The Alcohol Related Problems and Alcohol Related Deaths That Are Associated With Hazardous and Abusive Drinking

How many individuals lose their lives every year because of drinking problems? How many people lose their lives each year from a condition that is 100% preventable, such as alcohol poisoning? How many people are the victims of alcohol related crime or violence each and every year? How many individuals get injured or lose their lives in alcohol related traffic accidents every year? How many people’s lives are cut short due to abusive and unhealthy drinking? How many children are born each year with fetal alcohol syndrome? On an annual basis, how many alcoholics fail to get the professional alcohol treatment they require? How many individuals face severe consequences in their lives because they received a “drunk driving” conviction? How many junior high, high school, and college students lose their lives every year due to an alcohol overdose?

Why Would Anyone Want to Drink in an Abusive and Hazardous Manner?

So what’s the point in asking these questions? Basically to highlight the destructive and devastating nature of careless drinking. Indeed, and based on the above questions, I wonder why anyone would choose to drink in an irresponsible and hazardous manner.

Stated more forcefully, with the host of health issues, employment difficulties, legal proceedings, financial problems, and relationship dilemmas that are interrelated with alcohol addiction and chronic alcohol abuse, why would any individual with any sense at all want to drink in an abusive and excessive manner? In fact when some of the above topics are looked at more closely, abusive and careless drinking makes even less sense and becomes more illogical.

Wouldn’t you think that chronic alcohol abusers would be able to see some of the alcohol symptoms that they exhibit? In a similar way doesn’t it seem feasible to think that more families would involve themselves in an alcohol intervention for the individual in the household who is an alcoholic or an alcohol abuser? What is more, wouldn’t you think that people who drink heavily would try to learn more about their drinking behavior by researching various alcohol related statistics?

After reviewing the medical research findings, the point is so important that it needs to be said again: With all of the dangerous and debilitating consequences that are directly or indirectly interlinked with continuous and repetitive alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction, why would any person want to engage in abusive and careless drinking?

What Can be Done About the Widespread Nature of Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol Addiction in the United States?

So what can be done about the extensive nature of alcoholism and alcohol abuse in the United States?

1. Our students need more meaningful and more relevant preventative and educational approaches and methods so that more students at all grade levels, including those at college, are “reached.
2. In a similar way, our students need to learn how to become problem solvers in life rather than getting easily drawn to the “instant gratification” and the “quick fix” of an alcohol or drug abuse “buzz” or “high”.
3. Individuals who are alcohol dependent or alcohol abusers need to look look at themselves frankly and ask why they are not getting the professional alcohol treatment they need.
4. Society needs to get the message to more people about the debilitating and destructive consequences of careless and abusive drinking.

There’s Room For Optimism if Those Who Engage in Hazardous and Careless Drinking Can Become Motivated to Get the Alcohol Rehabilitation They Need

There’s lots of room for hope and optimism if individuals can start drinking in moderation and those who engage in hazardous and careless drinkingcan become motivated to get the alcohol treatment they need. Indeed, why put your loved ones through pain, turmoil, and suffering because of your excessive drinking when you have the power to control your life by drinking in moderation or even abstaining from drinking if you can’t control your drinking behavior?

When Drinking Causes Problems With Your Health and With Your Life

How do you recognize that you have a problem with your drinking? When is it evident that you are engaging in alcohol abuse?

If you have hopelessly attempted to quit drinking or if you have given your word to yourself that your drinking days are gone and then you realized that you were drinking in a hazardous manner just a few days later, the odds are especially good that you have drinking problems. The point to highlight is that if you have made an effort to stop drinking and cannot get this done, then your drinking is controlling you, rather than the other way around.

Likewise, if it takes increasingly more amounts of alcohol to get the same “high,” more likely than not you need to realize that you have a drinking problem.

You may be telling yourself that the reasoning for your drinking is so that you can decrease your apprehension or get rid of the distress that you feel. In a similar manner, you may be trying to avoid a hurtful circumstance and may be looking for something more useful, more helpful, or less regretful.

As you continue your drinking, however, you will realize that drinking does not elicit the same high and you will also understand that drinking doesn’t help remove whatever produced your distress in the first place.

Along the way, unfortunately, you may become alcohol dependent and, as a result, you may add another fundamental issue to cope with rather than finding out about more productive and healthy ways of managing your alcohol induced difficulties.

An Alcohol Evaluation is Probably Required

If you have figured out that you have a drinking problem, maybe the most positive thing you can do for yourself is to call your physician or healthcare professional and schedule an appointment for a thorough physical and for an assessment of your drinking situation.

If you truly feel that you have a serious drinking problem, it may be a good idea to get prepared to find out that you need to get alcohol rehab.

At this point in your life, what are your alternatives? You can definitely decide against seeing your physician and carry on with your pattern of hazardous drinking.

It really doesn’t take a wiz kid, nevertheless, to realize that long-term, out-of-control drinking, if left untreated, will worsen over time and in all probability bring about an early death. For that reason, your healthiest alternative is to face your drinking circumstance and obtain the alcohol rehab you need.

The Charade of the Functioning Alcohol Addicted Individual

It is somewhat peculiar to note the fact that numerous alcohol addicted people lead busy and active lives and have jobs, vehicles, pets, families, houses, and any number of material possessions just like individuals who are not addicted to alcohol.

Many of these “functional” alcohol addicted people may have never been apprehended for a DWI and may have been lucky enough to avoid all alcohol generated legal problems. Despite this good fortune, then again, these alcohol dependent individuals need to drink in order to deal with life on a daily basis while preserving their facade as they associate with people outside their family.

Ask anyone who has seen them when they are out on a drunken binge or in a drunken stupor or ask a family member about the problem drinker’s alcoholism, conversely, and they will be quick to state the legitimacy of the drinker’s situation and the facts about the alcohol addicted individual’s drinking condition and about his or her alcohol produced predicaments.

Why Do Alcohol Addicted People Fail to Recognize Their Drinking Difficulties?

As alcoholism research and statistics on alcohol abuse have underscored, no matter how observable the alcohol generated difficulties seem to those who interact with the alcohol addicted person, alcohol dependent people commonly deny that drinking is the root of their alcohol produced issues. Not only this, but alcohol addicted people characteristically blame their alcohol-related problems on other people or upon other situations around them rather than seeing their part in the difficulty.

The origin of the problem is that alcohol dependency is a disease of the brain. Once the drinker has become dependent on alcohol, he or she regularly resorts to denial, manipulation, and deceit as a way of coping with the fact that his or her drinking is out of control. And to make matters more difficult, the experience of alcohol withdrawal symptoms commonly circumvents the alcoholic’s rare attempts to suddenly quit drinking. As bleak as the alcoholic’s way of life is, conversely, the good news is that competent assistance is typically available – if the alcohol dependent individual reaches out and gets alcoholism therapy.

Summary

Conceding the fact that drinking is eliciting issues in your day to day functioning is perhaps the simplest way to find out if you have a problem with your drinking. More to the point, if your drinking is bringing about difficulties with your health, at work, in your relationships, with your finances, at school, or with the legal system, then you have a drinking problem that needs to be resolved.

If you have a drinking problem, furthermore, this means that you are involving yourself in alcohol abuse.

While some individuals may be able to identify their “alcohol signs,” pinpoint their difficulties, and significantly reduce the quantity and frequency of their drinking, other drinkers, then again, need to address their drinking problems by getting quality alcohol counseling. Furthermore, due to their tendency to deny the facts and distort the truth, alcohol dependent individuals undeniably require professional alcoholism treatment for their hazardous drinking.

A Young Couple Evaluates Their Heavy and Irresponsible Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Plans, Dreams, and Hopes

Merissa and Augie have been in a dating relationship for seven years. They met while taking the same information technology class at a small, rural, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the far Western part of the United States. While they were in essence good buddies at first, they eventually started to date when they were in their second year of college.

Due to the fact both of them came from very old-fashioned backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the experimental stage when they first began dating. As the time advanced, however, they began to go to more football bashes, happy hours, keg parties, and sorority and fraternity parties. Consequently, they slowly but surely began to drink increasingly more the longer they dated.

Their Social Life Usually Consisted of Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Parties With Their Friends, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Professional Sporting Events, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Club on the Weekends

After they graduated, they both got jobs in a relatively small city located roughly sixty-five miles from their undergraduate college. Then they eventually decided to move into the same apartment together.

Because they were far removed from the college drinking scene, then again, their social life typically consisted of going to professional sporting events, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to parties with their friends, going to happy hour with their friends, and going to the local watering hole with their friends on the weekends. To come to the point, Augie and Merissa started to drink in an abusive and irresponsible manner.

Now that they were living in the same apartment with one another and starting to get more serious about their relationship, nonetheless, they began thinking about buying a house, having children, getting married, and becoming more responsible.

With any noteworthy change in an individual’s life there is normally something that triggers the specific modification in question. For Augie and Merissa the idea of having children and buying a new house was this “vehicle for change.” In a word, for the first time in their lives, Augie and Merissa began to reflect on their abusive and irresponsible drinking and the alcohol long term effects on their health.

How Would Their Heavy and Irresponsible Drinking Affect Their Finances, Their Ability to Have Children, Their Relationship With One Another, Their Mental Health, and Their Relationship With Their Parents?

Would their hazardous and irresponsible drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending so much money on drinking if they were to start saving for a new house? How accountable would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an irresponsible and hazardous manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term plans, hopes, and dreams while they still drank in an irresponsible and excessive manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their irresponsible and excessive drinking do to their relationship? How would their excessive drinking affect their mental health?

From a different line of reasoning, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their hazardous and excessive drinking was becoming a thorny issue that they could not ignore anymore.

After Giving Their Situation Much Thought, Merissa and Augie Finally Realized That Their Goals, Aspirations, and Dreams Would not be Brought to Fruition if They Continued Their Hazardous and Irresponsible Drinking

All of these inquiries unmistakably indicated the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to understand more fully that they couldn’t continue their abusive and hazardous drinking if their aspirations, hopes, and dreams were to be attained.

Once they came to this conclusion, they informed their drinking buddies about their marital plans, about their plans to start a family, and about their goal of buying or building a new house. They also told their drinking friends that they still wanted to pal around with them but that they would be drinking in strict moderation from this point forward so that they could start to realize their future hopes, aspirations, and dreams.

Amazingly, all of their pals expressed relief because they too had been reflecting on their lives and concluded that their life-styles were totally focused on drinking. They also realized that they would have to change radically if they were to become more mature and display more care for their health, their goals, and for their careers in the next five or ten years.

After their heart-to-heart chat with their buddies about their dreams, goals, and aspirations, Augie and Merissa in reality started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their pals. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them had the same outlook regarding their drinking behavior and their relatively short and long-term aspirations, goals, and plans.

A Woman Displays Signs of Alcohol Addiction and Depression and Makes an Appointment to See Her Doctor About Her Hazardous Drinking

Teresa was a thirty-seven-year-old receptionist who knew that she had a problem with her drinking. For example, within the past month she has experienced the need to have a drink or two before going to work, seven weeks ago she tested positive for a urine alcohol test at work, four months ago she got stopped by the state highway patrol for a DUI, and finally, for around seven months she has started to fail to remember what she says and does when she goes out drinking.

Not unlike huge numbers of other people, Teresa’s experiences with alcohol began at a “snail’s pace” and remained at this pace for quite a long period of time because from time to time she engaged in sporadic social drinking. In fact, for nearly eight months, every time she went out to drink, she made sure to drink in a responsible manner. Something about her pattern of drinking, nonetheless, seemed to thoroughly change when her husband divorced her.

In Order To Rise Above the Loss of Her Husband With Less Distress, Teresa Came to a Decision That She Will Start Hanging Around More Regularly With Some of Her Pals Who Love to Drink

Teresa got awfully “down” about the breakup with her husband, and as a way to abstain from her preoccupation with her disheartening feelings she decided to start palling around more repeatedly with some of her pals who love to drink and have fun.

Quite frankly, Teresa reasoned that having fun just about every day by partying and drinking with her buddies would help her get over the breakup of her husband in a more trouble-free manner.

Teresa’s Drinking Increases Greatly the More Habitually She Goes to Family Get-Togethers, Private Parties, Dinner Dates, Happy Hours, and Sporting Events With Her Pals

It didn’t take too long, however, before her drinking increased to a significant extent the more often she went to and drank at private parties, dinner dates, happy hours, sporting events, and family get-togethers with her buddies. In addition, the fact that her drinking friends were all considerably younger than she was and therefore able to drink more carelessly was one of the reasons why she didn’t focus more on her increased drinking. Simply put, she was having a blast drinking just like everyone else in her group of buddies without paying much attention to the results of her excessive and abusive drinking.

Yet someplace in her mind she knew that she most likely needed alcohol rehab but stayed away from the thought as much as she could.

Teresa Gets a Physical Examination, Admits Her Abusive and Hazardous Drinking to Her Healthcare Practitioner, and Admits Her Constant Negativity

One day during her six-month physical exam, her doctor asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to lie to her healthcare practitioner, Teresa ”came clean” and said that she frequently drinks more than she should. In actual fact, she articulated that she routinely drinks in an abusive and excessive manner. Then Teresa told her physician about her general state of despair. More precisely, she stated that broken relationships commonly sparked a depressing sequence of events typified by increased drinking which further resulted in more disheartening feelings that, in turn, led to even more drinking. And this is exactly what happened when her husband and she got divorced four years ago.

When her healthcare professional heard this, he told Teresa that according to various alcoholism facts and statistics on alcoholism he was examining, alcoholism and depression commonly come about in the same person. He then informed Teresa that some of the alcohol statistics, research investigations, and facts he has been reading about also emphasize the fact that individuals who drink in a hazardous manner and who also experience depression need to obtain treatment for both medical conditions.

Teresa’s Healthcare Practitioner Schedules an Appointment for a Psychological Evaluation and For an Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol Addiction Assessment

Teresa’s doctor then stated the following: “I am not trying to make an overly quick analysis, but with your medical circumstances we may be working with two separate problems. As a result, I think we probably need to make an appointment for you to get an alcohol dependency and alcohol abuse appraisal from my partner, Dr. Johnson, who is a substance abuse and chemical dependency specialist. Whether your drinking situation is more associated with alcohol abuse or alcoholism is unknown, but I think that further assessment is warranted. Then I think we probably should make an appointment for you to get a psychological evaluation from another one of my partners, Dr. Dubas, who is a clinical psychologist. I want to get some additional information about your dejection and see how much your drinking and depression are related.” Teresa showed her agreement with her doctor’s treatment approach and thanked him for his assistance and concern. Now all she had to do was to try to cut back on her drinking and get ready for her appointments.

A Twenty-Three Year Old Bouncer at An Exclusive Club Discovers Why Alcohol Overdose Signs and Symptoms are So Important and How They Can Save A Person’s Life

Just a week ago, Frank applied for a position as a bouncer at one of the local nightclubs. He had studied karate, gatka, aikido, judo, and ninjitsu for five years; he was a weight lifter; he took daily vitamins, minerals, and supplements; he was into health foods and healthy eating; and he seemed like a natural for such a position. If truth be told, due to the fact that he was concerned about his health, he started drinking in moderation about four years ago and then totally quit drinking alcohol approximately sixteen months ago.

When Frank received notification that he had been selected for the job, he was really happy. Since this was a private club, nevertheless, he had to go through a two week training class.

People At Nightclubs Who Drink In an Abusive Manner and Alcohol Overdose Signs and Symptoms

On the first day of class, the lecturer started talking about drinkers who drink abusively and what the bartenders, bouncers, and barmaids should do when this circumstance arises. When the teacher started talking about alcohol poisoning, Frank was happy to find out that all of the new bouncers, barmaids, and bartenders were required to learn about alcohol poisoning and what they should do when they noticed a person who was exhibiting alcohol poisoning symptoms or displaying the signs of alcohol poisoning.

More directly, all the new employees learned that vomiting and nausea were almost without exception the first signs of alcohol poisoning and that unconsciousness was possibly the most highly observable alcohol poisoning symptom or sign. The trainer also made it a point to emphasize the fact that alcohol poisoning symptoms were signals from the body and from the brain that the individual has consumed more alcohol than his or her body can metabolize.

There were, nonetheless, quite a few other symptoms and signs of alcohol poisoning that all the new barmaids, bartenders, and bouncers were trained to be familiar with. For instance, the students in the class learned that drinkers who experience alcohol poisoning exhibit poor reflex responses, are difficult to awaken, often have seizures, and they exhibit confusion.

What is more, the members in the class were made aware that many people who experience alcohol poisoning also manifest little response from painful stimuli, for instance from pinching; slow, shallow or irregular breathing; blue tinged or pale skin; and slurred speech.

Furthermore, people who experience alcohol poisoning repeatedly display erratic behavior, exhibit an inability to make eye contact or sustain a conversation, often pass out, and they usually feel very ill and exhibit excessive vomiting.

An Instructor Give Details Why Alcohol Poisoning is Not Inevitably Suffered Only by People Who Are Alcohol Dependent

The teacher then clarified the point that an alcohol overdose is not necessarily experienced only by alcohol addicted people.

More directly, the instructor told the members of the class that most cases of alcohol poisoning were probably experienced by alcohol abusers and that a distinctive kind of abusive drinking known as “binge drinking” was possibly the key precipitating factor in most circumstances involving alcohol poisoning. The teacher then defined binge drinking as follows: consuming four or more alcoholic beverages at one sitting for females and drinking five or more alcoholic drinks at one sitting for males.

To demonstrate the effect that binge drinking has on alcohol poisoning, the trainer told the class that a person who gets inebriated just once per year, is by definition engaging in alcohol abuse, is probably not alcohol addicted, but is in all probability engaging in binge drinking. As stated by the trainer, engaging in binge drinking even once, unfortunately, can lead to alcohol poisoning that in some cases can be deadly.

The Instructor Spells Out Why Letting An Individual With Alcohol Poisoning Sleep is Not The Proper Course of Action

One of the students in the class raised his hand and asked the lecturer if it is a good idea to let an individual with alcohol poisoning “sleep it off.” The lecturer emphasized the point that letting an individual with alcohol poisoning go to sleep is explicitly what should not be done because doing so places the drinker at risk due to the fact that he or she is no longer being observed. In addition, letting the drinker sleep when she or he experiences alcohol poisoning is a misguided response because the person may never awaken.

The teacher then explained to the members in the class that the most appropriate response for alcohol poisoning is the following: if it is suspected that a drinker has alcohol poisoning, call 911 and ask for immediate medical assistance, even if the individual is underage. By pursuing this course of action, the drinker will get the prompt alcohol poisoning treatment he or she needs.

Summary

After learning about alcohol poisoning and particularly about the symptoms and signs of alcohol poisoning, it may be noted, Frank felt that he had learned some critical information that might save a person’s life in the future. Undoubtedly, Frank learned that knowledge of the conventional alcohol poisoning signs and symptoms and knowing how to appropriately and quickly respond to such signs and symptoms (by promptly calling 911 and asking for emergency medical assistance) can help an individual avoid a fatal case of alcohol poisoning.