alcoholism
When people hear the word "drug," they usually think of illegal substances such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or any other drug that can be found on the street. Most never categorize alcohol as a drug, primarily because it is socially accepted. But, in fact, alcohol is responsible for destroying many people's lives and those around them, just like illegal drugs can. Alcoholism ranks as one of our four major health problems, and reliable national surveys show that there are over 5,000,000 alcoholics in the United States today. Their illness affects 20,000,000 other people including families, employers, and friends of the sufferers. Yet there is no major disease about which the public is more ignorant. Although moderate use of alcohol can actually lower some health risks, it becomes dangerous when alcohol is abused. Alcohol can have negative effects on some aspects of a person ranging from health problems to social problems to family problems. To fully understand the effects of alcohol, one must first understand exactly what alcohol is. Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is a poisonous liquid that the body can "deactivate large amounts of without succumbing to its lethal effects"
Although national groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) track drunk driving cases through court systems to ensure that drunk drivers are punished, alcohol-related automobile crashes remain substantial. Repeated alcohol abuse has been linked to cancer in parts of the body such as the esophagus, stomach, mouth, tongue, and liver (Horvath 87). In addition to attention deficits, problems with judgment, comprehension, and abstract thinking are common. I have been unfortunate to see two of my aunt's and cousins lose husbands and fathers due to alcoholism. AA is a support group where members talk about their struggles with one another. Infants exposed to alcohol, while in the womb, have been known to suffer from a variety of ailments, the most common being Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Exposure (FAE). When these children grow up they are much more prone to alcoholic behaviors themselves than are children from nonalcoholic families. Most alcoholics will start to become quiet and withdrawn towards their family and go into mild depression. After being encouraged to go to Alcoholics Anonymous by my mother, my uncle Augie attended the meetings and now I am very pleased to say that Anthony has his father, and my uncle has been sober for three years. " Alcohol can permanently damage the biochemical system response for conducting ions into and out of the nerve cell body. It may take anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes, depending on the amount of alcohol, to peak (Block 132). Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselvesStep 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to other human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Sometimes my uncle would not come home, leaving my aunt worried and heart broken, thinking he was cheating on her.
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