Alcohol can be found anywhere these days; from your local liquor store, to a large supermarket, to the quiet corner shop on your street. Many people do not see alcohol as any sort of threat and like to include it in their lives. People argue that there’s no harm in alcohol because drinking a few beers can help make you more sociable, relaxed, and confident. So what’s the issue?
The issue comes in the stats. Research estimates a whopping 86 percent of Americans will drink at some point in their lives and 70 percent drink at least once per year. While that may come as no surprise, there is no other addictive drug with the same kinds of statistics. Having an alcohol addiction problem is serious and can cause major long term damage to your body.
The effects alcohol can have on your body
There are many dangerous effects alcohol can have on your body. These effects range from the short term brain impairments from being intoxicated, to the serious long term conditions alcohol can cause. Believe it or not, alcoholism kills five times more people each year than all other drugs combined. More than 100,000 deaths are attributed to drinking every year. These deaths are often drawn out and very painful since alcohol slowly degrades the body by eroding critical health systems. The damage it causes is often irreversible; most commonly alcohol is attributed to:
Fatty Liver Disease – This condition causes a buildup of extra fat in the liver, making it harder for the organ to process and
Often, the alcohol will bring out a violent temper and often, alcoholics abuse, physically and mentally, their friends and family. Drinking makes the drinker feel he is more confident. The drinker thinks he is in control, even if a little high, and he might get behind the wheel of his car and go for a drive. Drunk driving is deadly. Hundreds of thousands of people get killed every year due to drunk driving.(Castro 60) Other physical effects of drinking are vomiting, passing out and sometimes, if enough alcohol is consumed over a long enough period of time, or if mixed with other drugs, death.
The risks of drinking alcohol are health issues, your body wouldn’t stay fit if you are drinking too much. Health issues for drinking can be a serious and damageable for you.
While rising a glass every now and then may be okay, excessive alcohol consumption can lead to extreme alcohol abuse and even alcoholism. The society we live in is strongly prejudiced by alcohol, and affects people of all ages, gender, and background. It has been uncovered to millionaires to the homeless. Alcohol abuse has been a problem throughout the history of humanity; it is a disease which has caused many people to be overcome with trouble, problems, and debts also pattern of drinking that interferes with day-to-day activities. Alcoholism is a term that is widely recognized throughout the United States and the World. Alcoholism is a chronic disease, progressive and often turn fatal; it is a disorder and not due to other diseases or emotional problems. Many scientists have tried to pinpoint what Alcoholism is, and what this disease may be stemming from. Some people would dispute that alcoholism is only the over-consumption of alcohol; this statement is only somewhat true. An alcoholic is a person who relies on alcohol as a medium to help him or her deal with physical, emotional, or spiritual needs. It’s not always easy to see when drinking has crossed the line from moderate or social use to problem drinking. When dealing with Alcoholism a person over comes a lot of problems. Alcohol Abuse is high in the United States, “In the USA, 15% of Americans are problem drinkers, while between 5% to 10% of male and 3% to 5% of female drinkers could be diagnosed as alcohol
In United States history, a major conflict in the 1900s started with the introduction of the 18th Amendment stating the prohibition of alcohol. “The legal drinking age in the United States is 21. However, this was not the case until 1984, when the National Minimum Drinking Age Act required the 50 states to raise their drinking age to 21 or lose 10 percent of their federal highway money. While this was expected to prevent the dangerous behavior, it actually has made young Americans more likely to binge-drink” (Warvin and Hall 1). Thus, causing a problem with underage drinking. Banning the sale of alcohol to anyone under twenty-one causes a want to binge drink and that can lead to more teen deaths in the United States because of drunk
While many people view consuming alcohol as charming, it is indeed detrimental to a person’s health and well-being. “[As of] 2013, 86.6 percent of people ages eighteen and older have drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime…56.4 percent reported that they drank in the past month” (NIAAA). Drinking is the cause of many accident inflicted hospital visits, increases the risk for a plethora of illness, and is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States (NIAAA).
1. What is alcoholism? 2. How do people become alcoholics? 3. What are the effects of alcoholism, on both the alcoholic and their family? 4. How do you diagnose alcoholism? 5. Is there a cure for alcoholics? 6. What is the treatment? What is Alcoholism? Alcoholism can be defined as the dependency on alcohol; addiction to alcohol. It is a chronic disease, this disease called alcoholism is progressive and potentially fatal. “ In 1966 the American Medical Association (AMA) declared Alcoholism a disease, but it is still judged morally by society” said Father Martin. There are different types of alcoholics, the first type of alcoholic is the everyday drinker. These alcoholics drink on a daily basis with a high dependency on alcohol. A
Some music lovers actually prefer the grainy sound of vinyl records played on a stereo, however, turntables can be hard to purchase and repair.
In this day and age, when it comes to alcohol consumption and laws of alcohol use in countries around the world, many people debate about whether the legal drinking age should be raised, lowered, or stay the same. What about a society where alcohol would be illegal?? Well, when it comes to the sheer number of deaths that occur from drunk driving alone, you’d end up agreeing with it. To add to this, addiction is always a risk to be taken into consideration, because it leads to alcohol poisoning, eventually causing death. All in all, alcohol is something that is just as addictive as any other drug, and should it be treated as an illegal drug as well. The following are just some of the many reasons why this should be so.
"The long term effects of alcohol on the body include liver disease, various cancers, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, memory loss and death." (It Makes You Think...the Invisible Effects of Alcohol). Over time, the intake of too much alcohol causes one's body to shut down. One of the vital organs that's needed to live is the heart. The heart preforms many functions including the pumping of the blood through the veins in order to receive oxygen and maintaining a steady heartbeat. The average heavy drinker will cause effects on the heart including uncommon heart patterns and demolishing the heart muscle. Another important organ that liquor damages is the liver. People need their liver in order for the human body to function properly. "The liver is so important that humans can only survive one or two days if it shuts down." (Sharon R. Kaufuman) Alcohol increases the chances of that happening; and heavy use of alcohol "causes the liver to become scarred (known as cirrhosis) and it can cause permanent damage which also can lead to death." (Alcohol-Related Liver
It may not seem like a big problem, but today it is one of the biggest problems with alcohol all over the world. “Heavy drinking, especially bingeing, makes platelets more likely to clump together into blood clots, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. In a landmark study published in 2005, Harvard researchers found that binge drinking doubled the risk of death among people who initially survived a heart attack”(WebMD). The human body isn't something to mess with. People need to be more aware of what they are doing to their bodies, especially binge drinking, it has become a major problem and can lead to death a lot faster than someone might
As you begin to read this, while you are sitting at your desk or relaxing at home, someone else just got the call that their child, who was riding home from school with a friend, is dead. Someone was driving under the influence, and struck her daughter and her friend head on. They died before the medics could arrive, and any last goodbye was gone forever. The person who killed their daughter is an underage drinker, and has been drinking since he was fifteen years old. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in about forty-nine minutes someone else in America will get their life taken away because of the same reason. The problem is obviously alcohol, but what can we do to fix it? Well Ms. Bice, instead of passing
These recommended serving sizes are rarely followed and can even lead to alcoholism. Alcoholism is obtained from prolong alcohol abuse and causes the user to become dependent on alcohol to the point where the body can not function without it. These people will continue to drink, even after suffering social and personal losses. This can lead to disruptive behavior such as driving under the influence and domestic violence. According to the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2013, 18 million US citizens over the age of 12 needed treatment for alcohol use. Alcohol can be a very dangerous substance, but it is not the only substance we have to be aware
“More than 80 percent of smokers and ex-smokers regret they ever started smoking in the first place.” (IBTimes). Lung cancer, brain defects, heart problems, losing teeth, ruining family relationships, wasting money, and early deaths are all resulting factors that revolve around smoking nicotine. The effects of nicotine have impacted the lives of many people more negatively than positively based off personal testimonies. Smoking nicotine at an early age has resulted in the educational lives of young teenagers to be ruined because of their faulty decisions. Children also suffer from second hand smoking nicotine because of a decision their parents make by smoking around them in small households. Nicotine has been sold as early as 1828 and is currently legal to sell in the United States, but should be outlawed do to the negative effects and impacts it has on people who smoke it such as; leading to smoke other substances, physical defects, and ruining social relationships.
Effects of alcohol include difficulties making desicoions, and a slow reaction time. However, this is just a portion of the dangerous things alcohol can do to you. Alcohol also affects your liver, nervous system and heart - this happens when ethanol enters your bloodstream. When ethanol enters your bloodstream, it slows you down - increasing your risk of accidents, attacking others - and even pregnancy as you may make extremely unsafe decisions.
88,000 (https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm). That is quite a big number. You could actually build a small army with this amount of men, but no, this is the amount of people who die from alcohol related injuries every year just in the United States. Whether it be from drinking and driving, alcohol poisoning, bar fights, or just doing stupid risky stuff, it seems to me that there should be some way of preventing these thousands of deaths from happening each year. I do not think there should be a ban on alcohol because ,the fact of the matter is, there's several thousand people who know how to drink responsibly, in moderation, and it has no negative effects. On the other hand, does the amount of people who do not know how to do these responsible things outweigh the ones who do?