I thought it would be good to talk a little about alcoholism and addiction which in most professional opinions today are the same thing. Addicts of all flavors have always tended to feel special. Alcoholics often think they are above drug addiction and vise versa. The honest to god truth is that alcohol is a drug. Period. Alcoholism is the addiction to the drug alcohol. There is still some medical debate as to how one becomes addicted and who is more likely to become an addict but addiction it is none the less. Without question addiction is a medical problem and in many professional opinions, including yours truly it isn't a legal problem. Nor is it a moral failing. One of the contributing factors in the phynominom of denial is the feeling for failure. One doesn't normally feel like a failure if they get cancer or even a cold for that matter. Neither do you have to feel like a failure to admit you have a substance abuse problem.

If you read my previous post you will remember that I said that alcoholism and other addiction is most often multi generational. There are at least three generations of alcoholics in my family and maybe more. That is a far back as we know. So alcoholism has a genetic component. They have in fact identified the gene that is passed at least from father to son that seems to effect a predisposition to an addiction to alcohol. The key word however is predisposition. That doesn't mean that there is a certainty. It just means that the odds are much greater that if you drink you will become addicted. A person with a history of alcoholism and drug addiction in the family is well advised to not drink. Yes I know it's easier said than done because there is cultural and peer pressure to drink and have fun. They seem to go together or at least that's what the popular idea is.

Two things are certain. One, if you don't drink, you will never become and alcoholic. Two, if you do drink you will never know before hand exactly when you are crossing the line after which it is difficult to stop.

Addiction happens on a continuum that begins with recreational use with no problems, to abuse, then to addiction. Most people who drink never progress past recreational use. Only about 10% of the population of the US is alcoholic. The figure goes up to about 13% if you include all drug addictions. Yet 90% or more of the population drinks or has drank at some time. A few people later realize that they were hooked on alcohol on the first drink. The experience is often described as that they felt normal or whole for the first time in their life. That percentage is small. There is also a popular myth that people get hooked on street drugs the first time. In fact most don't and there are even people who are able to use heroin recreationally for years.

A second indicator, in addition to family history, is the young person who begins drinking and finds that they can drink everyone else under the table from the beginning. Peers often think it's funny and encourage them to drink even more. People with early high tolerances tend to progress quickly to abusers and then alcoholics. Finally, for this session, the earlier a person begins to drink and I don't mean a sip of beer or a glass of wine with dinner, I mean recreationally, the more likely they are to become addicted.

Addiction to a drug happens through a change in brain structure and chemistry. Through modern brain scanning equipment we can now see differences in the brains of addicts from non addicts. Hopefully one day there will be a resulting medical cure. The physical brains of young adults have not completely matured and are for some reason more susceptible to alteration by addictive substances. The worst problem with teen drinking isn't necessarly the resulting instant behavior but the long range consequences. For the teen who may be predisposed to addiction for other reasons he (she) couldn't begin drinking at a worse time age wise.

That's it for today Dudes and Dudets. Keep coming back, it works.