Acute alcoholic hallucinosis

Acute alcoholic hallucinosis:

Some 20 to 25 % of alcoholics, suffering from this mental disease falls into this category. Most of the patients exhibit schizoid characteristics, which becomes aggravated due to the use of alcohol. In acute alcoholic hallucinosis, as in delirium tremens the patient suffers from anxiety, insomnia, extreme emotionality and various kinds of hallucination.

In a state of delirium, many of the hallucination tend to be of visual nature. While in the case of acute alcoholic hallucinosis, they are of auditory origin. The patient professes to hearing a variety of voices that threaten him, abuse him and scold him, responsible for many kinds of immoral activity. Often such voice address the patient as if he were a separate individual. Some patients become so obsessed with these voices that they seek the protection of police or even commit suicide.

Most of the people suffering from this disease become introverts and those suffering from delirium tremens become extroverts, because these patients are a source of danger to others and themselves. It is necessary to have definite control over them.

The first step in curing them is to stop them from drinking alcoholic stimulants, because the patient has to be cured in relatively shorter time. But if the patient again falls into his old ways it does not take a long time for the disease to come back and in occasional cases it can even lead to schizophrenia.