QUESTION: You might help a great many people if you took the time to discuss the disease of alcoholism.
ANSWER: Experts name alcoholism as the single biggest medical problem facing our nation today.
Nearly 18 million adults in this country are problem drinkers, and 10 million of them can be considered alcoholics.
Alcohol is a factor in nearly half of all murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Alcohol claims at least 100,000 lives a year 25 times as many as all illegal drugs combined. The cost of treatment for alcoholism and related disorders is nearly 15 percent of the national health bill, about $117 billion a year. There is controversy over whether alcoholism is a disease or a behavioral problem, and emerging evidence suggest that a genetic factor may be involved. Regardless, there is no question that alcohol can damage the liver, brain, stomach and heart.
In most cases, the more alcohol consumed, the greater the damage.
Alcohol is also suspected of causing breast cancer in women, although this has yet to be proved. There is agreement that alcoholism should be treated, but confusion about the best approach.
Studies show no clear-cut advantage to inpatient versus outpatient programs, residential or nonresident settings, longer versus shorter programs, intensive or less intensive methods. Alcoholics Anonymous strongly advocates total abstinence and maintains that an alcoholic is never cured, only controlled and AA has helped more alcoholics than any other treatment program. The outcome of treatment is difficult to evaluate, but most patients who are likely to do well have jobs, stable families, no history of past treatment failures, minimal involvement with other drugs, and minimal mental health problems. Although some programs use sedatives, most experts believe that alcoholics can be helped with counseling alone. Education, psychotherapy, relaxation training, vocational counseling, family support and antidepressant therapy all play a part in inpatient programs, and there are now more than 1,000 treatment centers in the U.S.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of friends and families of alcoholics have turned to Al-Anon and other family-therapy organizations to help them cope with this problem in their lives. Even though every state in the country has raised the legal drinking age to 21, drinking among teenagers persists; studies show that two out of three high school seniors have drunk alcohol in the past month, and about 5 percent drink daily.
One in four families have had alcohol-related problems. Experts are not optimistic that there will ever be a cure for alcoholism. But they agree that psychological and emotional supports, like those offered by Alcoholics Anonymous, will always be instrumental in controlling the problem. The future may include drugs that block the craving for alcohol the way methadone supplants heroin.
The currently available medicine Antabuse works only in the most highly motivated patients. Medical professionals believe that any treatment is better than no treatment.
Because early intervention leads to the highest success rate, it is important not only to seek help, but to pursue it as soon as an alcohol-related problem is suspected.
The material contained here is "FOR INFORMATION ONLY" and should not replace the counsel and advice of your personal physician.
Promptly consulting your doctor is the best path to a quick and successful resolution of any medical problem.
