Patients often have a regular drinking pattern, such as drinking in the morning and drinking at times and occasions when they should not be drinking. Patients use alcohol as a first need and will do anything to drink. Patients know that their drinking has already had adverse consequences or that continued drinking will lead to serious consequences, but they have difficulty controlling themselves.
When drinking is stopped or the intake of alcohol is abruptly reduced, withdrawal symptoms occur, mainly in the form of tremors, nausea, sweating and emotional instability (irritability, anxiety, depression, etc.), which can be mild or severe and can be life-threatening in severe cases.
In addition, patients have a particular craving for alcohol, which can be manifested by an inability to control the volume of alcohol consumed or a desire to find alcohol by any means possible. Some patients can have multiple failed attempts to stop drinking, which is common to addictive behaviour, where patients stop drinking several times but always don’t keep it up for long and will drink again.