Alcoholism is defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as: A strong need or craving to drink with an increasing tolerance, without the ability to limit intake, accompanied by withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately people who crave alcohol may want to quit drinking but their desire to drink is stronger. A person’s genes and lifestyle affect their risk for developing alcoholism as does a person’s mental health.

There seems to be a close relationship between mental health problems and alcohol problems demonstrated by the fact that alcohol dependence is almost twice as high among people with mental disorders as among the general population. People with a variety of mental health issues like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder or anxiety may use alcohol to help them cope with day to day life. Conversely, alcoholism can cause lots of problems including job loss, family fights, and financial difficulties.

While researching for this article I came across a pamphlet that teachers can order free of charge to talk to their fifth graders about alcohol as this is when children may begin to experiment with alcohol and drugs. The average age of experimentation for boys is eleven and girls, thirteen. Apparently this is how early intervention is needed to prevent future abuse as a significant number of twelve to twenty year olds have an alcohol dependence. The article goes on to indicate that people that begin drinking before the age of fifteen are four times more likely to develop an alcohol dependence than those that didn’t begin drinking until the age of twenty-one.

“National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), there were 10.4 million drinkers ages 12 to 20 in 1998. Of these, 5.1 million were binge drinkers”

My pastor is always telling us that he has an alcoholic personality and the only reason he isn’t an alcoholic is because he doesn’t drink alcohol. He bases this on the following factors, both of his parents were alcoholics and everything he does, he does with all of his heart and all of his assets. He has a point; I’m like that with foster care and adoption issues. I remember warning my now adult daughter to avoid drinking or using drugs like the plague, because I was so concerned about her being predisposed abuse. Both of her birth parents struggled with addiction, neglect and physical abuse and she lived with all of that until she was thirteen years old and came to live with us. We adopted her when she was fifteen.
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