In a normal drinker, the liver uses a two step process to remove alcohol from the body. The first step is to break down the alcohol into a very toxic chemical called acetaldehyde. The liver quickly and efficiently then breaks acetaldehyde down into the harmless chemical acetate(basically vinegar), and flushes it out.
In the alcoholic’s liver, the same level of alcohol produces a higher level of the harmful acetaldehyde. Making matters worse, their liver is only half as efficient at breaking the acetaldehyde down into acetate, the chemical the body can then pass, leaving the harmful acetate in the body longer.
Finally, due to the alcoholic’s increasing tolerance to alcohol, an ever increasing amount of the harmful chemical acetaldehyde must be stored. This substance is stored in the fat, including the fat the makes up the brain.
Over months, years and decades of drinking, alcohol effects the functioning of the brain, causing mood and personality changes. It overwhelms the liver and kidneys, destroys the lining of the stomach and weakens the heart muscle. Making matters worse, the body begins denying itself nutrient rich foods, which the cells need to rebuild themselves, in favor of the quick sugar fix supplied by the alcohol molecule. Adding to the problems caused by the alcohol is the addict’s every increasing tolerance.
In a cruel twist, tolerance not only grows, but as drugs destroy the central nervous and digestive systems, tolerance lessens. This means that in the end stages of the disease, the body of the person who is used to drinking tremendous amounts of vodka or smoking a great deal of another drug one day finds that their body simply cannot process the drug. The amount that for years produced their desired high becomes a potentially lethal dose. Many in the chronic stage of addiction have died due to an overdose caused by an amount that their body was previously capable of handling.
Additionally, when the drug leaves the addict’s system and the withdrawal process (the central nervous system struggling to regain balance) begins, this leads to the addict feeling worse and worse. Thus agitated, the addict returns to use. This agitation is why people mistakenly think that outside events, circumstances, or the feelings themselves cause the addict to use.
Once alcoholism/addiction is activated in a person, the same devastating life effects will be clear whichever mood altering drug they choose. Once addicted to alcohol, one cannot switch to “just” marijuana and avoid the internal and external damage caused by the disease. Likewise, a person switching from cocaine to whiskey, or whiskey to beer may enjoy a temporary respite from the negative effects of mood altering substances, but this period will be short lived. Keeping it simple, a drug is a drug is a drug.
Adding to the danger, mixing drugs exponentially increases their potency. Three pills and three drinks does not create the same reaction in the brain as would six pills or six drinks. The exponential effect means that this combination of drugs is the equivalent of nine pills or even more. Combining drugs has many times proven fatal, with autopsies all too often revealing different drugs in the body of the person who has overdosed.
The good news regarding all this physical devastation is that the human body possesses amazing recuperative powers. In all but the most chronic, late stage cases, organs heal and personalities return. Miracles of healing happen with such frequency in recovery that they amaze even doctors familiar with this disease and recovery from it. In all but a few instances, family members can get their loved ones back.
“What happens during treatment is amazing. There is no other area in medicine where such a dramatic change in a person’s physical condition takes place over such a short period of time”
-Robert Bayles, MD