Alcoholism facts are highly understated and taken rather lightly, since most of us believe that social drinking is different from addiction. Beware but you won't even know when the social becomes compulsive and then leads to addiction, the reason to know the alcoholism facts is to detect these early signs and take corrective action at the right time.
When in college I would drink as the peer pressure was tremendous, like do or die of humiliation off course. Then came the days working as a fresher, being bullied by seniors at work and not being able to understand and handle work place politics. Now I drink to avoid going home early to hear my wife tell me all those financial and social responsibilities I have been avoiding. Well does all this sound familiar, because at the end of it you are already a compulsive drinker or an alcoholic? So beware and learn to handle stress and social pressure from the beginning, teach your kids to handle it well and have the power to say no at the right time.
The alcoholism facts begin with the mind, you must have the power or determination to say no to a drink when friends force you, once you are able to do that then half the battle is won. Even if you do have a drink once in a while your mind shall have the power to resist the desire on everyday basis as better sense shall prevail. Unless you have great work or personal problems, frustrations and depressions, all these make one susceptible to escape drinking. At any stage of life when having any psychological problems like frustration, stress or depression due to any reason its best to go in for counselling rather than resorting to the bottle.
Alcoholism facts cannot be complete without the physical facts, since alcohol destroys every organ of the body from head to toe. The first target organ is the stomach, which gets inflamed causing gastritis and hyperacidity eventually leading to gastric or duodenal ulcers. Most people take this symptom very lightly since it can be solved by popping an antacid, but beware this is the warning sign the body is giving you. If you don't stop or reduce now it just gets worse from here on, as the destruction now moves on deeper into the body.
Liver cirrhosis is the most popularised alcoholism fact, and rightly so because most cases of mortality due to alcohol occur due to liver failure. The fact which is less known or may be plain ignored is that this disease is completely reversible in the initial stages, thus if the facts are well known many cases of end stage liver disease can be avoided.
The lesser known alcoholism facts can be summarised in short, from pancreatitis to alcoholic dementia it just affects every system of the body. The percentage of cardiac diseases is on the rise and one of the causes is alcoholism, alcoholism causes hyperlipidemia and hypertension both of these are precursors of cardiac disease.
