Find Out How You Can Deal With Alcoholism, In A Simple Way.
Is Your Drinking Out of Control? Take Back Your Life Today!
The American Medical Association (AMA) defines alcoholism as an illness or disease. Cancer Web's medical dictionary defines alcoholism as a disorder characterized by a pathological pattern of alcohol use that causes a serious impairment in social or occupational functioning. A disease is medically defined as an alteration of the state of the body or some of its organs, interrupting or disturbing the performance of vital functions, and causing or threatening pain or weakness.
Alcoholism is a chronic disease that makes your body dependent on alcohol. You may be obsessed with alcohol and unable to control how much you drink, even though your drinking may be causing serious problems with your relationships, your health, your work and your finances.
It's also possible to have a problem with alcohol, but not display all the characteristics of alcoholism. This is known as "alcohol abuse," which means you engage in excessive drinking that causes health or social problems, but you aren't dependent on alcohol and haven't fully lost control over the use of alcohol. Not Yet!
The important thing to note is that alcoholism is not a lifestyle choice. It's a disease, an actual impairment of the body's health that prevents the person from functioning normally and causes not only pain to the alcoholic but also to family and friends. Let's look at the statistics.
- Alcohol contributes to 100,000 deaths annually, making it the third leading cause of preventable mortality in the United States, after tobacco and diet/activity patterns.
- More than seven percent of the population ages 18 years and older -- nearly 13.8 million Americans -- have problems with drinking, including 8.1 million people who are alcoholic.
- Almost three times as many men (9.8 million) as women (3.9 million) are problem drinkers, and prevalence is highest for both sexes in the 18-to-29 age group.
- About 43% of U.S. adults -- 76 million people -- have been exposed to alcoholism in the family -- they grew up with or married an alcoholic or a problem drinker or had a blood relative who was an alcoholic or problem drinker.
- 62% of high school seniors report that they have been drunk; 31% say they have had five or more drinks in a row during the last two weeks.
- People who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at age 21.
- 3.1 million Americans -- approximately 1.4% of the population age 12 and older -- receive treatment for alcoholism and alcohol-related problems; treatment peaked among people 26-34.
- Studies of suicide victims in the general population show that about 20% are alcoholics.
From these statistics, it can be concluded that alcoholism is truly an equal opportunity destroyer. It adversely affects people from every occupation, nationality, political party, income group, religious affiliation, race, and gender.
As a result, it is important for every child, adolescent, and adult in our society to learn about alcoholism so that they can avoid the damaging and debilitating consequences of this devastating disease.
If you liked this article and would like more information concerning alcohol consumption and alcoholism, visit our website at www.mickyoung.com/alcoholism today!
by: Mick Young
The Cost Of Care Giving Who to Approach for Litigation Concerns Why a Student Can't Find a Good Job. The Wide-Spread Mistakes Microcontroller Programming Tutorial Will Surely Assist You In More Ways Than One Exmoor - Explore Exmoor How To Choose A Portable Document Scanner Legends behind semen Série Doenças Negligenciadas Chicken Coop Nesting Boxes - Check This Out The Cause of Fibromyalgia New Break Through For Diabetics On How To Reduce Glucose Levels Up To 50% A humildade é o primeiro degrau Off Sweetspot Hits Don't Matter - TaylorMade Burner
Find Out How You Can Deal With Alcoholism, In A Simple Way. Rosemead