If you are a sufferer of alcoholism, you are probably cheating yourself into thinking that you are just a consumer of alcohol, whereby the reality is that alcoholism is consuming you. That includes the consumption of your salary, your physical energy, your time that could be better spent and the one that tops the list is your health.
Alcoholism means addiction to consuming alcoholic beverages despite the knowledge of their detrimental physical and social consequences. Medics define alcoholism as a disease which disables a person from controlling the urge to take alcohol. Alcoholism, therefore, implies a tendency for compulsive consumption of alcohol and an inability to acknowledge its negative effects.
There is another type of person who although has problems with consuming alcohol, is able to suppress its characteristics and symptoms. You could classify this type of conduct as alcohol abuse, which would imply that while alcohol is consumed in large quantities, the abuser is in some way able to have certain control over its use. We would have to conclude then that an alcohol abuser is not fully dependent on alcohol as is an alcoholic.
Just to highlight the seriousness of the disease in the US, statistics from the National Council of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence show that over 18 million Americans abuse alcohol. The more serious consequences include more than 100,000 American alcohol related deaths and on the road, 50% of deaths are alcohol related.
Even the hardened alcohol drinkers quite often refuse to admit they are addicts. They, therefore, try to drink stealthily. They keep their quota of drinks hidden at unlikely places in home, workplace or cars. Once they start drinking, they find it difficult to control their urge to drink more. They start gulping the liquor greedily ordering ‘doubles’.
They tend to forget their social commitments and conversations. This obliviousness is termed as ‘blacking out’. They lose their interest in healthy entertainments, activities and hobbies that bring them pleasure. They reveal Pavlovian symptoms as their drinking time nears. Their urge for drink becomes irresistible as the minutes pass by. They become irritable if they are denied their daily doze of alcohol. The alcoholics, by and large, enter into legal disputes with their relatives, employers and financiers. They build a kind of tolerance towards alcohol. The more they drink it, the more they want it to feel its effects.
Alcoholism or physical dependence on alcohol takes place gradually. The increase in ingestion of alcohol alters the balance in brain chemicals such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which impedes its impulsiveness while glutamate excites the nervous system. Alcohol also elevates the dopamine level in the brain which is associated with the excitable aspects of drinking alcohol. Excessive and continued intake of alcohol affects the status of the chemicals by either multiplying or depleting them. This process causes the body to either crave for alcohol to restore the pleasurable feelings or to avoid negative feelings.
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