Assignment on alcohol consumption PDF

Running head: ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
Overview:
Problem drinking that turns out to be severe in an individual can be given the medical
diagnosis of alcohol use disorder or AUD. It can be described as the chronic relapsing brain
disorder that can be characterized by the compulsive alcohol use, loss of control over the intake
of alcohol as well as a negative emotional state when not using. About 5507 alcohol specific
deaths have been recorded in the year 2016, which is about 4% higher than the 2015 data and an
increase about 11% from the data recorded in the year 2006 (Connor et al., 2016). About 337000
number of hospital admissions were noted in the year 2016-2017 that were primarily due to
alcohol consumption in the nation. The statistical analysis had shown that the number of
admission of the alcohol related admissions increases with the increase of age and then falls
when it reaches the cohort for 45-54. Total number of admissions when analyzed based on sex; it
can be found that more men are admitted in comparison to women. In total, about 62% of the
patients who were admitted were males (Kunyk, 2015). Hence, this disorder is having a negative
impact on the economic condition of the nation and acting as a substantial health burden on the
nation. This assignment will mainly try to put light on the psychological factors and related
theories that contribute to the development of drinking habits. It will then propose and compare
different types of interventions that would help in effective management of the disorder and
ensure better quality lives of individuals.
Psychological factors:
McLean et al. (2015) have stated that certain psychological conditions are seen to greatly
impact the likelihood that an individual would develop the alcohol use disorder. The studies
conducted by him have shown that individuals who suffer from depression, social anxiety as well

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ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
as bipolar disorders are more likely to develop addiction towards alcohol consumption. It has
been found that about 40% of the sufferers of bipolar disorders abuse or is dependent on alcohol.
About 205 of the depression sufferers have been also found to be abusing alcohol o remaining
dependent on their consumptions. It is important to understand the main reason that makes such
patients more vulnerable to develop the disorder (Krentzman et al., 2015). Such individuals who
suffer from psychological illness mainly turn to alcohol as a method of coping with their illness.
Participants in the study who were suffering from schizophrenia had stated that alcohol helps in
making the voice in the head “become quite”. People who suffer from depression had stated that
alcohol helps in “elevating moods” (Lee et al., 2015). The study also shows that such comments
are more common in the participants who have not been diagnosed with the disorders or who
have found that medication creates unpleasant outcomes and side effects in them. Many types of
the psychological disorders can reduce the ability of the individuals to perceive the reality of
their drinking as well as make them ignore the warning signs and symptoms.
Another study conducted by Giesen et al. (2015) had tried to research over the fact that
why certain people repeat their drinking behaviors even when these behaviors had been found to
be harmful. Researchers are of the opinion that this mainly takes place because people learns to
anticipate certain important benefits from the addiction even though it is harmful. The main
benefits that had been noted in the studies from the personal views of the participants engaged in
drinking habits are stress reduction as well as relief from boredom. Moreover, “pleasurable
sensations”, “coping with negative feelings or situations “and even “simply the benefit of
avoiding withdrawal symptoms” make individuals remain dependent on intake of alcohol.
Wakeman et al. (2016) have stated that people indeed have varying abilities in coping with
different types of unpleasant emotions as well as circumstances. When individuals are seen to

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ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
have poor coping skills, they are found to be more vulnerable towards addiction. Similarly,
people also have varying degrees of stress as well as varying skills of stress reduction. People
with high levels of stress and at the same time, lack stress reduction skills are found to be more
vulnerable towards developing addiction to alcohol.
Another important issue that also makes an individual to take up the drinking habit is the
peer pressure, which is common mostly in the teenagers. Often individuals are seen to take up
the drinking habits by coming under the influence of their peers called the peer pressure. Studies
suggest that it often becomes difficult for the teenagers to ignore the social pressure and thereby
their psychological impact of the peer pressure makes individuals take up the addiction habits.
The psychological thinking procedure of an individual being subjected to such pressure can
become of the driving factor for the unhealthy habits (Hallgreen et al., 2015). The psychological
impact of peer pressure on the children may be direct or indirect. Direct peer pressure might take
place when the peers of an individual encourage him explicitly to drink alcohol or refill his
glasses without asking them or buying them another drink from their own. The psychological
aspects that play an important role here is to make the individuals believe that such actions of the
friends need to be respected to show reciprocal behavior of love, friendliness and dearness. On
the other hand, many of the individuals might also have the psychology that denying such
offerings might upset their peers and would make them socially excluded. Such psychological
thinking might make them probe to development of this disorder as they lack the ability to deny
or manage such stressful situations (James et al., 2015). Another form of psychology also comes
into play during the times of indirect peer pressure. Per pressure can be less overt and more
indirect. This form of peer pressure might occur as social modeling. When particular group of
peers drink regularly and are considered ultramodern or “cool”, other individuals will also have