Alcoholism

    

     You notice something is wrong with somebody, but you don’t know what it is. He looks depressed and anxious. His face is red and swollen, his eyes watery and red. If you look closely at his cheeks, you might see little red spider lines called spider angiomas that signal a failing liver. Something is wrong with that person. Sometimes you have to tell people the truth when they don’t want to hear it. They rebel against you and get angry. Ninety-five percent of alcoholics die of their addiction, and the average alcoholic dies 26 years earlier than he or she would otherwise.
       Alcoholic patients have two sides: One side knows they are drinking themselves to death while the other side knows they can drink safely. Alcoholism develops slowly over lifetime, and it can begin at any age. It often occurs in individuals with no history of psychological problems. When the substance causing addiction is readily available, inexpensive, and rapid acting, abuse increases. Alcohol reaches the brain quickly and it is effective as a tranquilizer.
      Along with this focus on individual drinking patterns, three additional things stand out about the alcoholism frame. First, the alcoholism frame distinguishes between normal and abnormal (or pathological) drinking. This way of different categorization of drinking is known in some modern Western societies. The alcoholism frame does not show frequent drinking as extreme case of "normal" behavior, but as something altogether different. Second, alcoholism is seen as a weakness or disease of the will. According to the alcoholism frame, alcoholics are unable to prevent themselves from drinking, because they have an overwhelming craving for drink. If a person believed to be an "alcoholic" goes for a drink after work, the alcoholism frame interprets the behavior as proof of craving and of addiction. Third, the alcoholism problem emphasize daily drinking as a long standing problem which can be managed and handled, but not cured.
      Because of historical changes in the cultural and political meaning of drinking and temperance in society, public attitudes toward drinking are highly ambiguous. The old temperance ideology, which disapproves of the alcohol trade and treats spirits as the opium of the people, is still alive, but it is balanced against the individual hedonism, and symbolic defiance and freedom that may be represented by drinking. This ambiguity is reflected in the tradition of heavy weekend drinking, coupled with total abstinence during the rest of the week. Most of the drinking takes place in the privacy of homes. You have to know that heavy and regularly alcohol drinking will take your will, your dignity, your self-respect, and in the end it will take your family, friends, your job, your reason to live. You will be on the edge to live for a drink. Think twice, what kind of live is that, what kind a person would allow that to happen to him/her. You have to go straight with you. Either you are going to live, or you are going to be alcohol addict. It’s up to you. Alcohol or your life. So simple.