Hi Guys! So you are about to tell me you do not have a disorder and you are not a heavy drinker. How sure are you about that? What evidence do you have that you do not have an alcohol problem? The purpose of what I am going to inform you geeks and wannabees about is that alcohol kills and kills in many different ways.The problem is that inside you know you are a heavy drinker or moderately heavy drinker, cheap wine, Buckfast Cider, WDK cheap Vodka- maybe more so at weekend parties and drinking on the streets with your mates. This is part of our UK youth culture and you cannot escape from it. You drink, not because of thirst, but to be accepted into your peer group. Its cool as far as you concerned and lifts you out of boredom right? Now I do know you detest older adults telling you how to behave, and I am not going down that path. What I am going to tell you are scientific facts that are real and will affect your health and you need to read this seriously and hopefully do something about it - if you wish to live and enjoy a happy fulfilling life.
Alcohol is the most powerful addictive drug abused today by Britain's youth.
It Perhaps you are one of millions of people young or old who see dependence on alcohol as a way out of your problems.In fact is that it intensifies the problems and makes a problem into two problems, simply add the fact that you are psychologically dependent on drinking alcohol. Persistent drinking of alcohol will cause you to think in terms of self harm( which is currently what you are doing) and the potential for suicide by impulsive acts, which has happened last year to many young teenagers in various parts of the country.It will get you into real trouble at school where teachers will notice your hangovers and lack of motivation to do academic work. Street drinking can get you arrested by police and so you have a criminal record. Drinking leads to impulsive acts such as driving a car when under the influence of alcohol, and the danger of killing someone on the roads, and innocent person. Young people and some adults who are psychologically and physically dependent on alcohol generally have more severe symptoms of the disorder to deal with , such as delirium tremens, (the shakes) when the level; of alcohol in the blood drops suddenly.The young or older person will have severe trembling and hallucinations which are usually visual. You become feverish disoriented and terrified, and may claw at your skin to remove the "spider crawling along your arms, or the cockroach walking over you. This is the effect of alcohol abuse. Increased tolerance is the result of drinking regularly for a few years and needing to maintain increased doses of alcohol. Teenagers and older adolescents who become dependent on alcohol may need to drink daily and are not able to stop or cut down despite repeated attempts to abstain completely. They may go on occasionally binges remaining intoxicated for two or three days. This can start from social drinking with friends and can lead you into all sorts of problems such as road accidents when cycling or falling off your bike when drunk and being hit by a car. Young teenagers and other adolescents start by social drinking which leads into alcohol abuse.
HOW DOES ALCOHOL AFFECT YOU IN THE SHORT TERM?
Davison and Neale (2004) in their classical textbook " Abnormal Psychology" show that "after being swallowed and reaching the stomach, alcohol is further metabolized by enzymes.Most of it goes into the small intestines and from there it is absorbed into the blood.Its the broken down primarily inside the liver which can metabolize about about one ounce of 100% proof (50%alcohol) whiskey per hour. Quantities innexcess of this amount stay in the bloodstream. Where absorption of alcohol is very fast, removal of it from the body tissue is slow. The effects of alcohol vary with the level of concentration of the drug in the bloodstream, which in turn depends on the amount ingested in a particular period of time, the presence of food in the stomach to retain the alcohol and reduce its absorption rate, the size of your body and the efficiency of your liver.
Because people young and old drink daily, vast amounts of alcohol is consumed in our society and so most people do not understand it is a powerful drug and is self harming." The initial effect of alcohol is to make you enjoy yourself with your mates and be cool. It has a deceptive effect as small quantities cause you to be stimulated and uplifted, but in reality alcohol depresses the central nervous system and causes all of the effects I have referred above. You feel on top of the world as your blood -alcohol level rises. However, after the blood -alcohol level peaks, it then begins to drop rapidly and you become depressed, which is what alcohol does best. It's capable of blunting out pain and in larger does induces death by suicide due to the uninhibited effects and to its impulsive actions.
DEPRESSION, DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
Many parents in the UK are concerned about their children and rightly so, as they go off for a few days on "sleepovers" and are out of social control of their parents as they try out a new identity based on independence and usually not on positive role models.Parents assume that teens try alcohol and drugs to "fit in" with their mates and peer group. However, those teenagers with emotional or behavioural problems that are undiagnosed often do drink and drugs to relieve their frustrations concerning their behaviour. A young teenager will self medicate with alcohol to escape the boredom of the town or city and the hoplessness and helplessness associated with it. The need Cogntive behaviour therapy en masse to sort out their inappropriate thinking and bring them into a situation where they restrategize and look for new ways f coping with the pressure. This website will help you and are always on call for you if you need psychological or/and emotional support to come off the drugs / alcohol and get better health with positive outcomes.Drugs like "E"'s and other designer drugs are toxic which means they are poisions and you are playing with fire. Everyone has an individual threshold in their brain for drug sensitivity and in some cases half an E can kill you, whereas an individual can take thirty and be still alive. Noone knows their threshold setting inside the brain. Drugs like ecstasy and club - drug uppers may even make them feel " normal" when for weeks they have been miserable and downhearted. The impact of such drugs on serotonin, dopamine and endorphins in the brain that regulate mood, can be devastating for children and adolescents. The damage alcohol and drugs does to these brain receptors makes recover from depression very hard indeed. A word of advice to parents. Frequently parents approach the issues of drugs and alcohol abuse as a discipline issue for kids when in fact the children are suffering intense psychological pain called "psychache" This is a trigger for suicidal behaviour and needs to be dealt with in a very sensitive manner. The reason is your adolescent may be sick and you don't know it. Teenagers cannot always tell you when they have a psychological problem, and they will not see it as a psychological problem but as another "life event" perhaps it's very embarrassing for them to tell you as you may not understand their emotion and feelings concerning the issues, whether they be sexual problems or sever drugs issue. If you suspect this in your children, Contact your local GP and ask for a referral to the Clinical Psychologists/ or Psychiatrist for an assessment.
CAN ALCOHOL KILL?
The answer is YES ! The Portman Group, see their website
www.portmangroup.org.uk have a very wide range of literature on alcohol disorders. They make it very clear that alcohol drunk in gross quantities at one time affects the body in two ways that are dangerous. It depresses the brain and it irritates the stomach. The brain controls your breathing in a little organ called the Medulla at the back of the brain. It controls the body's accelerator and thermostat. If you drink too much, say at rave or house party, the foot comes off the accelerator the thermostat switches off and the body winds down until something else stops such as the heart.
If you add the second effect, the stomach irritation, then you have another danger. To vomit means you lose precious minerals from your body and to do so when the brain is malfunctioning means that choking to death is a real risk.
Being physically sick like this can trigger off an instant nerve reflex that stops the heart-dead. If the two effects work together, according to the Portman authors, a person could die form choking after a much smaller dose than is needed for direct poisoning.
Portman recommend that in Order to avoid alcoholic poisoning:
DO
-
DRINK MODERATELY
-
DRINK SLOWLY
-
SPACE YOUR DRINKS
-
EAT WITH YOUR DRINKS
DON'T
-
DRINK TO EXCESS
-
DRINK TO MUCH OF ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH
-
DRINK DRINKS YOU HAVE NOT SEEN MIXED
-
DRINK FOR A BET OR A COMPETITION
-
LET DRINKING IN ROUNDS OR "SHOUTS" PUSH YOU INTO DRINKING MORE THAN YOU WANT.
IN AN EMERGENCY DIAL 999
-
CALL AN AMBULANCE
-
SEE THAT THE PERSONS MOUTH IS CLEAR AND THAT THY CAN BREATHE
-
TURN THEM ON THEIR SIDE( RECOVERY POSITION)
-
KEEP THEM WARM
-
WATCH THEM
DON'T
-
GIVE THEM BLACK COFFEE- or anything else
-
LEAVE THEM ALONE
-
TRY TO WALK THEM ABOUT.