Alcohol

Alcohol is a wonderful beverage that acts as a form of 'social enhancer', to kick back and relax from a hard day at work with friends. However, alcohol is often consumed in large quantities at a time, beyond one's tolerance for it and become completely incapacitated by it.


I really like this image. It shows the man being frustated with alcohol and its effect, yet, he continues to drink it. Why? Why is it people, mainly teenagers who are below the legal age to drink or just turned legal regularly drink so much alcohol when they are conscious of its many side effects, like liver damage, short term memory loss and the development of alcoholism.

Perhaps it firsts starts off as an experimentation, the first drink ever with friends. Its exciting, its new, and people get a 'buzz' from it, thus making them feel more confident and socialable.

But then the problem arises as they continue to drink more and more, becoming tolerant to the effects of alcohol and therefore have to drink more in quantity which will damage the body even more in order to get 'high'. The craving for alcohol becomes overbearing, people experiance withdrawal symptoms so they drink to get rid of these symptoms, but then they cannot seem to stop drinking once the begin. This is alcoholism.

Alcoholism is so serious, it is actually classified as a disease and is included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Ediation, publish by the American Psychiatric Association. Although there are no miracle cure for alcoholism, it can be treated through both counseling and medications, although there is still the chance that people trying to quit will suffer a relapse. More information on alcoholism can be found on the link shown below.

http://www.medicinenet.com/alcohol_abuse_and_alcoholism/article.htm

Shouldn't alcohol be a luxury in which people of the legal age can enjoy, rather then have their lives be run and be ruined by it?