The impact of alcohol in the modern world is beyond the financial cost, mental and physical health problems or even family and marriage breakups. It is a very profound matter that is far reaching and negatively affecting the entire society. In this content, you are going to find an in-depth knowledge about impact of alcohol on society.
According to statistics, alcohol is the most popular substance among adults in America. Alcohol is an addictive substance that can lead to many negative issues like accidents, injuries, violence, mental and physical health problems, relationship issues, negligence of responsibilities, school dropout or more.
Alcoholism is a chronic physical and mental health problem that can affect anyone, anytime, if the victim is not aware of the signs, symptoms, effects and treatment of alcohol use disorder. In actual sense, alcoholism and alcohol dependence is a family disease. When member of the family is involved in uncontrolled drinking, the entire family is affected by the consequences. When families suffer from this phenomenon, the extended family, schools, health care systems, workplace, community and then the society around is badly affected.
How Does Alcoholism Affect The Society?
Chronic alcohol use disorder is affecting millions of people in America and other parts of the world and thousands of people are losing their lives every day. Issues to do with chronic alcohol use disorder and alcoholism affect young and old alike. Research shows that children brought up in families with drinking history develop a tendency of using alcohol at very tender age.
Impacts Of Alcohol On Children
Children are among the most directly and indirectly affected members of the society when it comes to alcoholism. Though they may not be taking alcohol themselves, their alcoholic parents expose these children to a lot of challenges when they are still very young to make sound decisions in life.
There are parent who engage in chronic alcohol use when they are pregnant and can result to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). This is very dangerous because it can lead to giving birth to underweight children, miscarriages or birth of children with birth defects. It can also lead to birth of children with alcohol addiction. If proper treatment is not given, these children are going to engage in drinking before their teen age. Also, the symptoms displayed by children born with Fetal alcohol syndrome are permanent and life-long.
In families where one or birth parents are drinking, it is possible that alcohol is left or kept where children can reach them. These children starts engaging in alcohol drinking simply because alcohol is available and no one is there to control them from drinking. You find that the parent(s) spend most of their time drunk and they don’t have time to monitor their children.
On top of this, there is a lot of negligence displayed by drinking parent(s). These parents do not have time to be with their children and they are therefore absent in their children’s growth and development progress. What we see is that these children may portray bad character because there is no one to guide or counsel them on the right living.
Due to negligence of responsibilities by drinking parents, in most cases the children are left to find their own means of survival. When there is no enough meals at home, the children might end up stealing to get money for food or other basic needs. This indeed increases the rates of crime in the society because as they grow up, these children become a major threat in the community they live in.
Children brought up in families where one or both parents engage in chronic alcohol abuse or a loved one dealing with drug/alcohol addiction are likely to develop various psychological and emotional problems.
Alcohol is an addictive drug that affects the functioning of the central nervous system. When a child develops physical or mental dependency on alcohol, this affects the proper functioning of their brains and can badly damage their developing brains.
Children aged 24 years and below have their brains actively developing. The kind of behavior they develop at this stage can become very difficult to change once they grow up. For healthy development of brains in a kid, drug/alcohol should be avoided.
Alcohol interferes with kids’ schooling in different ways. Due to the risks of brain damage due to alcohol use at childhood, the student’s performance degrades and it becomes difficult for a drinking teenage to achieve their academic goals. Alcohol affects sobriety and students who study when under the influence of alcohol are likely not to concentrate on their academic studies.
When drinking becomes a top priority in a child’s life, he does not afford time to study, socialize or even learn various skills in life. As a result, the child will end up becoming irresponsible and a poor performing student.
Remember, these are the same children that the society is looking up to in future. They are expected to take various leadership and development positions when their parents are retiring from active involvement in the society’s development. If a big number of children were engaged in chronic alcohol use, then the society will definitely suffer a big loss and a lot of void in leadership and development programs are left with no one competent enough to take the positions.
Effects Of Alcoholism On Families
Alcoholism is referred to as a chronic mental and physical disease. It is also a family problem. When one member of the family engages in chronic drinking, the family suffers a big deal. When an individual becomes alcohol dependent, this affects the functioning of the central nervous system. It affects his/her normal behaviors. It affects his sober judgement and in alcohol takes the top priority in life.
This individual spends most of his time and money drinking. Staying drunk can lead to many problems like family responsibility negligence, career negligence and relationship problems. An alcoholic parent is an ever absent person. He/she is not present in the child’s development. If married, all the responsibilities are left on the other partner and this can be very overwhelming. A lot of misunderstandings and communication problems arise and if the case is not handled thoroughly, it can lead to marriage break ups.
When marriage breaks, children as well as their parents suffer a big deal. If one parent is not financially stable, these children are going to be brought up with many challenges like lack of quality education, poor feeding, poor housing or more. This can badly affect the children’s well-being and self-esteem. This can steal their confidence and strength to face the future.
According to research done on social impact of alcohol on society, alcohol abuse and addiction is found to be playing a major role in partner violence, child negligence and abuse as well as impaired decision –making between married partners. Even the occasional binge drinking has the potential to affects the family’s finances. Due to these challenges and more, spousal violence may result.
As a result, the partner may be accused of assault offence and may end up spending years in jail. So, if this individual was a career or business person, spending years in jail affects his productivity and the society suffers as well.
When children lack quality education, their career dreams fade away. We find that not most of these children are going to live the life that was meant for them. The society loses great future leaders, professors, doctors and other professionals.
Alcoholism is directly linked with poverty. When an individual loses focus in his profession and spend most of the time drinking, chances of losing a job are very high and maybe he was the main breadwinner. In the modern world, securing a job has become a key challenge. So getting a stable source of income again may not be possible and poverty strikes the family.
Effects Of Alcohol In Schools
Schools established in areas with many cases of alcoholism and chronic alcohol use disorder suffer the consequences in various ways. A school that has alcoholic students is going to experience low academic results, discipline issues and lowered growth and development. Due to the increased peer influence among students, it becomes difficult for schools to control the rate of alcoholism and this is especially because of the environment these children are brought up in.
Schools are spending a lot of resources to perform frequent campaigns on drug/alcohol awareness but their efforts are not of great influence if the environment surrounding the schools is populated with people who engage in alcohol drinking.
A school with drunk students will experience many unlawful students behaviors like mayhems and strikes which lead to damage and destruction of school resources and the school suffers major losses. When this happens, parents are obliged to dig deep in their pockets and support the school raise the burnt infrastructure and properties. Finances that could have been directed on various development projects are now diverted to cover loses. If such cases become frequent, the growth of any given society is greatly inhibited.
We have heard cases of teachers that engage in alcoholism. What do we expect? For one, the drunk teacher’s productivity is affected. He fails to deliver what he is meant to. As a result, our children receive substandard education and this plays a major role in lowered performance that can affect a child’s future badly.
Again, drunk teachers display discipline incompetence. With this, the same behaviors are transferred to the children. As a result, we end up having an under-developed society that suffers a lot of crime-based problems.
Effects Of Alcohol On Health Care Systems
Engaging in binge drinking or chronic use disorder can lead to an endless list of health problems. Because drinking affects the normal behavior, alcoholics frequently engage in violence and assault.
Injuries and accidents are also very common with alcohol drinking individual. In case of driving while under the influence of alcohol, accidents occur and even the pedestrians are at risk as well. Drinking impairs balance and stability and a drunk individual may suffer from dangerous falls which can lead to internal bleeding or fractured bones.
Cases of fire are common with alcoholics especially those staying alone at home. For instance when the drunk individual is cooking and immediately falls into a deep sleep. This may cause fire outbreaks which can spread in to the neighborhood and can result to bad injuries or loss of lives.
As a result, health care systems receive emergency cases quit often. This in return exploits the hospital’s resources. The finances that could be used to stock medicine to cater for other health problems are reversed to cater for emergency cases that could have been prevented. If this continues for a while, members of the community fail to receive quality medical services that they deserve.
Long –term use of alcohol puts individuals at a high risk of contracting certain cancers, chronic cardiovascular and liver complications, psychiatric conditions, digestive problems, diabetes, stroke, heart diseases and a wide array of various medical and mental conditions. Families spend a lot of resources on medication and this may lead families into poverty of stagnant development.
In the US, approximate $28 billion is spent on alcohol-related health care. A lot of resources are directed to the treatment of intentional and unintentional alcohol-related injuries.
How The Health Insurance Industry Is Affected By Alcoholism
In America and other parts of the world, health insurance industry annually increases its cost to cater for the increasing alcohol related injuries, diseases and deaths. In all the reported abuse related deaths in children, over 75% deaths are associated with drug/alcohol abuse.
Health care and treatment of alcohol related complications costs the US over $15 billion. Over one billion dollars are used to treat Fetal alcohol syndrome. In the US, the number of children born with HIV AID is increasing at an alarming rate and this is posing a major economic challenge in the health insurance industry.
Adults who engage in heavy drinking are prone to engagement in unprotected sex. Alcoholism also exposes teenagers and young adults into irresponsible sexual behaviors and this is where most of them transmit AIS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Cases of abortion are also on a rise with alcoholics. In attempt to flush the unwanted babies, they end up into serious health complications or even death.
Impacts Of Alcohol In Workplace
Work performance can be greatly affected by alcohol consumption in various ways. According to research up to 25% workplace accidents have been attributed to alcohol. A lot of fatal accidents at workplace have also been reported due to alcohol use when working.
Heavy drinking at work is one of the causes of reduced productivity among workers based on the frequency and pattern of drinking. It is believed that individuals who engage in heavy drinking while working have reduced productivity due to lowered performance, relationship problems and lack of self-direction. The other co-workers experience a lot of challenges working along with drunk partners.
Research shows that workers who are involved in heavy drinking are reported to be the main absentees. It is evident that drunk workers are on frequent sick leaves compared to the other workers.
The issue of unemployment cannot be left aside when alcoholism is being discussed. Heavy drinkers have high chances of losing their jobs and in return, this increases the cases of alcoholism.
According to research, America reports alcohol related crashes every 22 minutes. At any given time, one out of 50 drivers are drunk. This is even worse over the weekends where one out of 10 drivers are drunk.
Alcohol and security
In every society where the levels of alcoholism are high, a lot of insecurity issues are reported. The number of violent crimes and handgun related to alcohol/drug are on the increase resulting to the increase of murderers. It has also been reported that most of the rapists are drunkards. Cases of suicide are also very common with individuals who drink. Also, among the cases of men arrested in serious crimes are individuals who engage in heavy drinking.
Families with individuals who engages in heavy drinking experience a lot of insecurities. Most of the alcoholics become violent and abusive. Staying alone with an alcoholic parent, partner or child poses your life into a lot of risks. It is therefore recommended that if you are not comfortable living alone with him/her, find another relative to stay along with you.
The society with high rates of alcoholism suffer a lot of insecurities. A lot of rape cases even to the minors are reported in an alarming rate. Many other social crimes put the security of society members at risk.
Alcoholism And Sports
Sports is one of the social activities that unite members of any given society. When most young people are engaged in heavy drinking, drinking becomes part of their lives, they neglect the important activities that used to unite them and boost development.
Cases of violence and disruptions are common in communities where most young people are drunkards. As a result, even those individuals who were passionate about promoting sports get discouraged and finally sports become one of the irrelevant activities in that community.
When We Stop Alcoholism, Growth Becomes A Reality
According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, alcoholism and alcohol use disorder has led to a lot of negative social impacts that has greatly led to underdeveloped societies. Heavy drinking affects sobriety. It also affects the manner in which individuals handle life’s stressors. Due to the global economic crisis, many individuals have turned into drugs/alcohol to run away from the realities of life.
When all is said and done, having seen the impact of alcohol on society, things shouldn’t end here. Something has to be done because we cannot allow to see alcohol steal the beauty of our society. If drug/alcohol awareness campaigns are promoted within our communities, this can help stop the menace of alcoholism.
How Can The Society Fight Alcoholism?
In as much as the government is spending a lot of resources on drug/alcohol campaigns and laying of rehab facilities, every individual in any given society has the responsibility to fight alcoholism. This should start with the family – which is the basic unit of every society.
Parents should get back to their active roles of raising their children and should be active at every stage of their children’s development. They should be very careful to monitor changes in their growing children so that they can identify alcoholism in their children at the initial stages to help them find help. Drinking parents should drink responsibly. Avoid drinking alcohol in the presence of your children. Hide alcohol where children cannot access them.
Need Treatment With Alcoholism?
Alcoholism or alcohol dependency should be treated just like any other diseases. Instead of pointing fingers and putting blame on each other, we should try our alcoholic loved ones find treatment.
Treatment for alcohol dependent patients is available. Due to the financial and moral support required by alcohol dependent individuals, the family and the society should be willing to help where possible. Just know that alcoholics are sick people and they need help just like other patients.
To find help with alcoholism, seek help from a professional doctor. In attempt to quit drinking, help from an addiction specialist is required due to the intense and life-threatening withdrawal symptoms coupled with strong craving and urges that are hard to manage on your own.
Safeguard Your Future! Say No To Alcohol
No matter the reason why you got into that nasty addiction to alcohol, it is not too late to bring your life back on track. You can safeguard your future and that of your family if you decide to quit alcohol today. In your quest to sobriety, all you need is determination, patience and self-discipline and stick to the right treatment program your doctor puts you into and you will enjoy long-term benefits of an alcohol-free life.
As a society, let’s uphold each other. Let’s be at the forefront to help and support our members who are fighting drug/alcohol addiction. Mobilizing one another to attend the scheduled drug/awareness seminars can help even the most affected societies overcome the menace of alcoholism. Reporting any suspicious sale of illegal alcohol or selling drugs/alcohol to the children should be reported immediately to the authorities to safeguard the livelihoods of our people. Finding comprehensive treatment to the youngster or family who abuse alcohol can help address and improve the negative impacts of alcohol on society.