by Secre

Created on: February 26, 2009

Alcoholism is one of those weird disorders, and I don't mean this because it doesn't have recognisable symptoms. It does. I'm saying this because the disorder itself often isn't counted as an illness but as a weakness...and that is the easiest way to look at it - particularly if you have someone in your family who is an alcoholic. It's easier to place the blame on a person, without thinking that it is an illness and does need to be thought of as such. I think the other reason why it is weird is because there is a thin line between enjoying alcohol, being alcohol dependant, and being an alcoholic. And before anyone asks, no I do not have personal experience of being an alcoholic (even if I probably do probably drink too much...but that's called studentism) ...what I do have is the experience of being the daughter of an alcoholic.

===Definition===

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association alcoholism is "a primary, chronic disease characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking." However, as a layman not a medical expert an easier definition would be that alcoholism is the recurrent use of alcohol with no attention paid to the adverse effects, an uncontrollable urge to drink and withdrawal symptoms when you don't drink. Even this, however is a medical definition. Alcoholism is at it's most basic form an addiction to alcohol, whereas alcohol abuse is the destructive use of alcohol.

Although it is tempting to classify alcoholism as a lack of self control, particularly by those who have an alcoholic in the family, alcoholism is a disease and must be treated as such. It just happens to be far more tempting to yell and scream at a drunk alcoholic than you would ever dream of doing to someone with a different chronic disease. This is probably because alcoholism is to a point a choice, someone chooses alcohol in a way that nobody chooses cancer or diabetes.

===Cause===

There has for many years been a massive debate about the root cause of alcoholism, whether it is genetic, based around the way a child has been brought up, or even whether it is a matter of weakness. The latter view has been more or less completely displaced, whereas the genetic strand of thought has gained far more support and evidence to back it up. This is easily shown in considering that children with at least one alcoholic natural parent were three to four times more likely

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