Alcohol addiction has its own code in the international disease classification
Alcohol addiction is diagnosed by the same rules as any other illness, based on criteria set out in the international classification of diseases. Alcohol dependence appears there under code 6C40.2 in ICD-11 and F10.2 in the older ICD-10.
The symptoms are caused by a change in how the brain works. Years of drinking alter the reward system and the stress response. Once that change has taken hold, tension only eases after a drink, the patient loses control over the amount consumed, and drinking continues despite consequences the patient can see for themselves.
Patients usually notice several symptoms at the same time: an urge to drink that cannot be waited out; drinking more alcohol than planned; needing ever larger amounts to feel the same effect as years before; shaking hands, sweating and anxiety the day after stopping drinking; and continuing to drink despite the health, family and work problems it causes. The ICD-10 classification requires at least three such symptoms occurring together for a month within the past year to diagnose alcohol dependence.
Alcohol addiction runs a chronic, relapsing course. That is why we plan treatment in months, and a return to drinking after a period of abstinence calls for adjusting that plan and getting in touch quickly with the treating therapist or the psychiatrist.
The AUDIT test and three degrees of problem drinking
Before alcohol addiction develops, drinking passes through two earlier stages, and medicine has a name for each of them. With risky drinking the patient is not yet ill because of alcohol, but that amount and frequency of drinking ends in illness for many people. Harmful drinking has its own category in the ICD classification, F10.1: health or family damage has already occurred, and the patient still controls how much they drink. We speak of alcohol dependence, coded F10.2, only once alcohol craving appears and the patient loses control over how much they drink.
We base the first assessment of drinking on the AUDIT questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization. The questionnaire can be repeated after a few months, and the difference in score shows whether drinking has genuinely changed or has simply shifted to other days. The questionnaire does not replace a diagnosis: a doctor makes that after taking a history and examining the patient.
The same organisation stated in 2023 that no amount of alcohol is safe for health. At the consultation we therefore ask how many days a week the patient drinks, how much they drink on one occasion and how they feel on a day without alcohol.
How we treat alcohol addiction in Gorzów Wielkopolski and what goes into the records
Treatment starts with a medical consultation. We take a history of the drinking and any coexisting illnesses, check the patient's health and assess whether stopping drinking requires medical supervision. The consultation ends with a treatment plan for the coming weeks.
From there, treatment covers three elements carried out in parallel. We start by stabilising the patient's health, which for drinking that has lasted weeks means alcohol detox. We introduce oral pharmacotherapy or place the Esperal implant, which protects the first weeks of abstinence. Throughout, we run addiction psychotherapy, because without it treatment goes no further than getting the patient to stop drinking; we describe how the psychotherapy works on the page about addiction therapy in Gorzów Wielkopolski. We set out treatment in packages lasting one, three, six or twelve months. The one-month plan covers stopping drinking and choosing medication, while changing everyday habits takes further months.
We treat privately, so we set an appointment within a few days. No medical facility treats anonymously. We keep and store medical records as the law requires, and discretion means that without the patient's consent we do not pass on information about the treatment to anyone outside the practice.
Who we treat as an outpatient and who we refer to a centre
We choose the treatment setting to match the patient's health and their living situation. At the consultation we check how long the last drinking binge lasted, what illnesses accompany the drinking and who is at home with the patient.
Outpatient alcoholism treatment in Gorzów Wielkopolski
We treat patients as outpatients when they have no severe complications after years of drinking and can attend follow-up appointments according to the treatment plan. Examinations and procedures take place at Traugutta 6, and we fit the remaining visits around the patient's working hours. The patient does not need to take sick leave or leave the city.
Residential alcoholism treatment in Gorzów Wielkopolski
We propose a residential stay for advanced alcohol dependence, for serious coexisting illnesses, and when alcohol is available every day in the patient's home. We also choose this setting for patients for whom treatment at the practice has not worked. The stay removes the patient from the surroundings in which they drank and makes it possible to run psychotherapy every day. We describe what such a stay covers on the page about the addiction treatment centre in Gorzów Wielkopolski.
Online alcoholism treatment and e-prescriptions in Gorzów Wielkopolski
Remotely we hold follow-up visits and some therapy sessions, and we also issue e-prescriptions. This is mainly how we treat patients travelling in from outside Gorzów Wielkopolski and those who work on the road. During an online visit we cannot assess the severity of withdrawal symptoms, so we ask a patient in acute withdrawal to come to the practice or refer them for alcohol detox.
What naltrexone, acamprosate, nalmefene and disulfiram do in the body
In alcoholism pharmacotherapy we use four medicines, and each of them addresses a different problem. Which one goes into the treatment plan is decided by the doctor after an examination, an assessment of coexisting illnesses and a history of earlier attempts to stop drinking.
Oral medicines the patient takes alone
A patient taking naltrexone no longer feels the old relaxation after a drink, because the medicine blocks the opioid receptors in the brain responsible for the pleasure of drinking; alcohol craving weakens as a result, and it becomes easier to turn down the next glass. Acamprosate reduces the tension, irritability and insomnia that persist for weeks after stopping drinking, because it dampens the excessive activity of nerve cells left behind by years of drinking. Nalmefene is taken as needed, on a day the patient expects to drink, before going out: the alcohol drunk that day gives less pleasure, so the patient finishes drinking sooner and drinks less. We suggest nalmefene to patients whose first goal is to cut down the amount of alcohol they drink.
The Esperal implant as protection during psychotherapy
Disulfiram, the substance in the Esperal implant, blocks the enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde, a product of the body's metabolism of alcohol. After a drink, acetaldehyde builds up in the blood, and the patient reacts with flushed skin, palpitations, a drop in blood pressure and vomiting. Awareness of that reaction discourages drinking and buys a few calm months to work on it in psychotherapy, but the implant alone does not treat alcohol addiction. We describe the qualification, contraindications and course of the procedure on the page about the Esperal implant in Gorzów Wielkopolski.
None of these medicines replaces psychotherapy. Pharmacotherapy makes it easier to maintain abstinence, or cuts down how much the patient drinks enough for them to have time to work on the reasons behind it.
Who is at risk of severe withdrawal after stopping alcohol
A severe course of withdrawal is a risk for patients who have been drinking daily for several weeks, for patients who have previously had seizures or alcohol-related delirium, for older patients and for those with chronic illnesses. In such patients, medical staff guide the withdrawal from the very first day.
The body clears alcohol by itself within a dozen or so hours, but the symptoms that follow need treatment: shaking hands, drenching sweats, vomiting, a fast pulse, anxiety and insomnia. During alcohol detox, medical staff monitor the pulse and blood pressure, give medicines that relieve these symptoms, rehydrate the patient and correct any deficiency in B vitamins.
Withdrawal seizures appear most often on the first or second day after stopping alcohol, and alcohol-related delirium usually later, between the second and fourth day; both are medical emergencies. That is why, for a patient after a multi-day binge, we first offer alcohol detox in Gorzów Wielkopolski, and schedule therapy sessions once it is finished. Withdrawal symptoms subside after a few days, while alcohol craving persists for months, which is why we start medication and psychotherapy directly after detox.
How quickly to respond to a return to drinking
We ask patients to call within a day or two of a drink, because at that point adjusting the treatment plan is enough. After a few weeks of drinking, the patient is usually back in a drinking binge and detox has to be repeated.
Once the patient gets in touch, we first check their health, then establish what preceded the drink: medication stopped, sessions missed, sleepless nights, a conflict at home or a work trip. We then adjust the pharmacotherapy, schedule visits more often for the following few weeks and pick the treatment plan back up from the stage at which it was interrupted.
Patients most often delay the call out of shame, so we make this clear at the very first visit: after a drink we do not expect explanations or promises, only a phone call. In the conversation after a relapse we look for a gap in the treatment plan: too low a dose, visits that were too infrequent, or a situation the patient had not rehearsed with the therapist. After a relapse, the patient does not start treatment from the beginning.
Which months after stopping alcohol are hardest
After a few months of abstinence, patients feel well, return to work and no longer see a reason for further visits. It is precisely in these months that the risk of returning to drinking is highest, which is why we run maintenance care as a separate stage of treatment, with less frequent visits, each with a set purpose.
At this stage we work above all on relapse prevention, that is on what the patient will do in situations in which they used to drink. The therapist rehearses ready solutions with the patient: how to leave a wedding before the next toast, what to say to a colleague inviting them for a beer after a shift, and what to do with an evening that used to be spent drinking.
Some patients keep taking medication for longer than the intensive stage of treatment lasted; the treating doctor extends the pharmacotherapy at a follow-up visit. Outside the practice, support comes from self-help groups: their meetings take place more often than follow-up visits and cost nothing.
Who in Gorzów Wielkopolski seeks help because of someone else's drinking
In addiction matters, women come forward for help more often than men. In 2025, addiction therapists employed by the city held 340 consultations with women and 145 with men among adults; they held separate consultations for people under 18, with the consent and in the presence of a parent. The municipal report gives the number of consultations, not the number of people, and does not settle whether a person coming forward is doing so because of their own drinking or that of someone close to them.
In the same year, therapists provided support to 115 families, 343 people in total, including 54 under 18. Relatives come forward when someone's addiction at home starts to shape the whole family's life: they arrange the entire day around the drinker's state, pay off their debts, explain their absences from work and hide the rows from the wider family. We call this pattern of arranging life around someone else's drinking codependency. Therapy for relatives is a separate service and starts regardless of whether the person who drinks has begun their own treatment.
When the person who is ill refuses treatment, relatives report the matter to the gminna komisja rozwiązywania problemów alkoholowych (the municipal commission for solving alcohol problems), because a district court rules on obliging an adult to undergo addiction treatment at the request of the commission, not at the request of the family.
Depression, anxiety and PTSD alongside alcohol addiction
In some patients, alcohol has for years stood in for treatment of another illness: fear of being around other people, recurring memories, or a low mood that has lasted for months. After stopping alcohol, these symptoms do not disappear; they become more pronounced, because the patient loses the substance they used to suppress them.
If we treat only the drinking while depression or an anxiety disorder is left untreated, the patient returns to alcohol in the first difficult week. That is why, with a dual diagnosis, the patient is treated by a psychiatrist together with an addiction therapist, within a single treatment plan and with one agreed goal.
The psychiatrist is responsible for diagnosing and treating the mental disorder, the addiction therapist for the work on the drinking, and the two exchange information on how the treatment is going. We schedule psychiatric visits alongside the therapy sessions, and the decision to start antidepressants is made by the psychiatrist after a period of abstinence, because only then does it become clear which symptoms come from the mental illness and which from alcohol withdrawal.
How often adult residents of Gorzów Wielkopolski drink
In a survey carried out among 500 adult residents of Gorzów Wielkopolski, 6 percent said they drink alcohol every day and 10 percent several times a week. These are self-reports, not diagnoses: the survey does not ask about symptoms of dependence and does not replace a medical examination. It shows, however, that regular drinking is not a marginal phenomenon in the city and affects a group far larger than the one that ever comes forward for help anywhere.
Situations in which drinking ends in intervention can be seen in the city's data. In 2024, 476 people used the Ośrodek Pomocy Osobom Nietrzeźwym (the Centre for Assistance to Intoxicated Persons) in Gorzów Wielkopolski. A year later, an addiction therapy instructor from the municipal assistance centre helped place 40 people in residential facilities, 18 of whom were experiencing homelessness; 31 people started outpatient therapy at that time, and 57 began attending self-help group meetings. It usually takes years to get from daily drinking to such a situation, and treatment started earlier less often requires a stay in a centre.
