Alcoholism is a disease that can affect anyone. They are both women and men. Educated people who have a good job, as well as the unemployed who barely make ends meet. However, there are some risk factors that can make you more likely than others to be addicted to alcohol. Who is addicted to? We will try to answer this question in this article.
Who Becomes Alcoholic?
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Unfortunately, alcoholism has more than one name. It often seems to us that this is a problem that affects people from the social margin, from the so-called pathological environments. What about people who drink “culturally”, have a home, family, well-paid job? Seemingly, they live a normal life, they do not turn over in the street, they do not beg in front of the store. Does this mean that alcoholism does not affect them? Nothing could be more wrong. Anyone who drinks alcohol can become an alcoholic. This disease does not spare the poor or the rich, neither the young nor the old.
Alcohol dependence risk factors – parents of alcoholics
Many people wonder if, if their parents, grandparents or close relatives had a problem with alcohol, they are also at risk of drinking alcohol addiction. Research among twins and children of alcoholics has shown that alcoholism is to some extent genetically determined. What does it mean? The ACA, or Adult Children of Alcoholics, are at risk of developing alcoholism. In children of alcoholics, the risk of alcohol dependence is 4 times higher than in the rest of the population. However, it is important to remember that this is not a rule and alcoholism does not depend solely on genes. Alcoholism does not come out of nowhere, and may be an attempt to escape from the problems of everyday life. Among the phenomena that expose children to alcohol problems later, there are, among others, abuse of alcohol or other psychoactive substances (e.g. drugs, legal highs, medications) by one or both parents, conflicts leading to aggression, violence, depression or other mental problems of the parent.
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Alcohol dependence risk factors – youth and the period of rebellion
Unfortunately, more and more young people are abusing alcohol. Alcohol consumption by adolescents is often the result of group pressure or the desire to impress peers. It could also be because of a rebellion in adolescence or an attempt to deal with emotional problems. It happens that young people more and more often find themselves in alcohol rehab. A young organism can become addicted to alcohol even within a few months.
Risk factors of alcohol dependence – cultural patterns and social consent to drink
Certain cultural patterns pose the greatest risk in relation to alcohol dependence. The custom of toasts, name days, birthdays, weddings, baptisms – as you can see, there are many occasions in our culture to consume high-percentage drinks. Moreover, we don’t so much drink during meetings as we meet when drinking. So alcohol has become an element of our everyday life. These words are confirmed by the statistics that clearly show that we are at the forefront of alcohol abusing nations. Even if there is social consent to drinking, it does not mean that we should succumb to it.
