Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
This research paper explains the problem concerning alcohol, the addicted brain and society. This paper is supported in part by five peer reviewed and scholarly resources, journals and scientific studies, plus several electronic web sites. This is a pharmacology-related paper and the theme is relevant to the discipline of addiction pharmacology. The paper explores articles and their relationship to alcohol – addicted brain and addicted society. The research examines why people use drugs and alcohol (Blair, 2011), and alcohol effects on health (Hingson and Rehm, 2014). Michael Kuhar (2011) in his study explained the effect of alcohol on human brain and society that provides reliable support to the research paper. The alcohol research report by Andreasson, Chikritzhs, Dangardt, Holder, Naimi and Stockwell (2014) gives supportive evidence to this global alcohol problem. Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
Keywords: alcohol, addicted, brain, society
Alcohol – The Addicted Brain and our Addicted Society
Since, like everything else in humans lives, has become technology driven, and there are amazing modern approaches and tools that allows humans to examine the tiniest parts of their chromosomes or peer into the depth of their brains without surgical invasion of the skull. These instruments are powerful and interesting in and out of themselves (Kuhar, 2011). Numerous studies have been conducted on various aspects of alcohol addiction, but what more crucial is to answer the questions concerning drugs and alcohol.
What is alcohol?
Alcohol is a drug. It is known as a depressant that slows vital functions, resulting in unsteady movement, inability to react quickly, slurred speech, and disturbed perception. It is a drug that reduces the ability to think rationally and distorts individual’s judgment. The amount of alcohol consumed determines the type of effect on the brain. According to the Drug Free World Organization (2006) and its truth about alcohol, most people drink for the stimulant effect, such as a glass of wine or a beer taken to loosen control and behavior; but if a person consumes more than the body can deal with, they would experience alcohol’s depressant effect, and start to feel embarrassed, lose control and coordination. Alcohol overdose results in more serious depressant effects like toxicity where the body vomits the poison, inability to feel pain, unconsciousness or, even, coma or death from serious toxic overdose. Depressant effect depends on how quickly and how much is consumed by individual. Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
Why people use drugs and alcohol
Nowadays people livein a get-rich-quick, slim-down-fast, make-it-easy-for-them society. In their modern world it is very important to humans to try everything, as that gives them knowledge of the world around, develops perspectives and opportunities, and helps to form opinions and points of view concerning different situations in life. Many people have never experienced addictions of any kind, and for them it is still difficult to realize the logic behind the drug abuse.
Blair (2011), a social justice advocate for individuals addicted to drugs and alcohol, wrote that “with drug use becoming more and more prevalent in America, it was common for society to interest and discover the reasons why people use drugs and alcohol” (para. 1). She explained the reasons why people addicted to drugs illustrating how they struggled with the darkest moments of addiction, and how drugs altered the thinking patterns in individual’s brain which could distort logic and rationality (Blair, 2011). Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
Why do people use alcohol? According to Blair (2011), people suffering from anxiety, bipolar disorders, depression, or other mental illnesses use drugs and alcohol to ease their suffering; they see family members, friends, role models or entertainers using alcohol or other drugs and rationalize that they can try the same; people become bored and think alcohol helps to relieve stress; people get physically injured and intentionally get hooked on prescribed drugs; finally they chase the high they once experienced.
Drug Experience and Alcohol Effects
Societyhas to understand how alcohol affects the body and the brain. Alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream through small blood vessels in the walls of the stomach and small intestine. Alcohol goes from the stomach to the brain within minutes of drinking, where it quickly causes its effect, slowing the functioning of nerve cells. Nearly the 20% of alcohol is absorbed through the stomach, and other 80% is absorbed through the small intestine. Alcohol travels through the bloodstream to the liver, where it metabolizes only a certain amount at time, leaving the excess circulating through the body. As a result, the effect on the body and brain depends on the amount consumed.Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
According to Hingson and Rehm (2014), measuring the impact of alcohol consumption on morbidity and mortality depends on the accurate measurement of alcohol exposure, risk relationships and results. Their study showed that for children, adolescence, and students, consequences might be further in the future because of the relations between age of alcohol use and alcohol dependence. The most crucial consequence was alcohol-attribute death, and a comparison to all-cause deaths during that stage of life revealed that alcohol was the most important reason for mortality and serious illnesses (Hingson & Rehm, 2014).
Hingson and Rehm (2014) found “although women in all countries drink less, have less heavy-drinking occasions, and experience less alcohol-attributable harm than men, this gap seems to be closing in several countries including the United States” (Overview of Measuring the Burden: Alcohols Involving Impact, para. 9), but as for the ethnicity and race, Native Americans, Hispanic, and Blacks experience higher rates of alcohol-attribute harm than Whites in the United States (Hingson & Rehm, 2014).
Alcohol addictions
Some research concerning the effects of alcohol on psychological processes and biological development, showed that, even over the shorter time frame of adolescence, drinking alcohol could harm the liver, bones, endocrine system, and brain, and interfered with growth (“The Effects of Alcohol on Psychological Processes and Biological Development”, n.d.). This research explained that adolescence was a period of rapid growth and physical development, and the question was focused on consuming alcohol during that stage. Results showed that alcohol could disrupt development in ways that have long-term effect and consequences.Evidence was significant, for example in animal models, that early alcohol use might have detrimental effects on the developing brain, perhaps leading to problems with cognition later in life.Results showed that early exposure to alcohol (at or before age 14) was strongly associated with later alcohol abuse and dependence. Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
There were provided some further explanations concerning the effect: early alcohol use could be a simple reason for later alcohol abuse, and evidence illustrated that at least one behavioral factor, behavioral under control, was measurable very early in life and was a consistently strong indicator of earlier alcohol use as well as of elevated risk for later alcohol use disorder (“The Effects of Alcohol on Psychological Processes and Biological Development”, n. d., 2004-2005).
The effect of alcohol on human brain and society
As teenagers and young adults, it is very easy to believe that drugs and alcohol use can be controlled and handled, especially if they observe others doing the same thing. Thus, it can become easy to rationalize: people around have been doing that for a couple of years and they seem good to others.
Entertainment and music is full of drugs references that can supplement to the rationalization that alcohol use is fine sometimes (Blair, 2011). According to Blair (2011), individuals with a family history of alcohol or drug abuse are far more likely to develop an addiction than an individual with no family background of addiction (para.4). Michael Kuhar (2011) in his study explained the effect of alcohol on human brain and society. His study illustrated that addiction destroyed human lives and explained why and how that happened revealing the advances in drug addiction treatment and prevention. Kuhar showed the significant long-term brain changes that drugs could cause, and explained why it could be so complicated for addicts to control their physical condition, brain functioning, and behavior (“The Addicted brain: Why we Abuse Drugs, Alcohol and Nicotine” ).
Kuhar’s (2011) study explains the following (2011): Many individuals and families know from first-hand experience how harmful addiction can be, not only for the drug users, but also to individuals around them. The consequences of drug use include damaging families, relationships or communities, and perhaps increasing the risks for serious illnesses or crimes. Often drug user has vowed to stop and has tried to stop many times only to fall back and relapse into further drug use or dependence. The resulting feeling of helplessness, impotence, and failure can engulf and doom someone’s entire world” (chapt. 9).Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society According to the Alcohol Research Report (2014), alcohol is a toxic substance with psychoactive properties and the capability to cause dependence among users along with a variety of other health conditions. Globally, about 3.3 million deaths or 5.9% of all deaths were estimated to be caused by alcohol in 2012. This figure is a net figure estimated after the assumed beneficial effects of low-dose alcohol consumption have been taken into account (Andreasson, Chikritzhs, Dangardt, Holder, Naimi & Stockwell, 2014). The research report showed that for individuals aged 15–49 years, alcohol was the leading health-related risk factor worldwide, followed by tobacco smoking, high blood pressure and high bodymass index. Report by Andreasson, Chikritzhs, Dangardt, Holder, Naimi and Stockwell (2014) illustrated that this factor was more significant than, for example, the proportion of deaths from HIV/AIDS (2.8%), violence (0.9%) or tuberculosis (1.7%). The estimated negative effect on the global burden of disease from alcohol is more than 30 times as large as the beneficial effect (Alcohol Research Report, p. 9).
Terrifying Statistics
According to the statistics concerning the impact of alcohol abuse on American society, alcohol related crashes kills people in the U.S. every 22 minutes, and at any minute, one of 50 drivers on the road is drunk and every weekend night, one out of 10 is drunk. This leads to awful number of traffic fatalities annually. The damage caused by alcohol impaired drivers is the same as if a Boeing 747 with over 500 passengers crashed every eight days killing everyone (The Impact of Alcohol Abuse on American Society, para. 4).
Research by Moss (2013) showed that family members, including children, exposed to a first-degree relative’s alcohol problem were at risk for problems. As a result, children of parents with alcohol addiction, for example, showed higher rates of alcoholism than children who did not have parents with an alcohol addiction. It was important for social workers to keep in mind that alcohol and alcohol problems affected the health, safety, and well-being of people (Moss, 2013).Adolescents are especially at risk, because media messages advertize alcohol and minimize the serious consequences of alcohol problems. The numbers are frightening, thus society has to remember that people who begin using alcohol at an early age are more likely to become alcoholics. Thus, modeling responsible behavior is an important prevention method. Alcohol is legal, and many people do drink, but it is crucially important for adults to show a respect for alcohol and avoid behavior that put the family or others at risk. Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society
Conclusions
According to the recent researches, the evidence shows that alcohol is the most common drug used among adults in the United States of America. As a result, the addiction to alcohol leads to an increased risk of accidents and injuries (traffic fatalities related to drugs and alcohol, number of handgun or violent crimes, number of murders, AIDS related to drug use, number of babies born annually with problems related to alcohol). Even a simple action of excessive drinking can cause a negative result. Alcoholism is a drug and the chronic use of alcohol causes numerous medical, social, family, and psychiatric problems. Humanity should realize that alcohol and alcohol addiction affects the safety, health, behavior, and well-being of people. Alcohol – Addicted Brain & Our Addicted Society