CAUSE AND EFFECT

ALCOHOLISM

And Its Effects to Body and Family

Have you ever drink alcohol? How many times have you heard about the consequences of alcoholism? Alcoholism is one of the major problems in society. Alcoholism can be defined as a diseased condition due to the excessive use of alcohol. The effects of this disease are really serious. Many people who get used to drink alcohol can easily abuse. Very often alcoholism affects highly educated people. Alcoholism is also known as a family disease. Alcoholics may have young, teenage, or grown-up children; they have wives or husbands; they have brothers or sisters; they have parents or other relatives. An alcoholic can totally disturb family life and cause harmful effects that can last a lifetime. The effects of consuming alcohol can be categorized into four effects. What are they?

The first effects of alcoholism are physical problems. These are the most important because these can cause our death. For example, alcoholism causes cancer in the stomach and liver. Besides, alcohol disturbs the digestion of nutrients that the body needs to stay healthy. The ones who drink much alcohol will rarely get hungry so that the consumption of nutrition that is needed by the body is less. Alcoholism also causes severe damage in the neurons, so it causes changes in the body movements, loss of reflection, and depression. All these physical consequences could cause your death if someone drinks much alcohol. People who drink much alcohol for long periods of time run the risk of developing serious and persistent changes in the brain. Damage may be a result of the direct effects of alcohol on the brain or may result indirectly.

The second effects which are caused by alcoholism are psychological problems. At the beginning, alcohol makes someone who drinks it feels relaxed, but if he or she drinks more, it increases the addiction and causes depression. It also causes violence, changes of behavior, and suicide among others. Someone does the violence because he does it unconsciously by the effects of alcohol or he does it because he needs money to buy alcohol. Alcohol is very powerful in influencing someone’s behavior.

The third effects of alcoholism are economic. It is because alcohol is not cheap. People do not think about the money and spend almost everything when they are drunk. No matter what are their jobs, no matter how much money they have, they will spend all of them even more than the money that they have to buy alcohol. It happens because they are addict to drink alcohol. The more often they drink alcohol, the more they are addict to alcohol. They will spend their money to buy alcohol everyday without considering to the other daily needs.

The fourth effects of alcoholism are family problems. Alcoholism is responsible for more family problems than any other causes. Each member of the family may be affected by alcohol differently. Parental alcoholism may affect the fetus even before a child is born. If a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, alcohol is carried to all of the mother’s organs and tissues, including the placenta. It easily crosses through the blood systems. When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, the concentration of alcohol in her unborn baby’s blood is the same level as her own. A pregnant woman who consumes alcohol during her pregnancy may give birth to a baby with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (allpsych.com, 2003). This Syndrome is one of the three top known causes of baby’s disabilities.

In general, the more severe the mother’s drinking problem during pregnancy, the more severe the effects of FAS in infants. Babies born with FAS are shorter and underweight compared to normal babies. They have disabilities of the brain and skull. The children’s nervous systems are also damaged by the alcohol. As a result, children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome have difficulties in learning, memorizing, problem-solving, and other behavior problems. The effects of alcohol in children are permanent. The children may also have problems with social skills. They easily get anger as they grow older and become hyperactive.

Those are the dangerous effects of alcoholism. Consuming alcohol may make our bodies warm, but the more consumption of alcohol will give us the opposite effects. The effects are not only in physic, but also in psychology, economic, and family. The consumption of alcohol should be decreased so that we can avoid those dangerous problems.