Concise View of Alcohol Addiction

When alcohol was invented nearly 10,000 years ago, nobody would have thought that it would become such a big problem in the form of alcohol addiction. During very early times, alcohol consumption had specific purpose, like it was used to give courage to soldiers during wars; it was used for celebrating festivals and for seducing lovers. But over the period of time, people began to get addicted to alcohol creating more problems for the society at large.

It is not the case that alcohol addiction is limited to only a class of society. Today we can find alcohol addicts on the sidewalks, people from middle-class families checking into rehabs and the celebrities walking in and out of addiction centers every now and then. Alcohol addiction till sometime back was problem of middle-aged people, but not anymore. Today youths form a large chunk of victims of alcohol addiction. Just to prove the point, do you remember the sweet girl from the movie ET? Drew Barrymore checked into a rehab when she was just 13 years of age. Also alcohol addiction is not only causing damage to the victims, it is also harming others. Alcohol poisoning, alcohol abuse and alcohol related accidents cause more deaths than cumulative deaths cause by cancer worldwide.

Four the young and restless, peer pressure is the simplest answer. Youngsters consider it cool to drink, flaunt it in front of their friends how much they can drink; seldom realizing that it is pushing them towards alcohol addiction. It reaches to such an extent that recovery from alcohol addiction is only possible though professional help. In case of matured individuals, emotional instability, and financial insecurities leads to alcohol addiction. When they resort to excessive drinking in front of their kids, the kids either become victims of alcohol abuse or become alcohol addicts themselves to escape the pain. This is the harsh reality of alcohol addiction and its effects on our society.

Now the question arises, why is the government not doing something to stop the menace? It happened once, with disastrous results. From 1919 to 1933, US Government has banned production, sale and consumption of alcohol throughout the country. But instead seeing positive results, mafia took over the alcohol industry leading to more disastrous results. Though similar thing was never tried again, the government now only has the option of helping out alcohol addicts by running rehabs.

Point here to be noted is, government can do little in this regard. It is us who can control ourselves and stay away from the evil of alcohol addiction.