Alcoholism And Smoking

Alcoholism 

This  refers  to consumption  of alcoholic  beverages  like whisky, rum , brandy   at such an extent that it causes  disease i.e.  interferes with physical , mental ,  social  and  spiritual  health.

•  Reasons for alcoholism 

1.   Concept of alcohol  as a means of pleasure and excitement. 

2. Family and peer influence.

3. Emotional  turmoil and a way to  depress those.

4.  Social or ritual influence .

5.  Genetics also may play a role.  Children of drunkards have chances of being  alcoholics too. But not compulsion,   lot of other factors  are  there, just a probability. 

•  Effects : 

1 . On individual 

1. Dementia, insomnia,  neuritis caused.

2. Digestion impaired and increased risk of  pancreatitis  and gastritis.

3. Fatty liver syndrome  which is liver cirrhosis.

4. Absorption of thiamine and folic acid inhibited. 

5.  Damage heart muscle  and hypothermia . Alcohol  heats your body for  just a short time only then causes hypothermia. 

6.  Fetal alcohol syndrome; retardation of baby due to mother being alcoholic.

7. Impairs renal function.

8. Causes hypoglycemia   and bone loss.

9. Judgement  and vision impaired ; alertness and reaction time reduced. 

 This is why drinking and driving is lethal.

2.  On family 

1. High chance of domestic  violence  i.e. child and spouse abuse.

2. Economical loss and further leading  loss of peace and tranquility.

3. Great effect on mental stability  of  family members.

 3.  On society 

1.  Loss of peace due to drunkards' nuisance. 

2.  Loss of life due  to accident by  just the carelessness  of a drunkard.

3. Higher incidence of murder suicide and rape.

4.  Poor  performances and anti-social  behaviours.

•  Symptoms  of alcoholism 

 Alcoholics,  being addicted  and  destroying owns  and others life is clearly evident  from outside. 

1.  Alcohol being an eye opener  i.e. need of it as soon as they woke up.

2. Hostility  when confronted about drinking .

3. Shaking in the morning, dementia  and  insomnia.

4. Black outs certain times.

5. When tolerance is tried to make  withdrawal  symptoms  like shaky hands, indifferent  to work is seen.

 Or we can find out via CAGE  questionnaire  that means : 

1. Have you ever felt you need to Cut down on your drinking?

2. Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?

3.  Have you ever felt Guilty about your drinking?

4.  Have you ever felt you need a drink as soon as you get up in the morning as an Eye opener ?

• Control of alcoholism 1.Rehabilitation of alcoholics as soon as possible family intervention and counselling 2.Turkey method which refers to complete isolation of alcoholic from alcohols enforcement of 3.Strict laws and their implementation imposing high taxes in alcoholic beverage so that their consumption would be cut off to certain level.

4. safe limit of alcohol which is no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men.

5. Ban on any short advertisement regarding alcohols.

Smoking

 This is an act of inhaling the smoke obtained from Burning the dried leaves of Nicotiana tobaccum  or N. rostrum .

 Nicotine present in the cigarettes are addictive and causes serious problems like cardiac arrest and brain damage while the task from it is carcinogenic causing lung cancer whereas the polycyclic compounds present there are responsible for causing oral cancer .

• Types of smoking

 Active smoking: this is  direct using cigarettes to inhale smoke. 

Passive smoking : this type of smoking includes inhaling the smoke released from the cigarette of smokers are as lethal  as the smoke in active smoking in fact even more so because the smoke they are releasing are not filtered while the smoke smokers are inhaling are with filters.

• Reasons to smoke 

The reasons for any kind of addictions are more or less similar .

1. Miss belief that smoking causes pleasure and improves performance without any side effects 

2. Much curiosity to experience new thing  and get first hand experience .

3. Psychological factors may play a vital role like depression or any kind of heart break ups ,family problems .

4. Advertisements by companies to allure  in smoking.

5.  Social factors like availability of social and social acceptance of smoking and peer pressure.

• Effects 

 On individual 

• Tobacco produces a lot of carbon monoxide that produces affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen causing a spicier tobacco be also cause spasm in coronary arteries increasing risk of cardiac arrest 

• lung cancer symptoms is to be the popular effect of smoking

•  This also causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) 

• This also accelerate asthma and pulmonary tuberculosis 

• In pregnant ladies sudden infant death syndrome(SIDS) is seen and intrauterine growth retardation 

• It also does somatic and psychological effects like Insomnia irritability and it decreases heart rate with gain and nicotine cravings.

•  For passive or second hand smoking the effects are as harmful as it is for first hand smoking so there is always a sign to not to smoke in public places for the same reason.

 On family 

The effects on family are more or less the same as alcoholism as they both are addiction and addiction leads to the similar effects on family like economical problems, domestic  violence and many more .

On society 

Society also suffers as the same way as from the alcoholism 

• Symptoms of smoking : 

We can call a person addicted to smoking if it develops the following symptoms .

1.production due to irritation of respiratory tract which is also called smokers cough.

2.  the lips and the fingers baby become darker and the person may have a typical smell of the tobacco

 3. alertness ,memory and heart rate increases 

4.upon  resistance to cigarette withdrawal symptoms may be seen such as  confusion,Insomnia ,dysphoria and depression.

•  Preventive measures

1. The Turkey method  can be also applied which means total isolation from the addictive substance for the addicted ones .

2. Family   peer support and counselling to get rid of addiction.

3.  Ban on selling cigarettes to minors this message has been proven very much effective in many countries of America and Europe.

4.  Impose high taxes on smoking products such as Vape, cigarettes hookah  .

5. strict implementation of laws and Ban  On smoking in public places.

6.  Prevention of any sort of advertisement that appeals and promotes smoking in the society.