Essay On Alcoholism In My Family

More than seventy-six million people are affected by alcohol related disorders. Sadly, 1.8 million deaths a year are caused by alcohol. Alcohol can end lives, from events like drunk driving, to cancer, to liver disease, to further psychological issues down the line. Personally, alcoholism has affected me through my dad’s side of the family. My grandpa was an alcoholic and inadvertently led my father to alcohol. My dad has been a “social drinker” for many years. “Social drinking” may work for some people, but not for my family. My dad is now classified as an alcoholic and the disease now affects our whole family. For my dad, alcoholism was both inherited and influenced by family members, but for others it can be caused by other factors. Alcoholism is tied to …show more content…
The first is if the person is suffering from depression they may use alcohol to ease the pain; as mentioned above with poverty. Alcohol allows them to cope with the extreme amount of uncontrollable emotions they are dealing with. Alcohol can also lead to depression. When a person is drunk they could have extreme emotion swings, experiencing extreme highs and lows. You can also become depressed when the alcohol is removed. Withdrawal is difficult for some people to deal with causing them to lose the purpose to their life without alcohol. When someone stops drinking alcohol neurotransmitters can overexcite the nervous system and cause agitation. This leads to palpitations and high blood pressure. An alcoholic resumes drinking to prevent these withdrawal symptoms from occurring. The Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism found that alcoholism and depression are related traits, which can be on the same genes. The study showed evidence that a certain chromosome may influence people to be more susceptible to alcoholism and depression. The National Institute of Mental Health also reported that alcoholism is twice as common in families with a history of