Alcoholism: A Road To Self Destruction

"First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Alcoholism is a disease that makes a person too selfish to see the havoc he created and care about the people he/she shattered. It is killing people in many different ways. The people who drink on a regular basis have a higher rate of deaths from injury, accidents and some cancers.
Some cultures encourage alcohol and that is when we get the idea that it isn't dangerous. However, alcohol is the most potent and most toxic of the legal psychoactive drugs. Infact alcoholism is a great way to ruin things. It is like a solvent that dissolves marriages, families and careers.
Globally, 107 million people are estimated to have an alcohol use disorder. This breakdown can be viewed by gender for any country here; 70 percent globally(75 million) were male relative to 32 million females. It increased the most in middle-income and low-income regions, such as China, India, Vietnam. Alcohol consumption in India amounted to about 5.4 billion litres in 2016 and was estimated to reach about 6.5 billion litres by 2020. This steady increase in consuming these beverages can be attributed to multiple factors including the rising levels of disposable income and a growing urban population among others.
Also 85.6 percent of people ages 18 and older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime, according to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health(NSDUH).
Usually stress, tension reduction and reinforcement are common causes of alcoholism. Normally such people are dissatisfied with life and has very less stress tolerance capacity. This view has been especially emphasized by the American Medical Association Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency(1969). According to Schafer, alcoholism is a conditioned response to anxiety. When the person find that each time he takes alcohol it reduces his anxiety, stress and gives him relaxation, he/she is further reinforced and encouraged to take it more and more until he becomes alcoholic. Also people with a harsh superego turn to alcohol as a means of reducing their unconscious stress.

                                       

Bandura(1969) stated that delayed consequences are very harmful and destructive for the person ; yet people are more influenced and controlled by the immediate effect. Alcoholism is estimated to be linked with at least 50 percent of traffic accidents, 50 percent homicides, 25 percent of suicides and a large number of deaths in a year due to alcohol related diseases that can be chronic diseases or serious problems such as- High blood pressure, heart stroke, liver diseases, cardiomyopathy, cancers of breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon and rectum etc.
Alcoholism is a special kind of hell. It takes the soul of the addicts and breaks the hearts of everyone who love them. It causes good people to do terrible things. Even if one person is alcoholic in a family, the whole family suffers leading to domestic disputes, violence, divorces and this also makes the children in family undergo mental and psychological breakdown leaving a lifelong scar on their lives.
Drinking of an individual in a family can lead the negligence of important duties, needing time to nurse hangovers, encountering legal problems like displaying disorderly conduct in public, driving under the influence etc. In middle-income and low-income families, it might even cause serious financial problems, making the whole family undergo miseries and hardships.
Nowadays, several treatments are available to treat alcoholism. But the most successful way of treatment is when the person is determined and voluntarily participate in its treatments and procedures. This self-awareness that alcohol is undesirable for them is to be aroused by someone since it has tremendous impact on their treatment as alcoholism requires flexibility and individualization of treatment procedures. Biological measures, aversion therapy are some methods to treat alcoholism. A few psychosocial measures such as group therapy, socio-therapy, alcoholics anonymous etc can also be used that can prove to be a lot of help.

"When life gives you lemon, make lemonade.

 When life gives you alcohol, just stay away."