Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a chronic disease caused by systematic use of alcoholic beverages; it is characterized by an addiction to them, and leads to mental and physical disorders. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an alcoholic is a person depending on alcohol, who suffers from mental and physical disabilities, who violates social and community ties. Alcoholism is a very serious illness. Throughout the world, every alcoholic has the right for a treatment.

Symptoms of Alcoholism:

• Constant craving for alcohol.
• Uncontrolled consumption of alcohol.
• Impaired memory and consciousness.
• Organ’s damage, such as cirrhosis, gastritis, pancreatitis, cardiovascular diseases.

Dependence on alcohol is caused by biochemical and psychological factors. Alcohol is absorbed through the mucous membranes of the mouth and stomach, and blood flow is distributed throughout the body. Later, alcohol is cleaved in the liver. It is assumed, that one of the reasons for painful craving for alcohol is a genetic defect, which slows down due to the splitting of alcohol in the liver.

Alcoholics should be treated by psychiatrists and psychologists. One must completely stop drinking. Sudden cessation of alcohol use causes withdrawal symptoms. Alcoholics often have severe physical and mental disorders.
Most often people suffering from alcohol addiction cannot help themselves. However, the positive impact of therapeutic self-help group visits are obvious.

If you find it hard to give up alcohol and control its consumption, you should seek medical advice. Unfortunately, very few people recognize their illness as being alcoholics. Often, they have to be treated only under duress, or just after a drunkard got seriously injured or caused the accident himself.
The doctor examines the patient and finds out how the addiction affected his organs. Then he prescribes a special course of treatment.

Alcoholism is an excessive alcohol consumption that has a deleterious effect on health, work, welfare, and morals of society. In this regard, alcoholism is not only a medical but also a social problem. Its social consequences, as opposed to health, can be formed at the stage of everyday drinking.

Alcoholism is a disease caused by the systematic use of alcoholic beverages that which manifests physical and mental dependence on alcohol. By itself, alcohol is not a psychotic disorder, but it appears almost in the whole psychiatric scale: exogenous psychoses, as a consequence of impaired metabolism of endogenous psychoses provoked by drunkenness. Drinker undergoes the three stages of alcoholism.

Stage I is characterized by increased tolerance (tolerance) to alcohol, the disappearance of the gag reflex, the emergence of psychological dependence with a thrust to a state of intoxication, reduced quantitative controls (taken an overdose of drink), a violation of previously acquired communicative relationships.

Stage II is accompanied by the development of hangover syndrome and the need for re-admission of alcohol for temporary relief of their condition. The duration of alcohol withdrawal state is gradually increasing, which leads to the emergence of various forms of drunkenness.

Stage III is characterized by reduced tolerance to alcohol, a significant deterioration in physical health due to alcohol damage of internal organs and severe neurological disorders. Enhanced features of social degradation and intellectual-mental disorders develop apathetic state, which usually is denoted as alcoholic dementia. Addiction to alcohol is no longer of mental nature, but it becomes of biochemical nature.

Alcoholism is a disease caused by the systematic use of alcoholic beverages, characterized by an addiction to them, leading to mental and physical disorders and violation of social relationship with a person suffering from this disease.

The very first symptom of alcoholism is a pathological craving for alcohol (alcoholism patients themselves call it a craving for alcohol). Drinking one cannot really realize their craving for alcohol for a long time, explaining their drinking traditions by a certain situation, the desire to spend time, talk with friends, trouble, and other causes. But the situational and traditional abuse cannot be infinite, and all the trouble, sooner or later pass.

The likelihood of alcoholism and the pace of its development depend on several factors: individual predisposition caused by heredity, personal characteristics, and social conditions.

Alcoholism in its course passes through three series of successive stages. The transition from one stage to another takes place gradually and imperceptibly.

The consequences of chronic alcoholism are numerous. They are accompanied by mental disorders and leading to degradation of the individuality. Alcoholism, like any chronic disease that poorly responds to healing, is prone to constant aggravation of the symptoms of alcoholism. Binges are getting heavier. The so-called “Lucid intervals” are becoming shorter and the periods of alcohol consumption – longer and longer. After that, alcoholic may experience disorders of hearing, vision, hallucinations, constant stressful feeling etc. During the chronic alcoholism the cardiovascular system disrupted, dramatically increasing the pressure, heart rate quickens, causing heart pains. Gradually work, family fade into the background – all of the patient’s alcohol abuse aimed at getting another dose of alcohol. Since alcoholism is often associated with such diseases as cirrhosis and chronic gastritis, they quickly develop and cause irreparable damage to the body.