Have you ever wondered why it is that some people can drink a lot without it having any effect on their long term wellness and wellbeing, whilst others quickly become dependent on alcohol? Do you wonder why some people turn to alcohol in times of emotional turmoil whist others don’t, and why drinking one glass of wine often leads to drinking a few more.
When you are dependent on alcohol, it is known as ‘alcohol addiction’ and you are considered an alcoholic, regardless of how much you actually drink. When you are an alcoholic, it is helpful to start learning a bit more about alcoholism and try to understand why it is that you drink, in order to find out what you can do to get past it.
Some studies suggest that alcoholism can be linked to genetics – in other words if your father or mother is an alcoholic, there, is a good chance that you may also have these same genes, and that casual drinks can turn into an addiction. Studies are still ongoing on this.
Some people are also psychologically more predisposition to become alcoholics, due to their personality types. Others fin that peer pressure is the reason that they start drinking. In social circles, there is often a lot of pressure to drink, or to drink a certain amount. Friends get together and drink as teenagers, and often the need to ‘look cool’ is greater than any factors that may put you off drinking alcohol.
Advertising may also be to blame. Advertising makes drinking alcohol looks cool, and makes people aware of what alcohol there is on the market when they would otherwise be unaware. Alcohol also appears on television in non-advertorial format, so in television shows where people are drinking alcohol, and this leads to the normalisation of a drinking culture, which can lead to people blurring the lines between what are acceptable drinking habits and what counts as a problem.