For any reasonably healthy person who has not been drinking for too long, it is possible to go through alcohol detox without medical aid. However, most doctors and treatment professionals strongly recommend against this. The risk of complication is there even for people who seem otherwise healthy. There may be underlying health problems thatone does not know about, and some people simply have severe symptoms during alcohol detox. In any case, quitting drinking without medical help is never a good idea.
Although seeking doctor advice is recommended, this does not mean that you cannot quit cold turkey. In fact, if you meet with your doctor and talk about it, you may get a go-ahead to try to go through alcohol detox without entering a facility As long as your doctor says it's okay, then you should be safe. However, do not be surprised if your doctor strongly recommends that you detox in a treatment facility.
Meanwhile, there are many good reasons why going cold turkey is not a good idea, even for healthy people. Most importantly, alcohol detox can be quite uncomfortable, with some severe symptoms. There is no reason to suffer through this on your own when you can enter an inpatient drug rehabilitation program and ease some of the discomfort.
Some people have objections to quitting one substance with the use of another—and many treatment programs do give their patients drugs during alcohol detox—but it is important to remember that you will not be taking these substances in the long term. They are merely to ease the symptoms as you are getting clean. If you make it explicit to your doctor that you do not want to be taking drugs for longer than you have to, then he or she will help you achieve this.
Even if you object to taking medications to help in your alcohol detox, it is still a good idea to recover in a treatment facility. In the event that complications do arise, you will want to have easy access to a doctor. For this reason and others, you should seriously consider inpatient treatment at least through the alcohol detox stage.
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