidrosis, optimize sleep, and streamline behavior. The prescription of a particular drug is determined by the attending physician.
Teas made from thyme or oregano are used simultaneously; an extract from currant leaves has proven itself.
It is known that it can be combined with alcoholism, but scientists have different opinions about how often this happens. In many ways, such a combination depends on the diagnostic principles used for endogenous disease. For example, some scientists who diagnose schizophrenia only if there is a malignant course suggest that it cannot be combined with alcoholism. Other scientists are confident that among patients with schizophrenia there are several times more people suffering from alcoholism than among the rest of the population. In this regard, the problem has been studied for several years, and three points of view have been formed, which are considered the main ones.
One of them is that with alcoholism the course is softened, since patients who abuse alcohol are more safe when compared with patients who do not drink. The second point of view proves that with alcoholism the course of schizophrenia becomes more severe. This condition is caused by the occurrence of psychosis after binge drinking, an exacerbation of an existing endogenous disease. The third point of view explains that, in the presence of schizophrenia, it does not soften, since alcoholism joins an endogenous disease that has the most favorable course; reduction occurs as the defect becomes more severe.
Back in 1909, Graeter described schizophrenia, which is combined with alcoholism, and after this work, for a long time, research was related mainly to the structure and nature of psychotic states. At the same time, special attention was paid to the interpretation of the nature of alcohol. Some authors believed that only acute alcoholic ones can be considered exogenous mental states, others argued that chronic and prolonged alcoholic ones belong to exogenous-organic psychoses. Despite the fact that in our time there is a lot of material based on research results, there is no exact data on how and how often alcoholism is combined with various forms of schizophrenia.
Alcoholism precedes schizophrenia
Basically, it is generally accepted that alcoholism is the precursor to schizophrenia, although clinical practice provides a lot of evidence that often everything happens in the opposite order, when schizophrenia leads to addiction to alcohol. If the schizophrenic process is sluggish, then a gradual change in personality occurs, and traits that were not there before become noticeable. In particular, drive disorders make themselves felt, there is a feeling of tension, and emotional inadequacy. Similar features determine a number of different behavioral disorders observed in patients with schizophrenia with a psychopathic personality defect.
If a patient develops a compulsive craving for alcohol, the mechanisms of behavioral self-control are disrupted, and volitional and emotional inadequacy occurs, then this means that a procedural restructuring is occurring. Often there is a kind of psychological motivation for alcoholism. When starting to drink alcohol, patients consciously strive for euphoria, thus making attempts to reduce tension caused by irritability, the schizophrenic process, and indifference to the environment. In addition, a positive result occurs quite often, so a psychological dependence is formed. There is another pathopsychological prerequisite leading to the development of alcoholism in schizophrenia. This is infantilism typical of patients, their tendency to imitate.
If a teenager is sick, he easily falls under unfavorable street influences and finds himself in bad company. At the same time, such patients do not have the opportunity to independently predict or change their own behavior. Stereotypes characteristic of a certain environment are learned quite quickly. Actually, for the same reasons, people suffering from schizophrenia become involved in drinking, which pretty soon takes the form of a binge. According to scientists, the phenomenon is related to the psychopathological features of attacks of schizophrenia, and delusional ideas also have an influence.
Features of alcoholism in schizophrenia
Among the distinctive features of alcoholism that occurs in schizophrenia is the absence of a certain conditioning of external meaning. The patient prefers to drink alone, and changes in the pattern of intoxication often occur. It proceeds with explosiveness, of a dysphoric type, while the person behaves hysterically, his actions are characterized by impulsiveness. Including, intoxication is accompanied by an angry or alarming effect, foolishness, and sexual disinhibition. In some cases, a state of excitement occurs, including delusional statements, or an affect of fear. In this case, events are forgotten, completely or partially. In general, the condition is similar to pathological intoxication.
Alcoholization always has a rather ambiguous effect on the course of the schizophrenic process. Initially, there is a constant activation of procedural disorders. That is, the symptoms of schizophrenia become more severe, the initial manifestations of the disease are provoked, and the quality of remissions worsens. Further, with the development of symptoms of productive significance, a certain softening occurs, and alcoholization to a certain extent actually smooths out the features of schizophrenia.
Collapse
Alcoholism and schizophrenia are serious and unpredictable diseases. They have a very high comorbidity (simultaneous presence). Schizophrenia often leads to alcoholism, but it also happens the other way around - drinking abuse ends in a psychiatric ward.
Most psychiatrists are sure that alcohol and schizophrenia are close, alcohol aggravates the disease, but there are other opinions.
The influence of alcohol on the development of schizophrenia
There is no consensus among doctors about the effect of alcohol on schizophrenia spectrum diseases. Research in this area has been ongoing for several years. Here are three main points of view on the problem:
- Most experts believe that drinking strong drinks brings nothing but harm to patients with schizophrenia. They are sure that alcohol abuse aggravates the already severe symptoms of mental illness. Especially if a person drinks heavily. After another multi-day “celebration of life”, a sharp exacerbation of psychosis occurs with all the “ensuing” consequences - severe delirium, confusion, auditory hallucinations and behavioral abnormalities.
- There is also a fairly popular view among psychiatrists that alcohol to some extent alleviates painful schizophrenic symptoms. In their opinion, alcohol reduces the difficult mental torture caused by the symptoms of the disease, as well as depression, which is often a side effect of taking antipsychotics.
- Finally, some experts believe that drunkenness (and even alcoholism) seriously affects the development of schizophrenia only in the later stages of the disease. But in the prodromal (initial) period it is safe to drink.
Most psychiatrists are confident that alcohol worsens the disease
How does alcohol consumption affect the course of schizophrenia?
Most experts are of the opinion that alcohol has a bad effect on a patient with schizophrenia - it:
- increases the negative symptoms of the disease - irritability, lack of will and indifference;
- prevents antipsychotics from doing their job;
- becomes the cause of the appearance of “associated” mental illnesses - personality disorders, neuroses, phobias, clinical depression and suicidal ideation (obsessive thoughts about suicide);
- aggravates positive symptoms of schizophrenia (especially during binge drinking). The delusion becomes even more sophisticated, auditory hallucinations become “louder” and more intrusive, speech becomes completely incoherent, and behavior becomes devoid of even a shadow of logic. The patient can cause physical harm to himself, and in rare cases, to others.
However, over time, when a patient with schizophrenia reaches internal maturity (at 30-40 years old), the negative impact of alcohol usually decreases. Alcohol is less likely to provoke psychotic relapses and does not cause attacks of unmotivated panic or anger.
The beneficial effects of alcohol begin to come to the fore - its ability to soften positive schizophrenic symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, etc.), reduce depression, negativism and other negative symptoms, and make the patient more receptive to the outside world.
Alcohol and specific forms of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is not one, but a series of diseases. Each type of illness “reacts” to alcohol a little differently.
- Paranoid form.
Chronic drinking in a patient with paranoid schizophrenia will lead to the following:
- delirium, chaotic speech and other productive symptoms of mental illness will be more fanciful, fantastic and vivid;
- Paradoxically, the personality traits of heavily drinking paranoid patients are preserved a little better than those of “teetotalers.”
- Schizotypal and schizoaffective forms.
Alcohol is not compatible with schizotypal and schizoaffective forms of the disease. Due to alcohol:
- Personality disorders occur faster and more often;
- The patient’s character changes for the worse: apathy, impulsiveness and general inadequacy of reactions to what is happening appear.
Alcohol is incompatible with schizotypal and schizoaffective forms of schizophrenia
Can alcohol lead to schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is considered an endogenous disease, or in other words, one in the development of which heredity plays a decisive role. External (exogenous) factors only serve as triggers for the disease, slow down or, on the contrary, accelerate its appearance and development. Schizophrenia due to alcoholism is a real phenomenon.
As for alcoholism, the situation is different. Scientists are inclined to think that the family, the environment, that is, the conditions in which a person is raised and formed as a person, are decisive in the development of alcoholism. Heredity does not play a primary role.
Does alcoholic schizophrenia exist?
“Alcohol schizophrenia” is a popular cliché. In fact, such a disease does not exist. It is more correct and accurate to talk about schizophrenia with the unpleasant “makeweight” in the form of alcohol dependence. Patients with schizophrenia become dependent on alcohol much more often than mentally healthy people. According to statistics, more than a third of all those suffering from this disease are former or “current” alcoholics, or often drink. The main reasons for this are the inability to cope with the painful symptoms of the disease, as well as the unpleasant side effects of antipsychotic drugs.
Causes of the disease
Schizophrenia and alcoholism, as an appendage to the disease, have a number of distinctive features, among which the following stand out:
- drunkenness alone. In this case, the patient may fall into a hysterical state, “rage”, although there is no one nearby;
- binges for no apparent reason;
- the state of intoxication rarely causes the patient to have an elevated, cheerful mood. Typically, aggressiveness and anger, impulsive, rash actions, quarrelsomeness and arrogance predominate;
- intoxication in a patient can sharply awaken the “basic instinct” or, on the contrary, extinguish any sexual desires;
- attacks of severe anxiety and paranoid fears are possible;
- quite often a “psychogenic” symptom appears in the form of fever, chills and fever.
Treatment
First of all, the patient needs to go to the hospital and go through several stages:
- Detoxification (“deep” cleansing of the body from ethanol).
- Taking special psychotropic drugs and tranquilizers. Among them are Thorazine, Neuleptil, Oxazepam, Sibazone, Chlozepid.
- You can’t do without improving your physical fitness and health. To do this, you will need to take special vitamins (group B), fatty acids (Omega-6) and immunoprotectors. Physical education, walks, and occupational therapy are also required.
- The constant help of a psychologist is also necessary, who will monitor how successfully the patient’s consciousness is freed from the tenacious grip of the green serpent.
But most importantly, you will need to free your consciousness from alcohol addiction. There are several proven ways to do this. One of the most popular is coding. The essence of treatment is to form a special horror story in the mind, which, roughly speaking, will scare the patient away from alcohol like a garden stuffed crow. For a mentally ill person, a relapse of psychosis due to alcoholism can serve as a horror story.
Schizophrenia, which appears due to addiction to alcohol, can be treated. But you can’t wait until it develops into a more severe form. It is much easier to convince a person of the need for therapy and, thereby, protect him from negative consequences while the disease is in its infancy. Alcohol and mental illness are a dangerous combination not only for the patient, but also for those around him.
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