I have been traveling a lot for the past month, moving around in different cities and states to complete the research I’m doing. During the course of my study, I discovered that there are alcohol treatment centers in almost all of the places I visited. If there’s one thing this finding would point to, it is that the proliferation of alcohol rehabs in almost every city in the country is due to the rising cases of alcohol addiction problems.

Alcoholism is one of the most common cases of substance abuse, and this addiction is usually difficult to detect because people easily associate it with casual drinking. Unlike illegal drugs and other substances that people get addicted to, alcohol is very accessible to anyone. There’s no hindrance to developing alcohol addiction because there are alcoholic drinks sold anywhere and there are bars in every city where people can drink alcohol to their heart’s content. Alcohol is legal, and this makes more people susceptible to alcohol addiction.

There are debates as to where you can draw the line between excessive but tolerable drinking and alcoholism. Some people base it on the negative effects a person’s alcohol problem brings to his life. They say that if a person cannot control his cravings and starts losing control of his temper under the influence of alcohol, that person needs to undergo alcohol rehab already. There are people who are able to retain control of their faculties and temper even when they have downed a number of bottles of alcohol, but it doesn’t mean that they can go ahead and have an unlimited drinking spree every night.

Excessive alcohol drinking does have its long-term negative effects on a person’s health. It could lead to the deterioration of major body organs, such as the liver and the pancreas, and it could also gradually damage the brain. Alcoholism can result in elevated liver enzyme levels that can eventually lead to liver diseases such as alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and fatty liver. There are also alcohol-related pancreatic diseases such as acute and chronic pancreatitis.

Alcohol drinking can affect the heart and cause cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, cardiomyopathy and arrhythmias, and it could result in stroke. Several gastrointestinal problems are also traced to excessive alcohol consumption. These include gastritis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, diarrhea, peptic ulcer disease, esophageal varices, and Mallory-Weiss tears.

There are also neurological disorders associated with alcohol addiction, such as headaches, blackouts, seizures, peripheral neuropathy, dementia, cerebral atrophy, Wernicke’s encephalopathy, cognitive deficits, and impaired motor functioning.

The list of alcoholism’s negative effects goes on to reproductive system disorders (sexual dysfunction, amenorrhea, anovulation, early menopause, and spontaneous abortion), psychiatric comorbidities (depression, anxiety, antisocial personality, etc.), and even to cancer (neoplasm of the liver, neoplasm of the head and neck, neoplasm of the pancreas, and neoplasm of the esophagus).

The negative effects of alcohol transcend an alcohol drinker’s physical attributes because his alcohol problem can also lead to legal, family and employment problems. With all these overwhelming effects on a person’s health and life, there’s a good reason why so many alcohol treatment centers have been established to curb the rising incidence of alcoholism in almost every city. People who are developing alcohol addiction need to be treated as soon as possible before their alcoholism takes toll on their health, life and overall well-being.

Filed under: Alcohol

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!