Alcohol Addiction: Signs, Symptoms, Complications, And Treatment Of Alcoholism

While the vast majority of people in the United States — some 86 percent, statistics show — occasionally drink alcohol, around six percent of adults develop an alcohol use disorder, along with 2.5 of youngsters between the ages of 12 and 17. Alcohol addictions are so insidious precisely because many people who drink enjoy alcoholic beverages in a responsible, innocent way.

Do you have a drinking problem?

Humans have been drinking alcohol for a very, very long time — but now, in the twenty-first century, modern science has been able to establish what constitutes drinking patterns that aren't damaging and when they cross over into problematic use. 

A standard drink is:

• A 12 oz beer with an alcohol content of five percent
• Five ounces of wine with an alcohol content of 12 percent
• Eight ounces of malt liquor with an alcohol content of seven percent
• If you're drinking liquor like vodka, rum, or whiskey, which has an alcohol content of 40 percent, a standard drink is one shot, which amounts to 1.5 ounces

The Centers for Disease Control have identified several forms of excessive drinking, which include:

• Heavy drinking — when a man has more than 15 standard drinks a week, or a woman has more than eight. 
• Binge drinking, which has a technical definition — if your blood alcohol level exceeds 0.08 percent, you're doing it. Binge drinking can more informally be defined as having lots of alcohol in a single drinking session. For men, this usually means five or more drinks while women get there by having more than four. Binge drinkers will usually down these in two hours or less. 
• Underage drinking. This will vary from one jurisdiction to another, but in the US it means drinking if you're under 21. 
• Pregnant drinking. No amount of alcohol has been shown to be absolutely safe during pregnancy, and during the early stages of pregnancy, even relatively small amounts carry significant risks. 
• Drinking and driving, drinking while you're on medications that interact negatively with alcohol, and drinking while operating heavy machinery are also, clearly, problematic. Not to mention potentially deadly. 

So, basically, anyone who does any of the things on that list can be considered to have a "drinking problem". But problematic alcohol use doesn't necessarily mean you are an alcoholic. 

Could you be an alcoholic?

If you're reading this because you think you may be an alcoholic, sit down. These diagnostic criteria for alcohol use disorder (courtesy of the US diagnostic manual for mental disorders, the DSM-5) may get uncomfortable.

Give it an honest look and see if two or more of the symptoms apply to you and have done so for at least a year:

• You drink more and more often than you plan to. 
• You want to reduce your alcohol use but don't seem to be able to.
• You spend a lot of time drinking alcohol, recovering from drinking, or trying to get alcohol. 
• You crave alcohol. 
• Your drinking messes with life responsibilities, but you go on drinking anyway.
• You give up important social, work, or leisure activities because of your alcohol use. 
• You repeatedly use alcohol in situations where it is dangerous (such as before driving). 
• You keep drinking even though it is affecting your mental or physical health.
• Tolerance — you need to drink more and more to achieve the same effect, or drinking the same amount no longer has the same effect.
• You experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms if you try to quit.

Alcohol use disorder can also be looked at in terms of severity, much like, for instance, major depression. Having two or three symptoms puts you in the "mild" category, four or five mean your alcohol use disorder is "moderate", and six or more mean you have a severe problem. 

Drinkers officially described as "heavy" because they have more alcohol than recommended, and those who occasionally "binge drink" (or, get drunk, as they used to say), may have more alcohol than they planned to sometimes, but they shouldn't meet more of the diagnostic criteria. If they are able to abstain without problems and do so, they're not alcoholics. They may still be "problem drinkers", however.

Health and social consequences of alcoholism

OK, we all know this, roughly at least, but here's a refresher. Drinking heavily can cause a myriad of physical health problems, ranging from liver cirrhosis to different kinds of cancer, injuries sustained while intoxicated, pancreatitis, and high blood pressure. If that was too abstract for you, alcohol use is related to 88,000 deaths every year in the United States alone. Globally, this figure amounts to more than three million.

Alcoholism can also impact mental health and social wellbeing, of course. It can cause job loss, the break-up of families, Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome (alcoholic dementia), reduced cognitive abilities, social isolation, and much more. 

Treatment for alcoholism

If you know you have a drinking problem and would like to recover, you have options. They all start with seeking help. On a mental level — a domain that would include helping you abstain from alcohol in the future — various forms of talk therapy are viable options, as well as support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous. If you are a very heavy drinker, you will also need help with the physical withdrawal process. It may not be safe to quit cold turkey, and you may have to taper your alcohol consumption off gradually to avoid delirium tremens, which can cause very serious problems including seizures. 

In conclusion

Some people drink alcohol responsibly. Others engage in various forms of problem drinking that do not constitute alcoholism (alcohol use disorder), and a smaller but very significant portion of the population will be addicted to alcohol and physically dependent on it.

If you're in the first group, you're good to go.

If you think you're in the second group, because you binge drink sometimes or drink more than you should (but not much more), you can safely reevaluate your life and make changes.