Alcohol abuse and alcoholism – foreword
What is alcohol?
By using term 'alcohol' we have in mind all kinds of alcoholic beverages but what's the most important is ethanol (or ethyl alcohol, C2H5OH) – chemical substance, very simple in structure, which is responsible for addiction and state of mind we experience after drinking alcohol. In common usage 'alcohol' means ethanol.
Alcohol proof number
Amounts of ethanol in product depends on kind of this product. For example vodka is an alcohol beverage in which 40% by volume (abv) is pure ethanol. Rest of mass is composed of water, flavors and other chemical substances originating from initial stuff and production process.
Alcohol abuse and addiction
Alcoholism is an physiological and psychical addiction. Mechanism of addiction development is not yet clearly understood but it's a result of alcohol abuse. Alcoholism treatment is very hard. Even after years and years of abstinence alcohol problem still exist and risk of turning back into addiction after drinking even small dose of alcohol is extremely high. About 70% of patients are not able to pass this test.
Alcoholism is a real problem. Estimations show that 9% of men and 5% of women are at risk of this addiction. It makes alcoholism one of the biggest health problems in industrialized world. Only heart disease and cancer appears to be bigger health problem than alcoholism.
Genes
Many surveys show that predisposition to alcoholism is written in genes. Those genetic factors are of course only one of the variety of factors which makes one prone to the addiction. However, it increases risk of addiction among some people. For example risk of alcoholism in children of alcoholics was estimated to be four times bigger than normal!
