The symptoms of alcohol addiction vary for anyone impacted by it. But there’s one consistent sign every person with alcohol use disorder shares: an inability to stop drinking. Even if they lose their job, drive away their friends and family, or lose their home, they can’t stop—even if they want to. 

Signs and symptoms of alcohol misuse range from habits like skipping pleasurable activities and missing work to permanent liver damage and different types of cancer. 

Knowing When to Seek Help for Alcohol Addiction

There are no “minimum requirements” needed to start treatment—if someone or their family feels their drinking causes problems, they should seek help. 

After seeking help, medical providers assess alcohol addiction severity by reviewing symptoms with the patient. The number of symptoms places that patient’s addiction into one of three categories: 

• Mild, exhibiting 2-3 symptoms 
• Moderate, with 4-5 symptoms 
• Severe, with six or more

Some of the many signs of alcohol addiction appear below, describing how alcohol alters behaviors and the ways it damages the body. 

How Alcohol Addiction Changes Behavior 

Alcohol changes thought processes over months or years, which makes them difficult to notice until they become problematic. The consequences of these involuntary changes cause feelings of guilt or shame that may drive the patient to drink more as a coping mechanism. 

A primary indicator of alcohol addiction is the desire to drink less or quit, but the inability to do so. These patients struggle with powerful cravings that subconsciously compel them to drink despite their better judgment. 

Skipping obligations like work, school, or time with family to drink (especially binge drink) is also common. In severe cases, they may also ignore opportunities to engage in hobbies or other enjoyable activities. The patient might even recognize the problems this behavior causes—job termination, strained relationships with friends and family—but continue to drink regardless. 

Because alcohol lowers inhibitions and impairs judgement, people with alcohol addiction endanger themselves and others. Severely intoxicated people may fight one another or engage in unsafe sexual activity such as age-inappropriate experimentation or failure to use contraception. They may also drive drunk, a grave danger to themselves and others. 

Loved ones caution against these behaviors, but their warnings often go ignored. Regular drinkers thus damage their relationships through ignored advice, repeated neglect, or even abuse caused by impaired judgment and heightened emotional state. Many also sink deep into denial about their growing health problems, even when warned by loved ones and doctors. 

Physical Signs of Alcoholism 

An increased tolerance is one of the most significant signs of alcohol addiction. Someone with a higher tolerance needs more alcohol to feel as intoxicated as someone with a lower tolerance. Their intake increases and with it the risks of physical complications. 

Though it tastes and feels good, alcohol is still a poison. Too much, especially over long periods, does lasting damage that the body struggles to repair. Alcohol also diverts the body’s limited recovery resources from other chronic conditions, making them worse. 

• Skin: flushed skin, dry skin, wrinkles, jaundice, and sores 
• Liver: fatty liver, hepatitis, and cirrhosis (liver scarring)  
• Stomach: ulcers, bleeding, and erosive gastritis 
• Pancreatitis: inflammation of the pancreas with abdominal pain, vomiting, and weight loss 
• Extremities: numbness or tingling in hands and feet and erectile dysfunction 
• Cancer in the mouth, digestive organs, liver, or breasts 
• Brain: depression, dementia, insomnia, and degradation of brain cells 
• Heart: high blood pressure, heart attack, arrhythmia, and stroke 

Worse, the body becomes dependent on alcohol. Suddenly stopping drinking often causes other complications, such as withdrawal symptoms. 

Withdrawal Symptoms 

Someone who reaches a breaking point and decides to suddenly stop drinking might try to quit “cold turkey.” This approach is dangerous after prolonged alcohol exposure, especially after spending more time intoxicated than not for several weeks or months. 

In minor cases, patients suffer stomach pain and nausea, sweat and shake, become irritable, anxious, or depressed, and experience severe cravings. More dangerous cases affect the brain, which experiences hallucinations, paranoia, confusion, and even seizures. 

The most dangerous cases induce Delirium Tremens, a sudden-onset syndrome unique to alcohol withdrawal. This “medical emergency with a high mortality rate” inflicts many dangerous symptoms simultaneously: 

• Agitation 
• Short-term memory loss 
• Disorientation 
• Hallucinations 
• Hypertension 
• Diaphoresis
• Reduced pain sensitivity 
• Tachycardia (dangerously high heart rate)
• Global confusion

“Global confusion” is another “package” of mental and emotional symptoms, including indifference, inability to pay attention, drowsiness, and “stupor.” 

All of these symptoms are dangerous on their own. A patient manifesting some or all of them needs immediate medical attention from hospital doctors or providers at a rehab center. 

Some rehab facilities avoid delirium tremens with a safe “detox” environment. There, doctors administer smaller and smaller alcohol doses to “taper” the patient off liquor. This process acclimates the body to reduced alcohol levels before cutting it off. 

Fortunately, not all alcohol addiction requires such involved intervention. Never Alone Recovery helps determine if a patient needs that assistance, then locates the right facility for their addiction’s severity and symptoms. 

Call the Never Alone Program for Placement in an Insurance-Approved Rehab Facility 

Never Alone Recovery is an Indiana rehab location program dedicated to finding treatment facilities best suited to each and every patient. Partnerships with insurance-approved rehab facilities nationwide give its addiction recovery consultants the connections needed to place patients in the most suitable facility—anywhere. 

Call to learn more about how they can help your loved one recover from alcohol addiction. Alternatively, get started with resources like its online support group or evaluate your alcohol use disorder’s severity with the addiction assessment quiz.