...Alcohol is a depressant that slows down the body’s reactions. It also affects the working of the brain and the nervous system. The more a person drinks, the more their ability to make important decisions become impaired. After just one drink a person can lose their ability to perform everyday tasks. There are many causes of people drinking, but the major two are causal drinking and peer pressure. Causal drinking occurs when a person goes to a party or bar and he or she does not intend on drinking, but they do anyway. The next cause is peer pressure. Why does peer pressure cause drinking? The first reason is when someone’s friends keep going on at them until they drink. The second reason is when someone’s friends’ drink, they think it is cool and they don’t want to be left out, so they drink too. The effects alcohol can have on a body are numerous. It increases the workload of the heart, causing irregular heartbeat and high blood pressure. It poisons the liver, causing extensive damage and failure. It can stop the kidneys from maintaining a proper balance of body fluids and minerals; it can also affect the brain, causing unclear thinking. Large amounts of it can cause unconsciousness or death. Even knowing this some people will still make bad and dangerous choices when it comes to alcohol. One of the most dangerous things you can do is, driving under the influence (D.U.I). Not only are you endangering yourself, you are endangering your passenger, other road users, and pedestrians...
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...March Alcohol and its effects Alcohol is the most commonly used substance used in the US today and is a worldwide problem. 17.6 million, or one in every 12 adults is suffering from abuse of alcohol. Although there are good effects of alcohol if it is consumed in moderation, like reducing the chances of having a heart attack or increase life expectancy; on the other hand there are also bad effects. That includes brain damage; accidental deaths as a result of drunk driving, heart-related diseases such as high blood pressure and cardiomyopathy, liver disease and the increase of unemployment from excessive alcohol drinking. Today alcohol counts for a large percentage of accidents and deaths among people each year and is responsible for half of all accidental deaths and suicides. It has always been evident that alcohol has an effect on brain function. Alcoholism and binge drinking are the leading cause of death in America, and according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) about two thirds of men and about one half of women in America drink alcohol. And aside from intoxication, drinking alcohol can cause memory loss, seizures, headaches, and blackouts. While all body systems feel the affect of alcohol, the CNS (central nervous system) is particularly sensitive. Science Net Link states alcohol as a depressant of the CNS, that makes nerve cells in the brain less excited causing them to slow down. Science Net Link also points out that alcohol affects...
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...Effects on motor skills | A negative effect of drinking alcohol is the deterioration of motor skills and other capacities and senses. These include a decrease in muscle control, reaction time, vision, and other basic skills. Because of alcohol, messages carried to and from the brain and the body’s muscles and nerves can be slowed or improperly transmitted. As a result, these signals are dulled, which decreases awareness of injury, cause loss of coordination, decreased ability to differentiate colors, and overall makes a person move more slowly. (Motor skills are those functions we perform by coordinated use of muscles, hands, feet, etc. For example, walking and running, driving, and picking up objects.) | Effects on speech and coordination | Alcohol consumption produces clear changes in speech production, most noticeably slurred speech. Because speech production requires a combination of fine motor control, timing, and other coordination, it is difficult for people who are intoxicated to properly express themselves. Speech under intoxication is slower, lower in overall amplitude, more negatively judged in subjective perceptual tests, and more prone to errors at the sentence, word, and phonological levels than sober speech. In terms of coordination, alcohol interferes with hand-eye coordination and makes muscle movements slower and less accurate. | Consequence of driving drunk | Drunk drivers are subject to facing many emotional and legal consequences, not including the health...
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...contribution to this vast increase? The effects of drugs and alcohol on our society are becoming more and more evident as the years pass. Even though drugs and alcohol have been around for centuries, they are becoming more popular. Along with the major drugs like cocaine, crack, and heroin, the alternative or "designer drugs like ecstasy, and GHB are becoming increasingly popular with the younger generations. Drugs and alcohol can have major effects on a person's life and of those that are involved with him/her. Today drugs are becoming more like everything else in our society, popular and expensive, which usually instigates criminal activity. When it comes to drugs and alcohol there are many different crimes that are associated with them. Whether it's selling drugs, stealing to get money for drugs, or committing a crime while on drugs, they are all drug related crimes. As you will see in this paper drugs and alcohol play a major role in crime world. In the United States the use and abuse of alcohol and drugs have had dramatic effects on the number of crimes that are committed. According to Joseph Califano Jr., President of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), as he states in his article, "Most Crimes Linked to Drugs and Alcohol, eighty percent of crimes committed in the United States are alcohol or drug related. Of the 1.7 million people that are being held in prison today, 1.4 million of them have a history of drug or alcohol abuse, committed a crime while...
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... Effects of alcohol in the society Introduction Alcoholism has proved time and time again to be a real problem in the society. Since the early ages, individuals who were known to excessively indulge in the drinking of alcohol were known to be the least productive in the society. The effects of alcohol take a toll on the society leaving the people frustrated and devastated in the long run. Alcohol is known to affect not only the health of the users but also the health of others (Goode 55). A good illustration is if a drunk driver gets behind the wheel in an intoxicated state he poses danger to the lives of the passengers in the instance they are involved in an accident. Thousands of people end up losing their lives as a result of engaging in drunk driving. An equally large number of people have been left maimed and permanently scarred as a result of accidents resulting from drunk driving. Most of the drunk drivers tend to flee the crime scene after causing an accident and they are not held accountable for their actions. According to recent studies, drunk driving is identified as the number one killer of the youth annually (Goode 25). Additionally, an estimated thirty five percent of the total number of patients in U.S hospitals are treated of alcohol related complications. Regular alcohol consumers tend to develop health problems more often as compared to teetotalers and occasional drinkers. In the present day society, alcohol seems to have dominated...
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...Effects of Alcohol on Society Halyna Strembitska Submitted to: Tarisa Matsumoto-Maxfield In fulfillment of course requirements for English 205 It is 11.40 p.m. on a Monday night and Darren is doing something he has not done for a very, very long time: staying sober. Darren is exactly 17years and 3 months old and a senior high school student. According the law, Darren can only take his first legal bottle of beer when he is in his senior year of college (at least at 21). But he is not the only underage American who drinks. In deed, an estimated 63 percent of underage high school and college students drink for at least one night per week. This prevalence, of course, comes with an array of harms, both to the individual and society at large. Adults are not spared either. Adolescents and teenagers grow up witnessing their parents and other adult relatives make toasts of champagne and wine at special occasions. Adults also casually enjoy several beers, say, at picnics. As it is, today, alcoholic drinks are as regular at business lunches in the same way they are at college fraternity parties. However, in spite of the fun and prestige associated with alcohol, and forceful arguments to the contrary, both underage...
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...The effects of alcohol on society are devastating. For example, a child that has to grow up in a home where one or even both parents are alcoholics may be living in a deadly environment. "Children often find themselves blamed by an alcoholic parent. Their home is filled with conflict, confusion, and embarrassment. They often carry this feeling of disorder into their adult lives, which affects their own families, their co-workers, and society. Alcoholism in families has a vicious cycle, because children of alcoholics can suffer from many different emotional and mental disorders including addictions to alcohol, gambling, drugs, sex, and food. Many of them go on to marry or live with alcoholics or abusers. Children of alcoholics may become alcoholics themselves sometimes because of heredity factors, but also because of the environment, they grew up in. More than half of domestic violence cases and as many as 90 percent of child abuse cases involve alcoholism, according to a survey by Priory Healthcare, a rehab center. Girls in alcoholic homes are four times more likely to suffer sexual abuse." (Shaw, Jerry Livestrong.com, 2012) The other aspect of how alcohol affects society is health. Alcoholics may not only be hurting themselves from drinking, if they get behind to wheel of a car, they are endangering the lives of countless others. Millions of innocent people are killed each year from drunk driving than any other vehicle accident, and most times, they are not even able to find...
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...The first article I read was about the harmful long and short term affects of alcohol. There are many different ways that alcohol can affect your brain even if it is just short term drinking including impaired memory, possible blackouts, impaired judgment, slurred speech and difficulty walking just to name a few. There are many different long term effects of alcohol that many alcoholics suffer from including but not limited to brain damage. Women are more prone to be more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol and should be more careful in preventing brain damage. Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome and liver disease are two of the most common problems that can arise from alcohol abuse. Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome is the result of brain damage caused by excessive drinking and it can be either long lasting or short lived. Liver disease is also caused by drinking and the liver is damaged because it is responsible for breaking down the alcohol and harmless byproducts but after a while it starts to not be able to keep up with too much alcohol for an extended period of time. Alcohol can also harm developing minds of unborn babies causing them to have fetal alcohol syndrome or FAS. FAS is can cause long term or even lifelong problems for the child effected. The second article I read was about vicodin addiction and how it affected people. Vicodin addiction has just recently been becoming more and more common with even more people living in denial but there are ways to kick the addiction...
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...Topic: Alcohol is the cause and the solution to many of life’s problems. What are alcohols in terms of chemistry? The term alcohol originally meant the prominent alcohol ethyl alcohol (ethanol) the prominent alcohol in alcoholic beverages. This is not a surprise as the connotations created by the word “alcohol” are that of liquor. But there is a lot more to this liquid than just being a drink. Alcohols are any of a class of organic compounds that have a singly bonded alkane attached to hydroxyl (-OH) groups. Alcohols are important in terms of organic chemistry because they can be converted to and from many other kinds of compounds. this is a ball and stick model of the hydroxyl (-OH) functional group in an alcohol molecule, the three “R’s” stand for...
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...Academic Effects Of Alcohol Consumption Shannell Richardson Lindsay Barrow May 10,2000 Econ 312; Prof, Wolaver Academic Effects of Alcohol Consumption Introduction: In recent years, college students are consuming alcohol at increasing rates. According to the Harvard School of Public Health CoUege Alcohol Study (1999), 44% of the students surveyed were binge drinkers and 23 % were frequent binge drinkers. Binge drinkers are often associated with a higher probability of experiencing alcohol-related problems such as violence, car accidents, injuries and the tendency to disregard academic responsibilities. Much research has been conducted concerning alcohol consumption and its effects on academics in higher education institutions. In our study, we would like to filrther investigate this issue and apply it to Bucknell University. There is a widely accepted conception of Bucknell students' drinking behavior as excessive and dangerous. The Bucknell community, including administration and staff, believe that Bucknell students have a serious problem with alcohol abuse, especially binge drinking. We believe that heavy alcohol consumption can lead to a decrease in class attendance; lower achievement on projects and tests; and inability to concentrate on class material. We intend to uncover the relationship between Bucknell students' alcohol consumption and academics. In addition...
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...Running head: ADDICTION AND FAMILIES 1 The Effect of Drug and Alcohol Addicts on the Family Brandy M. Foster Wilmington University Introduction Many families have one or more family members that are struggling with and/or overcame an addiction, whether it is drugs or alcohol. There are many programs that are established to help addicts, but there are very few programs that actually assess the effects that a family member’s addiction has on the family. The purpose of this paper is to identify how family members of drug and/or alcohol addicts are affected by the actions of those drug and/or alcohol addicted members. I’m interested in this topic, because I have family members who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol and I want to see what ways I may have been affected by the actions of my addicted family members. My father was a drug addict for majority of his life and died as a result of it. All of my life, my father has been in and out of jail because of drug related charges and my immediate family and I experienced him getting high in our home and walking around hallucinating and being in a constant state of paranoia. He would walk around our house closing blinds, turning off lights, turning the volume all the way down on the television and constantly peeking out the windows. One time he and my uncle were in the hallway of our trailer supposedly fighting devils in the air that he saw by creating flames in the air using a certain spray and a lighter...
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...Alchololism and the dangers There are a lot of dangers in this world today that are caused by alcohol. Not only is alcohol one of the leading problems in todays society, but it is also a growing problem in Americas teenagers. I will be discussing several point in this paper from various studies to what exactly alcoholism is and the different dangers of this disease. This is a very personal topic to me so I hope you enjoy my research paper. The first point being addressed is what exactly alcoholism is. According to The Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary, alcoholism “is a diseased condition resulting from the excessive use or persistent use of alcoholic beverages.” Alcoholism has divided into two major forms--alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence (Goodwin 1998). Alcohol abuse is the excessive consumption of alcohol which has detrimental effects on the people and situations surrounding an individual; whereas, alcohol dependence is a physical attachment to the alcohol. Alcohol abuse leads to hazardous behavior, such as drunken driving and continued drinking despite negative consequences on family, work, or social functioning. Alcohol dependence involves withdrawal symptoms when alcohol is not used, and lack of control over drinking despite serious social and medical problems (Goodwin 1998). Various studies have been performed to show the relationship between alcoholism and genetics. New research on male twins show that genes play a critical role in the development...
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...I have been looking forward to hanging out with my best friends at her April Vacation Celebration party for weeks now. When I arrive, I realize my best friend’s parents aren’t home and they were able to get into their parent’s liquor cabinet. She’s excited because now she thinks liquor will make the party the “party of the century”. I’ve never drank alcohol before and just learned in health class how alcohol impacts the brain. I get the gut feeling that this party is going to lead to some kind of trouble. I would handle the situation by pulling my friend aside and talking to her about the situation. I would tell her that having alcohol at our age is illegal, and can lead to not only trouble with the law but also can affect your brain. I...
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...Drugs and alcohol can have a major impact on someone's brain development. The brain allows us to speak, breath, move, feel and think. When drugs enter our system it interferes with the normal processing of the brain because they consist of dangerous chemicals. This causes the body to have a weaker immune system, higher chance of heart attacks, strokes, hallucinations and paranoia. Alcohol is a depressant, which affects the neurotransmitters in the brain by slowing down the proper functions in the body. This causes the body to have a slower reaction time, impaired vision, hard to think clearly, and less coordination. Neural development makes up the nervous system and it'll be present from the day we are born and up to our death. It's our job...
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...to drink alcohol and develop bad drinking behaviors. The cultural background also has had a huge impact on the young Marshallese kids. Parents, nowadays, are not that strict as they used to be back in the days. Even though there is an age limit on when a person can drink, that doesn’t stop the kids from experimenting. Curiosity and their surroundings lead them to wanting to try alcohol consumption. Vendors, clerks, stores and even parents should be educated on what danger alcohol can do to one’s body. We, the Marshallese people, can stop this cycle if we just stop, look and listen to our surroundings and not be in denial that alcohol has crept and destroyed our lives. We should face it and shouldn’t be afraid to fight alcoholism. Introduction: We may not be aware of the dangers alcohol can do to our bodies. I believe, us, the Marshallese people are blinded by the effects it has on us, simply because we weren’t educated about it and because mostly everyone drinks. As I was doing my research and my observations on the young Marshallese people under the influence of alcohol, I realized, I too, didn’t know anything about alcohol, except that I didn’t want to try it because I’ve seen how stupid people can get. I didn’t know, it can affect your health, as well. Alcohol has been and will always be a part of the lives of many Marshallese people. We cannot change that, but we can educate the young Marshallese citizens, so they have a better understanding on what alcohol does to our...
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