The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NI-AAA), a federal agency that researches and educates the public about alcohol use, defines moderate alcohol consumption as up to two standard drinks per day for men and one for women and older people, amounts that are not considered physically harmful. Addiction expert Margaret O. Hyde explains that the vast majority of people who drink are able to limit their alcohol intake to these safe levels: For most people, alcohol is not addictive and may never be a problem. In moderate amounts, the indirect effect of alcohol on the body is usually one of stimulation that produces a mood of emotional freedom. Most people who drink do so in a responsible manner by carefully choosing the time, place, and amount. But some people are unable to limit or control their drinking. Once they start drinking they seemingly cannot stop and will continue downing bottles of beer and shots of liquor long after other people have realized it is prudent to quit. It is estimated that 15 million adults (15 percent of the drinkers in the United States) regularly consume more than the recommended daily amount and that just 10 percent of drinkers account for 50 percent of the alcohol drunk Read more [...]

The word alcoholic and its companion word, alcoholism, were coined in 1848 by Magnus Huss, a Swedish scientist. Prior to that time, the condition was referred to as chronic or continual drunkenness, and the person who suffered from the condition was known as a drunkard. In his landmark 1960 book The Disease Concept of Alcoholism, Dr. E. M. Jellinek, who did more than anyone else to make the medical establishment recognize alcoholism as a disease, provided a simple definition for this kind of destructive drinking: “Alcoholism is any use of alcoholic beverages that causes any damage to the individual or society or both.” Jellinek made his explanation of this disease so simple and broad that everyone could understand it and accept it. In the decades since Jellinek defined alcoholism, medical experts have refined his original concept. Alcoholism is now considered an addiction, one that is potentially as destructive to the individual as an addiction to illegal drugs such as cocaine or heroin. The medical field has also created new terminology for heavy drinkers that can be used in place of alcoholic. Generally, anyone who drinks too much on a consistent basis can be considered a problem drinker. Medical experts also differentiate Read more [...]

Centuries before Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel laid the mathematical framework for the science of genetics in 1866, many people already believed that alcoholism ran in families. They could easily see that sons and daughters of heavy drinkers all too often drank too much themselves. Benjamin Rush, a doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence, noted in his 1784 book An Inquiry into the Effect of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind that “drunkenness resembles certain hereditary, family, and contagious diseases.” Genetics and Alcoholism Scientists are currently trying to understand how a person’s genetic makeup affects their health, such as whether they will be susceptible to heart disease or cancer. This genetic investigation also includes research into why some people are more susceptible than others to having problems controlling their drinking. Research has already proven that a person’s genetic makeup can increase his or her risk of having drinking problems, including studies on twins separated at birth who both grew up to become alcoholics. Genetic study of alcoholism now centers on finding which genes influence how a person reacts to alcohol. However, the Tenth Special Report to the U.S. Congress Read more [...]

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, scientists learned that intoxication is caused by how alcohol affects the brain. Similar studies have shown that alcohol dependence can be linked to how alcohol reacts with the brain and how it can change the brain through long-term exposure. “The fact is,” explains Dr. Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), “[alcohol] addiction is a brain disease.” The first way that the brain influences whether a person will have trouble controlling his or her drinking is how it reacts to alcohol. When addictive substances such as alcohol reach the brain, they cause the release of dopamine, a chemical that produces sensations of pleasure. Generally, people who become addicted to alcohol experience intense pleasure the first time they drink. Gloria, an alcoholic, remembers that when she drank for the first time at age fifteen, “it really made me feel good. For the first time, I really felt all right. ” The pleasurable sensation Gloria experienced was caused by the release of dopamine. One theory that researchers are investigating is whether the brains of alcoholics like Gloria respond to alcohol by releasing more dopamine than those of other Read more [...]

David J. Hanson, a sociology professor with the State University of New York at Potsdam, believes that a mother and father have more power than anyone else to shape their children’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors toward alcohol: “Parents are much more influential than they generally realize.” In support of his statement, Hanson cites a poll in the August 1996 issue of the Roper Youth Report. When asked what or who could sway their decisions about drinking, 62 percent of American youths aged twelve to seventeen identified their parents as the leading influence. The strong role parents play in shaping their children’s attitudes toward drinking is another reason — in addition to their genetic inheritance — that children of alcoholics are likely to struggle with alcohol. Although some young people who grow up in alcoholic homes vow never to follow the example set by their parents, studies show that many young people repeat the behaviors they see in their own homes. They may come to believe that consuming a great deal of alcohol and even getting drunk every day is a normal way to live and that alcohol is an important — even necessary — part of any family or social occasion. Those beliefs make it as easy for Read more [...]

Nobody ever takes their first drink with the intention of one day becoming an alcoholic. Dr. Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, explains that addiction is something that sneaks up on most people: “This unexpected consequence is what I have come to call the oops phenomenon. Why oops? Because the harmful outcome is in no way intentional.” Unintentional though it may be, alcohol addiction does indeed cause great harm. Wendy’s story is an example of how alcohol can ruin a life. Wendy had her first drink at age thirteen at a school dance on her first date. Her initial experience with alcohol was so enjoyable that she kept drinking. Within three years her life had changed — and not for the better. Wendy explains: At first [drinking] was on a rare basis. And then it became almost a daily thing that you start looking forward to. I mean, it just slowly takes over your life. You don’t know that it’s beginning to take a priority, except one day you wake up and you know you’ve got to have it, because you can’t function [without it]. Alcohol gradually replaced everything in my life that I loved. Wendy had become an alcoholic. In the process, she was transformed from good student to dropout. Read more [...]

Although there are many unpleasant short-term consequences — from a punishing hangover to the possibility of being arrested for drunk driving — most of the devastating outcomes of heavy drinking take time to develop. These problems become progressively more serious as alcohol steadily destroys the drinker’s ability to function in every phase of his or her life, whether as a worker, family member, or friend. Many alcoholics, for example, have trouble doing their jobs and often miss days at work because they are sick or drunk. “I’d stay out late,” admitted Barbara. “I found myself losing jobs.” Alcoholics, through their drinking, often injure family and personal relationships by killing the love these people have for them. Their drinking hurts family members, who anguish over seeing loved ones slowly destroy themselves with alcohol. When they are confronted with their excessive drinking, many drinkers react angrily or, like Jim, start covering up their alcohol use: I would hide bottles all over the house and tell my wife I wasn’t going to have anything to drink at night except two beers. Then when she was on the phone or taking a bath, I’d run get a bottle and take a big drink. She smelled alcohol on my breath, Read more [...]

The difficulty alcoholics have in controlling their emotions often leads them to make one poor choice after another. This may include driving while drunk — which not only endangers the alcoholic but many other people as well. In 1998 alone, alcohol-related accidents killed 15,935 Americans and injured another 305,000. Drinking is also a factor in one-third of all drownings and boating and aviation deaths as well as many other types of accidental fatalities. Harry Milt, in Alcoholism, Its Causes and Cure: A New Handbook, explains that alcohol greatly relaxes a person’s normal sense of inhibition and restraint: “Cheating and stealing are no longer out of the question… In general, the disinhibiting effect of alcohol enables the drinker to do things he wanted to do while sober but could not do because of conscience, shame, guilt, fear, prudence, or common sense.” This lack of inhibition leads people to do stupid things. Author Susan Brink lists some of the humiliating, disturbing actions that people she interviewed for a magazine article on alcoholism admitted they did: Inga fell down a flight of stairs with her infant in her arms. Mark had five wives, and five divorces. Betty polished off a pint of vodka, then Read more [...]

The physical effects of chronic alcohol abuse are wide-ranging and complex because alcohol reaches every cell and organ of the body. Alcohol damages the liver, the central nervous system, the gastrointestinal tract, and the heart. People who drink heavily for a long period generally decrease their life expectancy by ten to fifteen years. The NIAAA estimates that more than ninety thousand Americans die each year from alcohol-related diseases. This figure is about 5 percent of all deaths in the United States, ranking alcohol use as the fourth major cause of death in America. Heavy drinking causes so many physical problems that about 40 percent of all hospital admissions are alcohol-related, and alcoholics use health services at twice the rate of the general population. The most common and serious health problems occur in the liver, which performs many essential functions and is vital to life. It breaks down proteins, carbohydrates, and fats from food so the body can use them, stores vitamins and other substances the body needs, removes waste and toxic matter from the blood, and regulates blood volume. One of the substances the liver breaks down so the body can use it is alcohol, but chemical by-products from this Read more [...]

Research has proven that continued exposure to large amounts of alcohol causes significant changes in the brain’s physical structure and impairs how it functions. These changes include modifications in the shape of brain cells and a noticeable shrinking of the brain itself; autopsies of alcoholics have consistently shown their brains to be smaller and lighter than those of other people of the same age and gender. A reduction in brain size is just one of many changes caused by heavy drinking, none of them healthy. Studies indicate that 50 to 75 percent of heavy drinkers show some kind of impairment in the way they think and reason, even after they detoxify and abstain from alcohol. And according to the NIAAA, alcoholic dementia is die second-leading cause of adult dementia in the United States, accounting for 10 percent of such cases and second only to Alzheimer’s disease. Dementia is a condition in which the brain’s ability to function has been reduced. This can adversely affect a person’s ability to remember things, to understand abstract concepts, to speak clearly, and to perform fine physical movements, impairments that make it harder for people to function normally. Approximately 9 percent of alcoholics have Read more [...]