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Effects of alcohol on the body
Effects of alcohol
Effects of alcohol on the body
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Alcohol has affected human lives in their own society every day since its dawning in the stone age, perhaps even earlier. Though alcohol is not illegal, it was when the eighteenth amendment was first ratified because of alcoholism. Alcoholism is entitled to those who abuse alcohol by over consumption to the brink of mental illness and compulsive behavior which then ultimately results in alcohol dependency. It affects many different groups of people, but it is affecting students in high school and college. They should not be affected considering the legal age to consume alcohol is twenty-one, but they are in fact being deterred from their innocence. Society depends on those of us that do not consume alcohol to bring the social, economical, and health related problems throughout society to decrease. When government officials governing alcohol realize that alcohol needs to be more monitored and cautioned, then and only then can this steep slope finally begin to depreciate.
The consumption of alcohol during social events is prevalent in society. When a group of adults have a party or get together there is almost always alcohol present such as at the bowling alley, where they sell multiple bottles of beer in a bucket. Adults tend to invite their other adult friends to a football game party and they drink too much, and due to the adverse effect of alcohol consumption, drunk driving takes a life in the United States every twenty-two minutes. In Christian’s to Recovery, : “The damage caused by alcohol impaired drivers is the same as if a Boeing 747 with over 500 passengers crashed every eight days killing everyone,” (CR, “Impacts”) Children know just how much their parents or parent drinks, and for that very reason alcohol shoul...
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...eir jobs and turn to alcohol, or even worse when an organ starts to fail. Though it seems that alcohol is a frequent occurrence in this world, it really should be less than a second thought.
Works Cited
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Christians in Recovery. "The Impact of Alcohol Abuse on American Society." Official Alcoholics Victorious Headquarters Website. Alcoholics Virtutious, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Cook, Philip J., and Michael J. Moore. "Health Affairs." The Economics Of Alcohol Abuse And Alcohol-Control Policies. Health Affairs, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "Alcohol's Effects on the Body." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.
Robinson, David. From Drinking to Alcoholism: A Social Commentary. London: John Wiley and Sons, 1976.
Each year, about 5,000 teens are killed or injured in traffic crashes as a result of underage drinking and about 1,900 are due to car accidents. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and U.S. Department of Transportation) In the newsletter, safety in numbers by National highway traffic administration and U.S department of transportation “Of all the people who died in motor vehicle crashes during 2012, 31 percent died in crashes involving a drunk driver, and this percentage remains unchanged for the past 10 years” (Vol 1, 2013). Crashes involving alcohol include fatal crashes in which a driver had a BAC of .01 g/ ld. or higher (Underage Drinking Statistics)). Deadly crashes involving alcohol are twice as common in teens compared to people 21 and older. This is because teens’ judgment skills are harmed more by alcohol. Teens who drink not only risk hurting themselves, they risk hurting their friends, family, and even strangers when driving intoxicated. Teens and parents both need a strong reminder that underage drinking is illegal and can have disastrous consequences. According to Health Day News, “one study found that in 2011, 36 percent of U.S. college students said they'd gone binge drinking (five or more drinks in one sitting) within the past two weeks, as compared to 43 percent of college students in 1988. Since 2006, the current law has reduced the rate of drunk driving crashes among young Americans” (Preidt, 2014 and DeJong, 2014). This proves that lives have been saved after the legal drinking age increased. According to an article in Time Magazine called “Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered?”, “lowering the drinking age to 18 would stop infantilizing college students, but it would probably kill mor...
"Alcohol's Effects on the Body." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. . (tags: none | edit tags)
According to Andrew Herman, “Each year, 14,000 die from drinking too much. 600,000 are victims of alcohol related physical assault and 17,000 are a result of drunken driving deaths, many being innocent bystanders” (470). These massive numbers bring about an important realization: alcohol is a huge issue in America today. Although the problem is evident in Americans of all ages, the biggest issue is present in young adults and teens. In fact, teens begin to feel the effects of alcohol twice as fast as adults and are more likely to participate in “binge-drinking” (Sullivan 473). The problem is evident, but the solution may be simple. Although opponents argue lowering the drinking age could make alcohol available to some teens not mature enough to handle it, lowering the drinking age actually teaches responsibility and safety in young adults, maintains consistency in age laws, and diminishes temptation.
There has been an ongoing controversy in the United States on whether the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen like most of the world or if it should stay at twenty-one. Underage drinking has been a major controversial issue for years, yet why is it not under control? Teenagers are continuing to buy alcohol with fake identification cards, drink, get into bars, and drink illegally. As a teen, I have proof that these things are going on not only in college but in high school as well. There are a lot of factors that come together to why the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen; the most obvious reason is that too many people are drinking before they are twenty-one.
Alcoholism is a major problem in today’s society it is considered a disease. The effects of this so called disease are a lot more serious than one might think, and can effect your life in a big way. Many of alcohols consumers drink frequently that they will eventually get used to it, and it becomes an everyday thing. That right there is where the problem starts. Some of the effects I found are economical, physiological, and physical, which are some of the negative effects alcohol, can have on someone’s life.
“Teen alcohol use kills 4,700 people each year — that’s more than all illegal drugs combined” (Fitzgerald 1). Alcoholism is a serious issue in our society and causes harm to ourselves and others. In this paper the effects of alcohol, how it affects the body, why people do it, and alcoholism as a whole will be explained.
Alcohol is a large part of American culture. All over the United States drinking is not only acceptable but a social norm from teenagers to adults. This is not only the case in the U.S., but all over the world, where some drinking ages are 18 and 19 years of age. In America specifically, alcohol has been around for centuries and is a large part of many social gatherings. Although this is the case now, in the early 1900’s during the prohibition period, all alcohol was banned and deemed illegal to possess. Even though illegal, the task was just too heavy and alcohol was too much a common practice for most Americans. As time went on the prohibition period ended and the laws were revoked, making it legal again to possess alcohol. The drinking related problems that were around during prohibition pale in comparison to the problems alcohol has caused since then.
Today, an average of 4,358 drinkers under the age of twenty-one are diagnosed with alcohol as a factor of their death. Mother Aleae Pennette never would have guessed that July 10, 2011 would be the day that her daughter would add on to that statistic. Fourteen year old Takeimi Rao was found dead that morning after mixing vodka and soda with her friends during a sleepover (Conley). Though extremely tragic, Takeimi was only one of 8.7 million minors and young adults (ages twelve to twenty) that reported having more than “just a few sips” of alcoholic beverages in the past month. Additionally, her age group is responsible for 11% of the alcohol consumed in The United States (“Underage Drinking”). Although the concept may seem implausible to some, the involvement that children had with alcohol nearly one hundred years ago could be an indirect cause of the millions of underage drinkers in The United States
Teenage drinking has become a big problem around the world the studies have shown between seventy to eighty percent of every teen has had an alcoholic beverage. (ClayPool 2) That is about half of the students in a public school. 1.9 million teens from the day they turned twelve to the age of twenty are considered heavy drinkers. (Well-connected 21) But only twelve out of fifteen actually have a problem drinking alcoholic beverages. (Goodwin 63) Many teens die in traffic accidents each day from the age sixteen to nineteen. There has been around 2,700 teens in the United States killed and almost 321,000 were treated for injuries suffered by motor-vehicle crashes, but then were released to go home. The cost to repair the damages of an alcohol-related accident is estimated to be around one-thousand, five- hundred all the way up to one-hundred, forty-eight billion dollars. ("Teenage" 64) But alcohol-related crashes also cost American taxpayers one-hundred billion dollars not just the driver. ("Drinking") Days of the week with the highest deat...
Wechsler, H., Nelson T., & Weitzman, E. (February 2000). From Knowledge to Action. Change [On-line], Available: www2.gasou.edu/library/ (Galileo)(EBSCOhost)(Search=Alcohol Abuse).
“For every family that is impacted by drugs, there are another 10 to 15 families impacted by alcohol abuse. It's a pretty big deal. We have a tendency to only look at part of the puzzle.” (Kevin Lewis). As a society we tend to categorize the severity of addiction in a way that drugs are the most dangerous and alcohol being just a problem. Because alcohol addiction can be a slow progressive disease many people don’t see it in the same light as drug addiction. An addiction to drugs is seen as being a more deadly and dangerous issue then that of alcohol because a drug addiction can happen more quickly and can kill more quickly. Alcohol is something that is easy to obtain, something that is found at almost every restaurant. People with an alcohol addiction can not hide from alcohol as easy as a drug addict. Approximately 7 million Americans suffer from alcohol abuse and another 7 million suffer from alcoholism. (Haisong 6) The dangers of alcohol affect everyone from children with alcoholic parents, to teenagers who abuse alcohol, then to citizens who are terrorized by drunk drivers.
Drinking alcohol is associated with many adverse health problems in the short and long-term. These include cancer, stroke, heart disease, miscarriage, premature birth and unintentional injuries. Despite the fact that alcohol brings many negative impacts, many people still choose to drink and do not overcome their drinking habit. They have been successfully seduced by alcohol until drinking has become their addiction. However, some of them try to quit drinking, but they still cannot break the addiction. Basically, quitting alcohol is difficult and almost impossible for them because of brain-craving, lack of belief and support, and weak willpower.
As a result of underage drinking, 5,000 adolescents under the age of 21 die annually due to intoxication (taking motor vehicle crashes, homicides, suicides, and other injuries while intoxicated into consideration) (paragraph 2). Later in life, underage drinkers are more likely to develop alcoholism, poor performance in school, and risky sexual behavior (paragraph 43). Although this research is not opposed to my argument, there is an importance to acknowledging it as proof of dangerous, underage drinking occurring significantly regardless of whether it is illegal. More importantly, this research stems from adolescents drinking without the supervision of adults and in uncontrolled quantities. Since adolescents must wait a long period of time to drink legally, I believe they fear they must take advantage of drinking opportunities by excess drinking and risk of safety due to their restriction to alcohol. Based on this mindset, I believe exposure to alcohol at a younger age in controlled environments would not only decrease underage drinking in large quantities, but injury and death related to intoxication, as
Zelman, K. (1995, Dec). Retrieved from The Alcohol Debate: Should You or Shouldn't You: www.medicine.net