Psychosis from the habit of drinking to relieve sadness

Hanoi Due to boredom and psychological stress, many people turn to alcohol to relieve their sadness, gradually becoming addicted, developing mental illness, and having to be hospitalized for treatment.

The divorce in June this year left Kien, 40, an employee of a construction company in Hanoi, miserable. After the incident, the man locked himself in his room, not interested in work or relationships.

Kien's family said he had a happy marriage with his wife, who was also his first love, for eight years, but then the woman fell in love with someone else and her husband found out. After three years of unsuccessful attempts to reconcile, Kien often drank to drown his sorrows, then went out drinking all the time. Recently, he drank a liter of alcohol every day, lost weight, became weak, had delirium tremens and hallucinations, and attempted suicide many times.

At Mai Huong Daytime Psychiatric Hospital, Dr. Tran Thi Hong Thu, Deputy Director, said the patient suffered from psychosis due to alcohol addiction and was treated with medication and psychotherapy.

Also turning to alcohol to relieve his sadness, Tuan, 42 years old, from Phu Tho, was hospitalized with a diagnosis of psychosis. His family said that in the past two years, his business had been losing money, he was in debt, and even had to borrow money at high interest rates, so he often drank alcohol to sleep.

From only drinking at night, he consumed alcohol all day, often had shaking hands, screamed, got angry, broke things, beat his wife and children, and sometimes lost awareness of his loved ones. He was also a patient of Dr. Thu, and was treated with sedatives, antidepressants, vitamins, and brain tonics.

Alcohol affects many parts of the body, most severely the central nervous system. Photo: Renaissance Covery — Alcohol affects many parts of the body, most severely the central nervous system. Photo: *Renaissance Covery*

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), alcohol is the direct cause of more than 30 non-communicable diseases and nearly 200 other diseases, ranking third among the causes of premature death and disability globally. Alcohol affects all parts of the body, most severely the brain and central nervous system.

The risks and consequences of alcohol use depend on many factors such as age, gender, and biological characteristics. Therefore, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, and the risks increase in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed.

In particular, alcoholic psychosis is a state closely related to the process of alcohol use, manifested by emotional and behavioral disorders, hallucinations (such as auditory or visual hallucinations), paranoia such as unreasonable suspicion and jealousy, initially only when drunk, later appearing frequently and very unreasonably..., leading to self-defense or family conflicts, even attacking others. These states often appear during or immediately after alcohol use. On the other hand, alcoholic psychosis can also lead to depression, manifested by feelings of sadness, negativity, and unwillingness to live.

Currently, Vietnam has no statistics on people with alcohol-induced psychosis, but the number of diagnosed cases has increased recently. The number of patients treated at Mai Huong Daytime Psychiatric Hospital is often close to 10 cases at any given time, while previously it was only 2-5 people. The patients belong to many groups, including doctors, lawyers, businessmen, civil servants or manual workers, with the common characteristics of being weak and often having auditory hallucinations in their heads.

Similarly, at the Alcohol Use Disorders Club meeting at Bach Mai Hospital in early October, Dr. Le Thi Thao, Head of the Department of Addiction Treatment, Institute of Mental Health, said that this place receives many cases of alcohol-induced paranoia, such as delusions of being persecuted, being followed, and grandiosity... The main cause is sadness and psychological stress, so they want to turn to alcohol to relieve their sadness.

"But as the saying goes, 'drinking to drown your sorrows makes them worse', a vicious cycle that starts with drinking too much alcohol will cause psychological stress, leading to depression, and depression will increase alcohol consumption," the doctor said.

According to experts, one of the difficulties is the difficulty in predicting the duration of psychiatric treatment for alcoholic patients. When discharged from the hospital, patients can still relapse into alcoholism. Therefore, families need to monitor patients and provide psychosocial rehabilitation to prevent relapse and help reintegrate. Patients also need regular check-ups for psychiatric problems.

In case of drinking alcohol, men should not drink more than two units of alcohol per day and women should not drink more than 1 unit of alcohol per day; should not drink more than 5 days per week. Specifically, men should not drink more than 1-1.5 bottles/cans of beer per day; 2 glasses of beer per day, no more than 2 glasses of wine per day, 2 glasses of alcohol (40 degrees) per day. Women should drink half of men.

Thuy Quynh

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