Preview

How Alcoholism Changed My Life Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
574 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Alcoholism Changed My Life Essay
Although you can not cure alcoholism, treatment may help. To be able to get help, you have to be able to admit you have a problem. Just like any other addiction, is one of the hardest parts. Alcoholism is very common. If you ask people if they know someone that is an alcoholic, I am sure that nearly every person will say yes. Being close or being an alcoholic can have a large impact on someone’s life. Many people do not know what alcohol really truly is and how it affects others. I have experienced how a life can change with having an alcoholic as a mother. Throughout her actions, I have noticed how it has not only changed my life, but the life of my family. My mother was an alcoholic that never thought that she had a problem or that she did not think that her problem was that big of an issue. When she fell off the wagon, she went to a couple AA meetings and then thought she was all better. This disease is chronic, which means that it lasts a lifetime and that just going to two meetings here or there is not going to help. Another difficult part of being an alcoholic is to find a will to change. It is so easy for them to find a dependency with drinking. With my mother, I …show more content…
There are 5 different types of alcoholics. Young adult subtype, which is young adults that do not drink as often, but tend to binge drink when they do. A young anti-social subtype is alcoholics that starting drinking around the age of 15 and more than half have antisocial personality disorder. Middle-aged adults that have stable lives with a job and significant other and tend to drink five or more beverages every other day are called functional subtypes. An intermediate familial subtype is when a person starts drinking at the age of 17 become addicted around 30, they also usually have a close family member that is an alcoholic. A chronic severe subtype is usually men and they are also users of illicit

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Dealing with drugs and alcohol on a daily basis has to be a struggle for people who do them. People often do drugs and drink alcohol in order to get over their situations, peer pressure, or it is inherited from family members and just simply because they want to do it. No one is perfect and you can get help whenever you feel that you need it but just don’t wait too late. Often people have families that are depending on them to stop what they are doing and know that they need them in their lives whether they know it or not.…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Growing up with an alcoholic can drastically affect a child’s life. One in five Americans has lived with an alcoholic relative while growing up (“Children of Alcoholics”). I am one of those five. Yes, my father was an alcoholic while I was growing up. It is a touchy subject for me, but it is safe to say growing up with an alcoholic dad was very difficult for my family. After an emotional separation, my father realized what his life had become, and he worked to overcome his alcoholism. Many of these efforts to recover died out quickly, and my dad had to jump from organization to organization until he finally recovered through Help Incorporation. Whenever I ask my dad about why it was so…

    • 2209 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Personally I don´t have any experience with alcoholic relatives so I researched in some Internet pages, first I’m going to tell you what is exactly alcoholism: Alcoholism is an illness that comes when a person is dependant of alcohol and the person cannot leave it for more than few hours it brings both physical and physiological problems. The mechanisms that cause alcoholism are different for each person but they can be the social environment, personal issues, stress, etc.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    For years people have argued that alcoholism is a choice and not a learned or inherited disease. These people will normally agree that yes, children are in fact influenced by family, but purely of a social nature, and that this disease is actually caused by poor economic status, poor social upbringings, or merely by imitating the behaviors of those who raised them. However, research has proven that in a great deal of cases there is in fact enormous basis for alcoholism being a genetic or inherited disease. While genetics cannot predict alcoholics very well, research can show that one can be born to be an alcoholic; the action and reaction taken in spite of or because of this gene however determines the outcome. When paired with a poor social upbringing it can prove to be quite difficult for one to overcome the influences that are trying to determine their lifestyle choices. As with everything in our lives alcoholism is a product of Nature versus Nurture, completely made up by both.…

    • 2126 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lesson 3 Assignment

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are several various models of addiction, as well as approaches to their recovery. Addiction is different for everyone. For some people, there was a catastrophic emotional event that forced them to turn to drugs or alcohol. For others, a love of partying in their 20’s never went away and spiraled into dependence over the course of several years. Some people have a family history of addiction, while others see themselves as the “black sheep.” You hear stories of individuals who quit for a while on their own, got their lives on track and were then able to drink moderately, but other people enter expensive treatment programs, only to have repeated severe relapses.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Going to this meeting I learned that alcoholism cannot be cured but instead, when sobriety is achieved, the alcoholic is still an alcoholic (he will always be one), yet now a recovering alcoholic. During the meeting it was also mentioned that alcoholism is often called a “disease” that is somehow a “family problem” rather than an individual problem. A few people shared their experiences and constant battle with their addiction to alcohol, they taught me that it is possible to overcome anything and everything that we want by believing in a God or a higher power and surrendering to it. Being self-centered, angry, depressed, among others, are some of the characteristics of the personality of an alcoholic, and surprisingly enough they change during recovery. I learned that recovering from addictions is highly important because it affects everyone around you (directly or indirectly).…

    • 360 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alcoholism is not something that can be treated alone many times. The more a person is dependent on alcohol in their lives, the more their brain attempts to convince themselves that they do not need help and that if they stop drinking their lives will be worse. In each testimony given, everyone had a different way they initially made their approach to get better, whether it be rehab or Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, but the one thing they all had in common was that the more meetings they attended the meetings the easier the healing process was. They all said that when they begin to miss meetings it would cause the urge to give in to the temptation to drink, and sometimes they did give…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Among some tribes, the rates are as high as 1.5 to 2.5 per 1,000 live births” (FASDCE 2007). Aside from the health issues associated with heavy drinking, alcoholics also affects their surrounding families. Many family members feel ashamed, guilty, resentful and even hatred towards the alcoholic, such feels puts stress on the family. Family members may even resort to changing their own behavior to behave more like the alcoholic, which may turn them into an alcoholic as…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Al-Anon groups have helped a lot of people become sober, and to deal with an alcoholic family member. It takes a lot for a person to first admit to having a drinking problem, and then share their experiences with a room full of people. If they want help, that is what they have to do. Research on two AA meetings provided a lot of knowledge and understanding.…

    • 2743 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Aa Paper Philosophy

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The philosophy behind Alcoholics Anonymous is that alcoholism is a disease. Even if someone stops drinking, they are not "cured." The individual is a recovering alcoholic.…

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Aa Meeting

    • 769 Words
    • 2 Pages

    After reading and hearing about everyone’s experience with alcohol I decided to attend an AA meeting. I chose this for two reasons, one because I wanted to see if these meeting are effective and second because after hearing everyone’s stories I began to doubt myself. I consider myself a social drinker because I like to go out and party mostly every weekend. After learning so much about alcohol I started to wonder if I depended on it in order to have fun. Honestly it is quite scary to imagine that I could possibly be in the first stages of alcoholism. The biggest impact I had this semester was while watching the film where the mother hits her daughter because she is under the influence. My parents never did that too me so I do not think my future children should have to go through that either.…

    • 769 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Parental alcoholism is a form of child mistreatment, many children who grow up in home with an alcoholic parent or parents become alcoholics later in later. Growing up in an alcoholic home promotes unhealthy family relations that negatively affect a children’s’ development that leave children at risk for psychological disorders in childhood, adolescence, and well into their adulthood. Children with alcoholic parents usually do not have a secure attachment with the alcoholic parent or parents and often grow up to have problems with attachments to others well into adulthood. Children of alcoholics are also more likely to experience social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties…

    • 3618 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Functional Alcoholics

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages

    As for alcoholism, there is no cure; however, there is many ways to help treat it. According to WebMD, there are three main stages into treating alcoholism. Number one is Detoxification: which “may be needed immediately after discontinuing alcohol use and can be a medical emergency, as detox can result in withdrawal seizures, hallucinations, delirium tremens (DT), and in some cases may result in death” (“Treatment of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”). The only way to get better is to stop drinking. Stage Two is rehabilitations, “This involves counseling and medications to give the recovering alcoholic the skills needed for maintaining sobriety” (“Treatment of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”). Medications are helpful, such as Benzodiazepines which are, “anti-anxiety drugs used to treat withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety and poor sleep and to prevent seizures and delirium” (“Treatment of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”). Lastly, the treatment program to maintain sobriety, “This step's success requires an alcoholic to be self-driven. The key to maintenance is support, which often includes regular Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings and getting a sponsor” (“Treatment of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism”). Alcoholics Anonymous or AA, is a help group, that helps alcoholics become abstinent. It consists of attending regular meet and greets, and a process of completing their 12 step program. The twelve steps of AA “are a group of principles,…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    It is not easy for a person to overcome an alcohol problem. In fact, most people will battle alcohol addiction for the rest of their life unless they get treatment. People whose lives were ruined by alcohol have been able to get a new start after going to an alcohol addiction treatment centre.…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Alcoholism

    • 3771 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Alcoholism, also called alcohol dependence or alcohol addiction, is a destructive pattern of alcohol use that includes tolerance to or withdrawal from the substance, using more alcohol or using it for longer than planned, and trouble reducing its use. Other potential symptoms include spending an inordinate amount of time getting, using, or recovering from the use of alcohol, compromised functioning, and/or continuing to use alcohol despite an awareness of the detrimental effects it is having on one's life. Alcoholism is appropriately considered a disease rather than a weakness of character or chosen pattern of bad behavior. It is the third most common mental illness, affecting more than 14 million people in the United States. Other facts and statistics about alcohol dependence include its pattern of afflicting about 4% of women and 10% of men. It costs more than $165 billion per year in lower productivity, early death, and costs for treatment.…

    • 3771 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays