The following text is a personal essay about alcoholism. It talks about the origin of alcoholic beverages, and the consequences that their excessive ingestion produces in the person and in society.
Alcoholism, an old and current problem:
The consumption of alcoholic beverages has an origin as old as humanity itself.
It has been part of different cultures and times.
Some scholars point out that, probably, with the origin of the first wines, humanity gave way to a sedentary lifestyle.
The use of wines was associated, with its effects, with various religious cults. Not only did it serve as an essential additive in meetings of a social nature.
We could affirm that it is a custom that has accompanied the development of the peoples in the different epochs. It is part of the culture.
The big difference between the current times with the antiquity is that, in this modern world, drinking is within everyone’s reach.
The abusive use of alcohol is today one of the main causes of mortality, along with other diseases.
In young people, the problem is even greater. The abusive use of alcoholic beverages causes hundreds of young people to abandon their studies and cause chaos in the family environment, which has as a consequence in most cases the abandonment of the home.
Personally, I consider it important to always maintain balance in all aspects of life. No excess is productive for the person.
Drinking alcohol alone is harmful if we abuse it in its ingestion. It is part of social custom, as we have seen, deeply rooted for centuries and most likely to continue.
What should not continue its abuse?
The bad thing is that sometimes, because of the unconsciousness of those people who are in an ethyl state, many innocents pay the consequences.
A typical example would be a car accident. A man who was drunk and goes and collides with another driver, who was not at fault, however, because of the accident, dies.
It is a truly unfair situation.
Therefore, drinking alcoholic beverages can become a serious problem for the person if it is abused. In other words, it can become a disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines alcoholism in the following terms: alcohol dependence syndrome
It is clear that it is a disease whose consequences affect not only the person who suffers but society itself.
According to data also from WHO :
The consumption of alcohol causes death and disability at a relatively early age. In the age group of 20 to 39 years, 25% of deaths are attributable to alcohol consumption.
The data on the excess in the consumption of alcohol is alarming. It is estimated that around 3.3 million people die each year as a cause of the harmful use of this substance.
This number represents 5.9% of the total annual deaths.
Causes of alcoholism. Its use as “escape”
The social environment and personal circumstances greatly influence a person to become dependent on this drug.
For example, something bad that has happened in the family, some tragedy, the departure of a loved one, fights or domestic arguments, are situations that, generally, many try to escape taking refuge in alcohol, mistakenly believing that in that way, ingesting those drinks excessively, the suffering could be appeased.
What can lead a person to be dependent on alcohol? As noted, in all cases they will be very personal circumstances. WHO points to this
Dependence is a set of behavioral, cognitive and physiological phenomena that can appear after the repeated consumption of alcohol. These phenomena typically include intense desire to consume alcohol, difficulty in controlling consumption, the persistence of consumption despite harmful consequences, higher priority to consumption over other activities and obligations, increased tolerance to alcohol and physical abstinence when consumption is interrupted.
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