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Alcoholism is a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by continuous impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking. Its effects on a person are an indescribable, harsh, reality of what one drug can do to an individual. Some people wonder when drinking becomes a problem. For most adults, moderate alcohol use, no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women is relatively harmless.
A "drink" consists of 1.5 ounces of spirits, 5 ounces of wine or 12 ounces of beer. Moderate use, however, lies at one end of a continuum that moves through alcohol abuse to alcohol dependence. Alcohol abuse is a drinking pattern that results in consequences that are significant and recurrent. Alcoholics may fail to fulfill major school, work, or family obligations. They may have drinking-related legal problems, such as DWI`s and they may have relationship problems related to their drinking. People with alcoholism have become compulsive in their alcohol use. Although they can control their drinking at times, they are often unable to stop once they start. As their tolerance increases, they may need more and more alcohol to achieve the same "high". Or they may become physically dependent on alcohol, suffering withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, sweating, restlessness, irritability, tremors and even hallucinations and convulsions when they stop after a period of heavy drinking. It doesn't matter what kind of alcohol someone drinks or even how much: alcohol dependent people simply lack control over their drinking.
Alcohol-related disorders are caused by many things. Problem drinking has multiple causes, with genetic, physiological, psychological and social factors. For some alcoholics,...