Easy Does It –

Nov. 27, 2018  – For those experiencing the most serious symptom of withdrawal – the shaking, shivering, sweating and confusion of delirium tremens, or the DTs – the death rate has been estimated as high as 4 percent, or 1 in 25. Of patients admitted to one hospital in Spain with alcohol withdrawal syndrome from 1987 to 2003, a research team there found, 6.6 percent died. That’s roughly 1 in 15. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 831 deaths in 2016 that could be characterized as related to alcohol withdrawal. The National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism do not have an estimate of deaths from alcohol detox. One recent casualty was the actor Nelsan Ellis, a star of the HBO series True Blood, who died last year from complications of alcohol withdrawal, according to his family. His father said he “was ashamed of his addiction and thus was reluctant to talk about it during his life.”

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