Substance abuse: Alcohol Consumption and alcohol dependence among the youth (Социологическое исследование проблемы алкоголизма среди студентов)
ICEF, GROUP 2/2
Tutor: Yulia Poltorak
Student: Matyukhin Anton
reSearch Paper on Sociology
Substance abuse:
Alcohol Consumption and alcohol dependence among the youth.
Международный институт экономики и финансов, 2 курс, Высшая школа
экономики.
1999
CONTENTS:
. Reasons for choosing this topic.
. The concept of alcohol.
V What is alcohol?
V Factors that influence alcohol’s effect.
V Immediate effects of alcohol.
. The concept of alcohol dependence (alcoholism).
V What is alcoholism?
V What are the symptoms?
V Three distinct stages of alcoholism.
V Long- term effects of alcohol.
V Treating alcoholism.
. Sociological research.
V Reasons for choosing the questionnaire as a method of my survey and
a sample design.
V The list of questions.
V The analysis of a data received.
. Literature used.
Reasons for choosing this topic.
Though all people know the truth about the unprecedented guile of
alcohol drinks, many of them fall in its skilfully set up traps. This is
because of the character of alcohol, which can force to like itself,
despite its harmful, sick and dissolute nature.
One sage said: “Wine brings four qualities to everyone, who drinks it.
In the beginning, a person starts looking like a peacock- he puffs, his
motions are sail and dignified. Then, he gains a nature of a monkey and
begins jesting and playing with everyone. Afterwards, he likens himself
with a lion and becomes presumptuous, proud, sure of his power. But at the
end he changes into a pig and wallows in dirt”.
The worst thing is that drunkards and alcoholics, being carriers of
negative views and stereotypes of antisocial behaviour, not only constantly
break the rules and norms of behaviour in different scopes of vital
activity of people, but also actively promote the involvement in the
drunkenness people around them, especially young.
It is stated by many studies that each drunkard and alcoholic renders
demoralising influence on the average of 4-5 persons from the nearest
ambience.
For many centuries people tried to find the most effective facilities
and ways of protecting the humanity from the ruinous influence of alcohol.
They tried to develop measures on eliminating the multiple bad consequences
of drunkenness and alcoholism, primarily the measures on rescuing, bringing
back to a normal life a constantly increasing number of victims of alcohol.
The history of anti-alcoholic struggle has left many examples of using
in these purposes different measures up to such radical, as a conclusion of
drunkards in prisons, their physical punishment, executions, full
prohibition of production and selling of alcohol drinks, e.t.c. However, a
consumption of alcohol continued to grow steadily, covering new groups and
layers of populations.
On the one hand one can suggest a continuous growing of the world
alcohol consumption to be due to a weak efficiency of measures used by the
mankind against the dangerous social phenomena, on the other – due to a
significant reinforcement of reasons and conditions, causing the broad
masses of population to fall in the alcohol dependence.
Until a recent time, the insufficient theoretical development of
questions, associated with spreading of an alcoholic consumption, one-sided
explanation of reasons of drunkenness and alcoholism rendered a negative
influence upon the contents and direction of anti-alcoholic struggle, on
its strategy and tactics. Practice of an anti-alcoholic struggle shows that
solving of concrete questions on warning and a displacing the negative
phenomenas is impossible without a deep study of the reasons, causing
consumption of alcohol beverages and promoting spreading a drunkenness and
alcoholism.
That is why I chose this topic to be discussed in my work. I really
consider it to be a social problem almost as essential as the drug
dependence. Unfortunately, I have a lack of time and experience to cover
all the aspects of it and to make a deep sociological investigation, but
nevertheless I’ll try to do my best.
The concept of alcohol.
What is alcohol?
The active ingredient in all alcoholic beverages is ethyl ethanol
(alcohol), which is produced by yeast cells acting on carbohydrates in
fruits and grains. Ethyl alcohol works much like ether, acting as an
anaesthetic to put the brain to sleep. Alcohol is a central nervous system
depressant that slows down body functions such as heart rate and
respiration. Small quantities of alcohol may induce feelings of well being
and relaxation; but in larger amounts, alcohol can cause intoxication,
sedation, unconsciousness and even death. There are three types of
alcoholic beverages:
* Beer is fermented from grains and contains three to six percent alcohol.
* Wine is fermented from fruit and normally contains 12 to 14 percent
alcohol. Fortified wines have additional alcohol added and contain 18 to 20
percent alcohol. Wine coolers are a mixture of fruit juice, sugar, and red
or white wine, and contain four to seven percent alcohol (approximately the
same alcoholic content as beer)
* Liquor is made from distilled (boiled off) alcohol and contains 40 to 50
percent alcohol. This is expressed as degrees of proof (two proof equals
one percent alcohol). For example, 80 proof liquor is 40 percent alcohol.
Factors that influence alcohol’s effect.
Drinking has different effects on different people, and the same amount
of alcohol can affect the same person differently on different occasions.
Four factors influence how alcohol affects people:
Amount of Alcohol. The more alcohol, the stronger the effects. A person
may drink beer, wine, or whiskey; what matters is the amount of alcohol
that is consumed.
Body Weight. People who weigh more are less affected by the same amount
of alcohol than people who weigh less. Alcohol is water soluble heavier
people have more blood and water in their bodies, so the same amount of
alcohol will be more diluted. Gender also affects the influence of alcohol.
Women have a higher proportion of fat and a lower proportion of water in
their bodies than men; therefore, a woman will have a higher blood alcohol
content than a man who is of the same weight and who drinks the same
amount.
Food. Alcohol "goes to the head" more slowly if one has just eaten or if
one eats while drinking. Food slows down the passage of alcohol from the
stomach to the small intestine.
Attitudes. What a person expects to happen after drinking has a lot to
do with what does happen. A drinker who expects to get drunk is more likely
to feel or act drunk.
In one study, an experienced group of drinkers was given a glass of
something non-alcoholic but was told it contained alcohol. Most of the
group still got drunk.
Immediate effects of alcohol.
When consumed, alcohol goes right to the stomach and passes through to
the small intestine, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream. It takes
about 30 seconds for the first amounts of alcohol to reach the brain after
ingestion. Once there, alcohol acts primarily on nerve cells deep in the
brain.
One drink for the average person (a 12-ounce beer, five ounces of wine,
or one and one-half ounces of 80-proof whiskey) will create a feeling of
relaxation. Two and a half drinks in an hour can affect the drinker's
judgement and lower inhibitions. Five drinks in two hours will raise the
blood alcohol content (BAC) to. 1 0, the point of legal intoxication in
most countries.
After this amount of alcohol, the average drinker will experience
blurred vision, slurred speech, poor muscle coordination, and a lack of
rational judgement. Ten drinks will yield a BAC of 0.20. It will take 1 0
hours for the alcohol to be completely metabolised. After more than 12
drinks, the BAC will rise to 0.30 and the drinker will be in a stupor. A
BAC of O.40 to 0.50 will induce coma. A drinker in this condition may be
near death because he could vomit and choke while unconscious. Breathing is
likely to stop with a BAC of 0.60. The BAC can be measured by using a
breath, urine or blood test. This amount is measured as a percentage -- how
many parts of Alcohol to how many parts of blood.
Eliminating alcohol from the body is a long process. About 90 percent
must be metabolised through the liver. The remaining 10 percent is
eliminated through the lungs and urine. It takes about one hour to
eliminate one-half ounce of alcohol.
Heavy drinking in a short period of time will often cause a hangover the
next day. A hangover is a sign of alcohol poisoning; it is the body's
reaction to alcohol withdrawal. Symptoms of a hangover include nausea,
disorientation, headache, irritability and tremors.
The concept of alcohol dependence (alcoholism).
What is alcoholism?
The conception of inveterate drunkenness as a disease appears to be
rooted in antiquity. The Roman philosopher Seneca classified it as a form
of insanity. The term alcoholism, however, appears first in the classical
essay "Alcoholismus Chronicus" (1849) by the Swedish physician Magnus Huss.
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