What is Alcohlism?

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Alcoholism, also known as alcohol dependence, is a disease that includes the following four symptoms:

Craving--A strong need, or urge, to drink.
Loss of control--Not being able to stop drinking once drinking has begun.
Physical dependence--Withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety after stopping drinking.
Tolerance--The need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to get "high."
For clinical and research purposes, formal diagnostic criteria for alcoholism also have been developed. Such criteria are included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association, as well as in the International Classification Diseases, published by the World Health Organization. (See also "Publications," Alcohol Alert No. 30: Diagnostic Criteria for Alcohol Abuse and Dependence.)

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Alcoholism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alcoholism, also known as alcohol dependence, is a disabling addictive disorder. It is characterized by compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcohol despite its negative effects on the drinker's health, relationships, and social standing. Like other drug addictions, alcoholism is medically defined as a treatable disease. The term "alcoholism" is a widely used term first coined in 1849 by Magnus Huss, but in medicine the term was replaced by "alcohol abuse" and "alcohol dependence" in the 1980s DSM III. Similarly in 1979 an expert World Health Organisation committee disfavoured the use of "alcoholism" as a diagnostic entity, preferring the category of "alcohol dependence syndrome". In the 19th and early 20th centuries, alcohol dependence was called dipsomania before the term "alcoholism" replaced it.

The biological mechanisms underpinning alcoholism are uncertain, however, risk factors include social environment, stress, mental health, genetic predisposition, age, ethnic group, and sex. Long-term alcohol abuse produces physiological changes in the brain such as tolerance and physical dependence. Such brain chemistry changes maintain the alcoholic's compulsive inability to stop drinking and result in alcohol withdrawal syndrome upon discontinuation of alcohol consumption. Alcohol damages almost every organ in the body, including the brain; because of the cumulative toxic effects of chronic alcohol abuse, the alcoholic risks suffering a range of medical and psychiatric disorders. Alcoholism has profound social consequences for alcoholics and the people of their lives.

Alcoholism is the cyclic presence of tolerance, withdrawal, and excessive alcohol use; the drinker's inability to control such compulsive drinking, despite awareness of its harm to his or her health, indicates that the person might be an alcoholic. Questionnaire-based screening is a method of detecting harmful drinking patterns, including alcoholism. Alcohol detoxification is conducted to withdraw the alcoholic person from drinking alcohol, usually with cross-tolerance drugs, e.g. benzodiazepines to manage withdrawal symptoms. Post-medical care, such as group therapy, or self-help groups, usually is required to maintain alcoholic abstention. Often, alcoholics also are addicted to other drugs, most often benzodiazepines, which might require additional medical treatment. The alcoholic woman is more sensitive to alcohol's deleterious physical, cerebral, and mental effects, and increased social stigma, in relation to a man, for being an alcoholic. The World Health Organisation estimates that there are 140 million alcoholics worldwide.

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Classification and terminology
Misuse, problem use, abuse, and heavy use refers to improper use of alcohol which may cause physical, social, or moral harm to the drinker. Moderate use is defined by The Dietary Guidelines for Americans as no more than two alcoholic beverages per day for men and no more than one alcoholic beverage per day for women.

The term "alcoholism" is commonly used, but poorly defined. The WHO defines alcoholism as "a term of long-standing use and variable meaning", and use of the term was disfavored by a 1979 WHO Expert Committee. The Big Book (from Alcoholics Anonymous) states that once a person is an alcoholic, they are always an alcoholic, but does not define what is meant by the term "alcoholic" in this context. In 1960, Bill W., co-founder of AA, said:

We have never called alcoholism a disease because, technically speaking, it is not a disease entity. For example, there is no such thing as heart disease. Instead there are many separate heart ailments, or combinations of them. It is something like that with alcoholism. Therefore we did not wish to get in wrong with the medical profession by pronouncing alcoholism a disease entity. Therefore we always called it an illness, or a malady -- a far safer term for us to use.

In professional and research contexts, the term "alcoholism" sometimes encompasses both alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. and sometimes is considered equivalent to alcohol dependence.

In psychology and psychiatry, the DSM is the most common global standard, while in medicine, the standard is ICD. The terms they recommend are similar but not identical:

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Etymology
1904 advertisement describing alcoholism as a disease.Historically the name dipsomania was coined by German physician Dr. C. W. Hufeland in 1819 before it was superseded by alcoholism. The term "alcoholism" was first used in 1849 by the Swedish physician Magnus Huss to describe the systematic adverse effects of alcohol.

AA describes alcoholism as an illness that involves a physical allergy :p.28 and a mental obsession.:p.23 Note that the definition of "allergy" used in this context is not the same as used in modern medicine. The doctor and addiction specialist Dr. William D. Silkworth M.D. writes on behalf of AA that "Alcoholics suffer from a "(physical) craving beyond mental control".:XXVI

A 1960 study by E. Morton Jellinek is considered the foundation of the modern disease theory of alcoholism. Jellinek's definition restricted the use of the word "alcoholism" to those showing a particular natural history. The modern medical definition of alcoholism has been revised numerous times since then. The American Medical Association currently uses the word alcoholism to refer to a particular chronic primary disease.

A minority opinion within the field, notably advocated by Herbert Fingarette and Stanton Peele, argue against the existence of alcoholism as a disease. Critics of the disease model tend to use the term "heavy drinking" when discussing the negative effects of alcohol consumption.

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Long-term effects of alcohol
Alcoholism is characterised by an increased tolerance of and physical dependence on alcohol, affecting an individual's ability to control alcohol consumption safely. These characteristics are believed to play a role in impeding an alcoholic's ability to stop drinking. Alcoholism can have adverse effects on mental health, causing psychiatric disorders to develop and an increased risk of suicide.