Brain Recovery From Alcohol: How Long Does It Take to Heal

Treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, or even motivational interviewing can help you learn how to overcome your addiction and improve your mental clarity. Some have rather rapid recovery from alcohol related cues while others take a while to recover from their addictive behaviors. Doctors take MRI scans to see how well the frontal lobe and other regions of the brain are healing and medical support is given at the treatment center or facility to attend to alcohol withdrawal symptoms. There are two types of alcohol withdrawal, acute withdrawal and post-acute withdrawal, also known as ‘PAWS’.

It is not a medical condition in and of itself, so a doctor cannot diagnose a patient with brain fog. Alcohol brain fog is just as common, and it can be devastating for the recovery process. As noted above, nutritional deficits can affect your cognition, so eating a variety of whole foods, especially nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables, will help fill some of those gaps. Inflammatory foods have been found to be especially bad for mood and cognition since they essentially trigger the same immune response you experience when you’re sick.

Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Dopamine plays an essential role in mood and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Since alcohol disrupts dopamine production and usage, drinking can lead to either an exacerbation in symptoms or the development of mood disorders. Drinking heavily can also impair your cognition by affecting your diet and vitamin absorption.

It is less able to suppress a desire to drink until the brain has recovered. The reason for this is that alcohol has harmed the brain’s cognitive function. Ende and her team now believe that any good alcohol treatment should last at least two weeks. There is safe and affordable (or free!) treatment for alcohol withdrawal. If a physician determines that you’re at risk for severe withdrawal, it’s important that you get the appropriate care so that you can be monitored and evaluated during your withdrawal. Treatment may take place at a hospital or at an inpatient detox center.

Addiction Treatment

For example, PWS could reflect the brain’s slow recovery from the reversible nerve cell damage common in alcoholism. Clinically, the symptoms of PWS are important, because they may predispose abstinent alcoholics to relapse in an attempt to alleviate the symptoms (Satel et al. 1993). The heart is a major site of alcohol-induced organ damage, including disturbances of heartbeat rhythm (Smith 1995). For example, the “holiday heart syndrome” consists of episodes of abnormal cardiac rhythms following a bout of drinking (Smith 1995). Because arrhythmia generally occurs after a binge, rather than during intoxication, AW may be a contributing factor to the occurrence of alcohol-related arrhythmia (Smith 1995). Further study is required to elucidate the possible connection between AW and increased sudden cardiac death.

• This can result in heart problems and stomach aches that may be accompanied by nausea or vomiting.
• Higher thought functions like focus and concentration take longer to improve since they are controlled by brain areas that recover volume more slowly.
• Imagine being in a room filled with fog, where everything seems blurry, and you struggle to navigate your way.
• Basically, dopamine is what teaches your brain that alcohol equals reward, making you naturally want more alcohol.

Brain fog feels like the room inside your head is not clean and requires a deep refresher. Brain fog symptoms may vary from person to person, however, slowed cognitive functioning seems to be a recurring element. It can occur during or after someone’s alcohol addiction, even in otherwise healthy people. If someone experiences brain fog in the weeks after their withdrawal, they may have a mental health problem. Alcoholic brain fog occurs during or after someone develops an alcohol addiction.

How Do You Keep Grief from Sinking Your Recovery from Addiction?

Alcohol’s most severe long-term consequences are brain damage and nerve cell death. Unlike in other parts of the body, some nerve cells (particularly those in the frontal cortex and cerebellum) are not replaced once destroyed. https://stylevanity.com/2023/07/top-5-questions-to-ask-yourself-when-choosing-sober-house.html Long-term drinking affects the functions of the brain that control inhibitions, decision-making, problem-solving, and judgment. It’s important to treat both disorders to ensure the best possible addiction recovery outcome.

Into Action Recovery Centers provides an abstinence-based program and all of our staff members have a strong understanding of the recovery process through personal experience. We are passionate about sharing the process involved in living a drug and alcohol-free life. We offer free aftercare for the men who complete our program and have a strong alumni network that remains active in the community. We also offer other amenities such as dietician-prepared meals, mindfulness-based meditation training, outings, and fitness training.

Next Few Weeks

Consequently, greater emphasis may now be placed on developing strategies to facilitate long-term sobriety. An important step in this direction may be the development of medications that lack the addiction potential of the benzodiazepines. The antiseizure medications meet these criteria and have the added capacity to suppress kindling. Laboratory studies suggest that valproic acid may inhibit GABA metabolism and activate GABA synthesis (Fawcett 1989). In addition, data indicate that carbamezapine decreases the flow of glutamate into slices of the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in seizures (Olpe et al. 1985).