How to Recognise the Signs of Alcoholism and Addiction
There are a number of different ways to pick up on the signs and symptoms of alcoholism or drug addiction. Usually your instincts will tell you something is wrong, but we have a tendency to second-guess ourselves so some ‘hard facts’ are usually required.
Your opinion can also be affected depending on what perspective you’re looking at the problem from. Is it you that you’re worried about and so want to be able to recognize the signs of addiction for your own understanding?
Or are you concerned about a spouse, child, lover, or friend? There aren’t necessarily any infallible guidelines, but hopefully I can provide you with a few things to look out for and should you then want more information, just visit the links provided to my website.
You may begin to notice physical signs of an addiction to alcohol or drugs in the form of liver problems, which can show up as fatigue and various other things. High Blood pressure is also often a sign - but unless you go to see a Doctor, these are obviously more difficult to be sure of.
Some of the ‘easier’ symptoms or signs of an addiction to pick up on - are things like beginning to experience severe withdrawals from drinking or using, needing more to get the same effects, and broken promises (even to yourself) that you’re going to stop.
I always say though that when your drinking or drug using begins to affect your own sense of well-being and you begin to struggle with things you didn’t previously on a day to day basis like relationships, work etc. that you know there is a real problem.
There are also some pretty good psychometric type alcoholism tests and drug addiction tests that are pretty accurate in helping you determine whether or not there is indeed an addiction problem. I can’t go into all the info here I’m afraid, but be sure to follow the links provided.
So, being able to identify an addiction in yourself or someone you care about, can be done in a few different ways. Read up on the various symptoms and signs, try a psychometric type test, and you should then have a reasonably good idea if indeed there is a genuine problem.