WHAT IS ALCOHOLISM?
Alcoholism or Alcohol Dependence, chronic disease marked
by a craving for alcohol. People who suffer from this illness are known as alcoholics.
They cannot control their drinking even when it becomes the underlying cause of
serious harm, including medical disorders, marital difficulties, job loss,
or automobile crashes.
Medical science has yet to identify the exact cause
of alcoholism, but research suggests that genetic, psychological, and social
factors influence its development.
Alcoholism cannot be cured yet,
but various treatment options can help an alcoholic avoid drinking and regain a healthy life.
Alcohol dependence develops differently in each individual.
Alcoholics develop a craving, or a strong urge, to drink despite awareness
that drinking is creating problems in their lives.
They suffer from impaired control, an inability to stop drinking once
they have begun. Alcoholics also become physically dependent on alcohol.
When they stop drinking after a period of heavy alcohol use,
they suffer unpleasant physical ailments, known as withdrawal symptoms,
that include nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety.
Alcoholics develop a greater tolerance for alcohol-
that is, they need to drink increasing amounts of alcohol
to reach intoxication.
DEPENDANCE
Statistics show that alcohol dependence touches successful business
executives, skilled mechanics, laborers, homemakers, and church members
of all denominations.
Nearly 62 million
people worldwide suffer from alcohol dependence.
The prevalence of the illness varies in different countries.
In the United States nearly 15 million people experience
problems related to their use of alcohol.
In the United States, people who start to drink at an early age
are at particular risk for developing alcohol dependence.
Estimates indicate that 40 percent of people who begin to
drink before age 15 will become alcohol dependent at some
point in their lives. These individuals are four times more
likely to become alcohol dependent than those who delay drinking until age 21.
PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL
Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, is present in varying amounts
in beers and wines, and in distilled liquors such as whiskey,
gin, and rum.
When a person consumes alcohol, the stomach
and intestines rapidly absorb it.
From there alcohol travels in the
blood throughout the entire body, affecting nearly every tissue.
Moderate and high doses of alcohol depress the functions of the central
nervous system, including the brain.
The higher the alcohol level is in the blood, the greater the impairment.
PERCENT OF ALCOHOL IN BLOODSTREAM EXPANDS.
As blood passes through the liver, enzymes
break down alcohol into harmless byproducts,
which are eliminated from the body six to eight hours later.
But the rate at which alcohol accumulates in the body may be
faster than the rate at which the body eliminates it, resulting
in rising alcohol levels in the blood.
Consequently, alcohol remains in the body,
producing intoxicating effects hours after the last drink was swallowed.
Small amounts of alcohol may relieve tension or fatigue,
increase appetite, or produce an anesthetic affect that numbs pain.
Larger quantities inhibit or depress higher thought processes,
bolstering self-confidence and reducing inhibition, anxiety, and guilt.
As a person becomes intoxicated, painful or embarrassing situations
appear less threatening and, as drinking progresses,
speech may become loud and slurred.
Impaired judgment may lead to incautious behavior,
and physical reflexes and muscular coordination may
become noticeably affected.
If drinking continues, complete loss of
physical control follows, ending in stupor, and possibly death.
SOCIAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOLISM
Throughout most of history, society has viewed people who
drink to excess as irresponsible, immoral, and of weak character.
Punishment of drunkards was considered necessary to protect the community.
By the early 1900s, experts conceded that alcohol dependence
may result from tissue changes caused by the action of alcohol.
These changes produce a continued need to drink,
such that the individual seeks larger amounts of alcohol
at more frequent intervals.
However, society still regarded
taking or rejecting a drink as a matter of personal decision,
thus all excessive drinking was considered a voluntary act.
The individual, therefore, was held responsible for his or her behavior.
Today experts characterize alcohol-use disorders as a form of illness,
and one so widespread that it constitutes a major public health problem.
Alcohol dependence and other alcohol-use disorders
undermine global health, accounting for 3.5 percent of the total cases
of disease worldwide.
This figure equals the hazards posed by unsafe sex
and surpasses two other formidable health foes, tobacco and illicit drugs.
In the United States alone, the NIAAA estimates that alcoholism causes losses
of more than $185 billion a year in lost productivity, illness, and premature death.
DEVELOPMENT OF ALCOHOL DEPENDANCE
Alcohol-use disorders develop in a predictable pattern. Health professionals
use three stages to describe this progression.
Each stage is defined by a set of symptoms that
are used in early diagnosis and treatment.
Most individuals who drink alcohol never progress beyond
stage one and are commonly known as social drinkers.
A small percentage of social drinkers progress to stage two.
In this early stage of a drinking problem, many people do not
show any signs of illness.
But often, more severe problems develop with time and continued
heavy drinking.
Activities that focus on drinking may take up increasingly
larger amounts of time in the person's life, and as problem drinking progresses
the alcoholic's intoxicated behavior may become disagreeable and antisocial.
A person may resort to drinking to relieve the physical discomfort of withdrawal
symptoms. Most often, attempts to avoid the discomfort result in morning drinking
to offset symptoms that develop after a bout of drinking the night before.
As drinking continues, drinkers cannot acknowledge that drinking and intoxication
have become goals in themselves.
Drinking may become a technique for coping with problems,
many of which have been brought about by alcohol use.
Drinkers may neglect responsibilities to their family, seriously
damaging relationships with their partners and children.
Their productivity at work declines, often resulting in job loss.
Despite numerous negative consequences experienced as a result of
their drinking, they remain in denial about their problem.
They continue to claim to friends or family that they can stop
drinking any time they want to. But in actuality they find it increasingly
difficult to control their alcohol use.
Stage three is the final stage of alcohol dependence.
In addition to suffering from many of the problems experienced by
individuals in stage two, an individual in stage three can no longer
control his or her drinking.
This impaired control, in which the compulsion to drink is overwhelming,
is the key identifier that health professionals use to diagnose
people who have progressed to alcohol dependence.
PHYSIOLOGICAL CONDITION OF DENIAL
Many drinkers develop a psychological condition known
as denial, in which they are unable to acknowledge that alcohol
use lies at the root of many of their problems.
Denial was long
thought to be a personality trait shared by all persons who suffer
from alcohol-use disorders.
Recent research suggests that denial
may be a psychological response to negative feedback people receive
about their drinking.
Some studies indicate that when approached with
objective information about their drinking and its consequences
in an empathetic and nonconfrontational manner, many persons with
significant drinking problems do not demonstrate denial.
If you feel that you fit this profile, there are several Organizations that
you can resort to.
CLICK HERE FOR A LIST OF LOCAL PHONE NUMBERS FOR ALCOHOL
AND DRUG ABUSE COUNSELING SERVICES.
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