Substances Abuse

• Disorders caused by drug use are a heavy burden for individuals and communities. Continued drug use can cause dependency and disability, and chronic health problems. The social consequences of harmful drug use or dependence reach far beyond the user and affect their families and other personal relationships.
• The social and health burdens imposed are not inevitable: the problems caused by drugs and their dependence are preventable and treatable. When identified early, risky drug use can be reduced or restricted through health assessments and brief interventions before users become dependent.
• Illegal drugs are used most frequently in the high-income countries of the Americas.

How Does Drinking Excessive Alcohol Affect You?

The continuous and excessive consumption of alcohol has serious repercussions at physical, psychological, family and social levels. It also usually affects the academic/labour, economic and even legal levels.

In some people, the initial reaction may be a feeling of increased energy, with a disinhibiting effect. However, as you continue to drink, it makes you drowsy and lose control of your alcohol addiction, even reaching a listless and depressed mood.

Over time, drinking too much alcohol can change the normal functioning of some brain areas related to pleasure, judgment, reasoning, and behaviour. During this time, you can go from Abuse to alcohol addiction.

Excessive alcohol affects speech, memory, and muscle coordination, as well as important repercussions on a physical level, such as:

• High blood pressure
• Heart problems
• Malnutrition
• bleeding from the stomach or oesophagus,
• liver damage,
• Cancer of the oesophagus, liver, colon, and other areas

treatment to quit alcohol

Many alcoholics want to know how to quit alcohol and what steps they will have to take to quit their addiction. At  MasFerriol, the therapy we carry out to give up alcohol consists of 3 phases that characterize our substance addiction treatments.

PHASE 1- Detox (0-2 Weeks)

The main objective of this phase is to achieve physical detoxification from alcohol. It must often be accompanied by a psychopharmacological treatment during the first days to counteract the physical discomfort that can appear due to withdrawal (tremors, anxiety, etc.), to help stabilize the sleep-wake phases or to carry out progressive detoxification to avoid alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

Medication in alcoholism treatments is not always necessary. It depends on each case and particular situation. During the detoxification phase, there is continuous medical monitoring with professionals who are experts in physical alcohol detoxification.

PHASE 2 – Weaning (0-8 Week

From the beginning of the treatment to quitting alcohol, work begins with psychological therapy, both in individual and group sessions. The first two weeks are used to establish a therapeutic bond, learn about the person’s life history and work on recognizing the problem. At the same time, physical detoxification is achieved, and the person feels better each time.

It is from the second week, approximately, that you can begin to work on alcohol withdrawal. The person no longer has a physical need for consumption, although they usually continue to desire to drink alcohol.

Alcohol addiction itself is worked on, the related emotional aspects, what has led the person to develop a relationship of alcohol dependency, craving and relapse prevention. At the same time, it is evaluated if there are other associated mental pathologies.

As an alcohol detoxification centre, one of the characteristics of Mas Ferriol’s alcohol cessation treatments is that they are short-lived. We understand addiction as an expression and symptom of personal conflicts, and we believe it is important that the person returns to their daily lives as soon as possible once abstinence has been achieved and alcohol withdrawal has been worked on. The intensity of personalized therapy allows for shorter hospitalization times.

For this reason, the person admitted can maintain contact with those important people in their environment and work on family and partner relationships, which are usually damaged. Family and couple accompaniment is carried out since family and couples therapies are included to teach how they can help. Before finishing residential treatment, the person must have made several trips home.

PHASE 3 – Maintenance (Following Six Months)

Once the residential treatment at Mas Ferriol ends, the alcoholism treatment continues with the maintenance phase. It is important to carry out regular outpatient follow-ups to consolidate the changes achieved and reinforce necessary aspects.

This monitoring can be done in the following ways:

• Follow-up outpatient visits at the MasFerriol alcohol detoxification centre
• Outpatient follow-up visits at the MasFerriol clinic in Barcelona
• Follow-up outpatient visits with the specialized professional (psychologist or psychiatrist) who made the referral to Mas Ferriol for residential treatment and who resumes the case.
• Online follow-up outpatient visits with Mas Ferriol professionals in those cases where physical distance does not allow face-to-face follow-up and the person wants to follow up with MasFerriol professionals
• Follow-up outpatient visits with a specialized professional (psychologist or psychiatrist) from the area of habitual residence of the patient in those cases where physical distance does not allow face-to-face follow-up.
• Advice to relatives to receive family and community support.

…