What Causes Alcoholism?

Alcoholism is another name for alcohol use disorder. This condition begins when you drink too much and your body starts to rely upon having alcohol to function each day. When you start to suffer from the symptoms of alcohol abuse, drinking rules your entire life. But what causes alcoholism and how can you stop drinking?

What Causes Alcoholism?

Alcoholism is not fully understood by doctors or researchers. It is known that alcoholism starts when people drink too much, causing chemical changes in their brains. These chemical changes make them feel rewarded by drinking alcohol. As a result, they want to drink more often.

After some time, people who overuse alcohol will stop feeling the rewards of drinking. They keep drinking to keep themselves from going into withdrawal. Withdrawal can be very uncomfortable and can even be deadly. In fact, alcohol withdrawal is one of the most dangerous types of withdrawal among abused substances.

Even though scientists do not know specifically what causes alcoholism, it is known that alcohol use disorder has a genetic component that runs in families. There are other risk factors for this disease, such as:

• People who drink more than 12 to 15 drinks per week
• People who binge drink, having more than five drinks at least once per week
• Having a parent with alcoholism
• Having a co-occurring mental illness, such as depression, trauma or anxiety
• Being a young adult with peer pressure
• Having low self-esteem
• Having high stress
• Living in heavy drinking culture
• Having a close relative who has alcoholism

What Can You Do to Mitigate Risk?

Unfortunately, knowing the risk factors for alcohol use disorder isn’t enough to prevent it. You may know that alcoholism runs in your family or that you are at risk for having the disease. But if you still drink too much, you can become an alcoholic without realizing it is happening. By doing things that are risky, you put yourself in danger.

Risky behaviors for alcoholism are:

• Drinking by yourself
• Drinking more and more over time
• Not eating right
• Not taking care of yourself
• Letting drinking cause problems with school or work
• Not being able to control drinking
• Making up reasons to drink
• Drinking despite it causing problems in your life
• Giving up favorite activities to drink

What you can do about a family history or stressors that lead to alcohol misuse is the following:

• Attend therapy that utilizes cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
• Join a support group, such as AA
• Learn mindfulness-based stress reduction
• Limit exposure to triggering environments, like bars and certain parties

How Alcoholism Is Treated

If you or someone you love may be alcoholic, you need to first get an addiction assessment. Beaches Recovery can help you arrange this assessment and will provide answers you need to address the drinking problem. If you are struggling with alcoholism you will then need to enter alcohol detox and a treatment program.

The following programs are available to help you overcome an alcohol use disorder:

• Residential addiction treatment
• Partial hospitalization program (PHP)
• Intensive outpatient program (IOP)
• Outpatient treatment
• Aftercare program

Beaches Recovery also provides safe alcohol detox through partner programs to start treatment off right. Our accredited treatment programs in Jacksonville, Florida help individuals with any addiction disorder. Contact us for access to any of the following rehab programs:

• Alcohol addiction rehab program
• Heroin addiction rehab program
• Benzo addiction rehab program
• Opiate and opioid addiction rehab programs
• Codeine addiction rehab program

No matter what caused your problem with alcohol, our team of compassionate experts can help. Call Beaches Recovery now at 866.605.0532 to discover true alcohol addiction recovery. This is the treatment you need to save your life and start again.