The Internet is replete with advertisements like “Withdrawal/withdrawal from binge drinking at home”, “Drip/drip from binge drinking anonymously”, “Treatment/interruption of binge drinking with a doctor-narcologist visiting your home”, etc. etc., etc. Why are such services in demand? Is it really impossible to get out of a binge on your own or get rid of a hangover or alcohol intoxication yourself at home? Let’s look at 3 main situations when it becomes necessary to call a narcologist to “get over it.” “You urgently need to sober up.” Alcohol in our body is broken down using a special enzyme found primarily in the liver, alcohol dehydrogenase. The speed of “sobering up” depends on the activity of this enzyme, gender, body weight, the quality of alcohol consumed, snacks, etc. In practice, it is impossible to increase the rate of alcohol removal from the body. The administration of saline solutions (drip placement) with glucose reduces the concentration of alcohol in the blood and improves subjective well-being. But almost the same effect can be achieved if the “victim” takes 8-10 tablets of activated carbon or other sorbent, 1-2 g of ascorbic acid, does gastric lavage and an enema, and drinks a lot of liquid (mineral water without gas). since morning". After a copious “libation,” the so-called “libation” occurs. post-toxication syndrome, when alcohol, with the help of the already mentioned enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, is converted into an even more toxic substance acetaldehyde, in addition, dehydration of the body occurs, a violation of the acid-base balance of the blood, and poisoning with other breakdown products of alcohol. In this case, the person experiences weakness, headache, dry mouth, nausea, and often vomits; as a rule, he cannot look at alcohol. In this situation, you can also get rid of painful symptoms yourself by drinking plenty of fluids (water with lemon juice and honey, minimal still water, brine, kvass, kefir, ayran), gastric lavage, enema, using sorbents like activated carbon or smecta, aspirin, chicken broth would be nice. Read more about the fight against a hangover here. “I can’t get out of the binge.” But this is a fundamentally different situation. Binge drinking with the need to recover from a hangover is a sign of alcohol addiction. Ethyl alcohol is a drug that inhibits nervous processes in the brain, in other words, a sedative. With prolonged use of alcohol, in order to compensate for its inhibitory effect, substances that excite the central nervous system (glutamate, dopamine) are produced and accumulated in the body. So, when such a person stops drinking alcohol or reduces the dose (more often this happens after a binge lasting from 2-3 days to several weeks or even months), the sedative (inhibitory) effect of alcohol stops, but the stimulating effects of glutamate and dopamine remain. This causes such unpleasant and often hard-to-bear symptoms as internal discomfort, high blood pressure, tachycardia, sweating, tremors (trembling of the hands, head or whole body), lack of appetite, insomnia, anxiety, irritability, craving for alcohol. To make it feel better, a person drinks a little (gets hung over), after a while the effect of the alcohol wears off, it becomes bad again, again it is necessary to get hangovered, and this can continue for a long time. This is called a state of alcohol withdrawal, or withdrawal syndrome (analogous to “withdrawal” in drug addicts). The worst thing is that this condition can become more severe and cause complications in the form of seizures (epilepsy) or alcoholic psychosis (“delirium tremens”). There are 3 ways out of this situation: 1) endure (which is fraught with the complications described above); 2) continue drinking (indefinitely?), because. this alleviates the condition, or gradually reduce the dose of alcohol over 3 days; 3) resort to drug treatment using special drugs that relieve increased excitability of the central nervous system, restore sleep, reduce!