ALCOHOLISM

Alcoholism

Alcoholism

Introduction

Alcoholism is perhaps the most widespread pattern of pharmaceutical abuse in America today. In the joined States 67% of all the population over the age of 12 described consuming alcoholic beverageic beverage with in the preceding year. Even more astounding, is the detail that almost 50% reported consuming some kind of alcohol-dependent beverage with in the past month. Scientist report that the cause alcoholic beverage is so well liked to drinkers is because it is pleasing, relaxing, and is considered a "social beverage." But what the drinkers often do not take in to concern are the details that alcoholic beverageic beverage dulls the mind and confuses personal reactions.

Discussion

Alcohol can proceed as a origin at some levels of determination. Pharmacological causality is the easiest to prove or disprove, and the use of the term “cause” tends to be limited to this type of cause and effect as found in the natural sciences. Research has shown, however, that alcohol consumption has causal effects at several different levels outside the sphere of natural science. Studies in different cultures show that the same type of consumption may have very different outcomes. Quite large differences are found even among industrialized societies in Europe. Psychological experiments have shown that people's beliefs about alcohol and its effects determine how they behave after drinking. Similar experiments have shown the importance of situational factors, the setting and the social context in which drinking occurs, for determining the social consequences of drinking. A useful way to grasp the variety of ways in which alcohol consumption can have social consequences is to contrast the social conditions in alcohol-consuming societies with those that might exist in a totally alcohol-free society.

Friends are part of the communal natural environment in which young persons discover how to drink and how to act after drinking. The influence is mutual: young people are selected to be friends of drinkers because of their drinking habits and their attitudes towards alcohol; and young people - as well as adults - select their friends in accordance with their own drinking preferences. Thus, networks of friends share a certain compatibility with regard to alcohol. These mutual processes are often hidden under the label “peer pressure”. In many cultures, there is a recurrent theme of conflict between familial obligations and drinking with friends (Single, E, 1997).

When alcohol determines much of the style and content of a person's life, it also becomes a major determinant of networks of friends. The quality of friendships and the effects of alcohol on friendships should not be judged entirely according to middle-class values. Alcohol-dependent individuals, including those “on skid row”, can form intense and supportive friendships. Alcohol induces considerable emotional instability, however, and this is reflected in the interaction within such friendship groups. In a disproportionate number of violent crimes, both offender and victim come from the same alcohol-abusing circle of friends and acquaintances (Velleman, R. & Orford, J, 1990).

Women, especially young women, encounter special risks in groups of drinking friends and ...