According to estimates, about 7.4 percent of American population (out of 14 million American citizens) is affected by alcoholism. More than 50 percent of them are adults influenced by the family environment of drinking alcohol as a family tradition, which also genetically inherited by babies of alcoholic pregnant mothers.
Moreover, estimates also reveal that every fourth child under the age of 18 is exposed to the abuse of alcohol. If such a child is lacking proper care and attention, it will obviously face the problem of alcohol addiction.
It means that alcoholism is not an inborn or natural habit of any person but frequently used means to escape from particular emotional, psychological, physical or environmental stresses.
SYMPTOMS OF ALCOHOLISM
The common symptoms of alcoholism include: craving to drink, loss of self control where an individual is unable to restrain himself from drinking alcohol in any occasion, physical dependence in which a person frequently undergoes such feelings as nausea, sweating, shakiness and anxiety.
Such symptoms are normally noticed when a person makes attempt to control his alcohol addiction after some period of heavy drinking. Another typical symptom of alcohol addiction is the ability to tolerate less amount of alcohol.
CONSEQUENCES OF ALCOHOLISM
Though, alcoholism is not connected with the will power of a person that is addicted to alcohol. But such things as medical treatment and family support can play an essential role in limiting addiction to a habit, and then to a normal behavior which may finally result in complete avoidance of alcohol.
However, according to observations, domestic violence and abusing the self-respect and both moral and human rights of a person due to lack of self control and abnormal mental temperament are also the results of alcoholism. It is natural that a person who often drinks excessively finally loses his mental activeness and undertakes actions that he would never do when being mentally normal.
A good example can be the study conducted by the American psychological association. According to the findings, men who are addicted to alcohol reveal a stronger tendency of being physically brutal to their female partners than in the times they are not drinking alcohol. At the same time, the scientists also discovered that the subsequent violent behavior of men towards their partners is basically caused by their alcohol addiction.
When a person is an alcohol addict, two relevant things happen. First of all, when an alcoholic person is the deprived of drinking alcohol for several days, he becomes frustrated, irritated and violent. Secondly, when an alcoholic person is in regular drinking phase, s/he loses his mental control and becomes violent. But in both the conditions, an alcoholic person takes actions that are morally and ethically incorrect and at the same time all these actions are not preplanned or intentional. It means that such actions are never taken by this person if he is in a normal condition.
CONCLUSION:
In other words, all actions done unintentionally harming the moral, ethical and human rights of another person and at the same time his own mental and physical health is undoubtedly associated with mental and psychological abnormality, which is a disease. So, as these abnormalities have mental background, they can also be recognized as mental illness. Hence, alcohol addiction is not only a mental and psychological, but also physical disease, due to the fact that it destroys the nervous system and also leads to various internal injuries, which eventually cause either cancers or any other life taking diseases.
However, individuals who are addicted to alcohol live in an illusion. They are convinced that this gives them mental and emotional relaxation and constitutes physical pleasure. Nevertheless, this is not true and it’s just a misconception, because alcoholic patients are unable to accept the fact that it is harming them by all means.
