Alcoholism In Young Age
Alcoholism and alcohol abuse is a growing problem in our society. Daily,
people
are injured and killed in alcohol-related accidents and this has an
effect on
each and every person as a result of these occurrences. Whether we
are
personally involved or have directly suffered from the activities of
someone who
is under the influence of alcohol, we all suffer from the
negative consequences
of alcohol. Since we have those who choose to abuse
these privileges we need to
develop consequences for them. By learning what
leads people to drink alcohol,
and how this affects their lives, we can then
determine what actions need to be
taken to help remove ourselves from our
ever-increasing attraction to alcohol.
Because the abuse of alcohol often
begins with adolescents and young adults,
most research is based around them.
At this particular time in life we hope to
find out why these young adults
choose to drink, and what motivates them to
drink. Michael and Rebecca C.
Windle, in their research, were able to show
several reasons that provided
incentives for adolescents to consume alcohol.
Using a written survey, it
was determined that the high-school students being
studied used alcohol to
cope with problems in their lives, including
"task-oriented",
"emotion-oriented", and "avoidance
coping (Windle & Windle, 1996, p.
551)." The only major discrepancies
in results between the sexes became
obvious when it was shown by Windle and
Windle that girls were more
likely to use alcohol for avoidance and
emotion-oriented coping than were
boys, but the boys were more likely to have
alcohol problems (Windle &
Windle, 1996). Also found was that adolescents
drank less often for social
reasons than for the aforementioned coping reasons (Windle
& Windle,
1996). However, coping motives were responsible for an increased
consumption
of alcohol (Windle & Windle, 1996). A surprising result of this
study was
that the students drank more frequently as a result of positive daily
events
than negative daily events (Windle & Windle, 1996). This suggests
that
while young people do drink because they are unhappy with certain events
in
their lives, they are more likely to drink because something good has
happened
to them recently. Alcoholism is also thought to be passed
genetically from
parents to their children. By comparing males with a family
history of
alcoholism to males with a history without alcoholism, we can
determine the
relationship between genetics, alcoholism, and alcoholic
children. While
frequency and quantity of alcoholic consumption of children
of alcoholics (COA's)
and non-COA's were similar, COA's were more than twice
as likely to be
diagnostically determined alcoholics than were the non-COA's
(Finnet al., 1997).
This shows that one can drink as much as an
alcoholic, but not actually be an
alcoholic one's self. This may contribute
to a lack of social understanding of
alcoholism, as we tend to think of an
alcoholic as someone who frequently drinks
alcohol, when, instead, the
definition of an alcoholic must be changed to
someone genetically
pre-disposed to alcoholism or addiction. Another approach to
researching
alcoholism was exercised by Sher, Wood, Wood and Raskin. They showed
the
differences between expectancies related to alcohol of COA's and
non-COA's
over a four-year period of time. What was found was that COA's
drank much more
frequently to reduce tension, become more social, make
activities more
interesting and perform better than non-COA's did (Sher et
al., 1996). This
could result from a more familiar approach to alcohol, as it
presumably had an
effect on the early years of each young adult. At the same
time, there was a
general decrease in drinking for these reasons from the
time the study began to
its completion four years later (Sher et al., 1996).
This research gives us
important insight into reasons for alcohol use, and
could provide better
treatment for alcoholic COA's than is currently being
provided. Somewhat similar
to the above research, was that of Chassin,
Curran, Hussong and Colder. These
four psychologists were able to show a
non-genetic relationship between fathers,
their adolescent children, and
peers of the adolescents. They found that COA's
"substance use growth curve
started at a significantly higher level than it
did for non-COA's... (Chassin
et al., 1996, p. 74)" meaning that not only
did the adolescents use alcohol
(among other substances), but they used more
than did their non-COA peers.
Also, when a COA was combined with drug-using
peers, the adolescent was even
more likely to have a significantly higher use of
alcohol (Chassin et al.,
1996). This research also shows that children of
alcoholic mothers also
"showed steeper substance use growth (Chassin et
al.,1996, p. 74)" than
non-COA's but there generally was not a large effect
on the adolescents. A
hypothesis offered by Chassin Curran, Hussong and Colder
on reasons for
increased alcohol use was the following: In terms of the
parenting pathway,
both maternal and paternal alcoholism were related to
decreased paternal
monitoring (although the relation was only marginally
significant for
fathers' alcoholism). In turn, adolescents whose fathers
reported lower
levels of moitoring were more likely to associate with drug-using
peers, and
these peer associations predicted increases in substance use over
time.
Adolescents whose fathers reported less monitoring of their behavior also
had
higher initial substance use levels (Chassin et al., 1996, p. 75). From
this,
we can deduce that parental alcoholism is not the only cause of
increased
alcohol abuse among adolescents, but rather the additional aspects
that come
along with having an alcoholic parent. These aspects may include
spending less
time with one's child and external expressions of alcoholism
(violence,
depression, etc) that may cause a child to deal as infrequently as
possible with
the alcoholic parent. A great deal of research is going into
studying the
effects and consequences of alcoholism and alcohol use today.
This is necessary
to provide rehabilitation and other help to alcoholics, as
from research, an
addiction is not necessarily created, but born. We can all
benefit, emotionally,
financially and otherwise from a better understanding
of alcoholism.