Alcohol's Impact - Drug Assignment
Part A:
The drug ethanol is found in alcohol making it a depressant drug. Depressant drugs slow down a person's central nervous system and brain functions.
Consuming copious amounts of alcohol (more than four standard drinks) over a short period of time is known as binge drinking. Binge drinking and the overuse of alcohol have numerous short and long-term effects that impact on all dimensions of a person's health.
Physical: Routinely consuming vast amounts of alcohol has a disastrous effect on a person's physical health. In the short term over consumption of alcohol can dehydrate the skin, cause nausea, vomiting and headaches, another effect is severe disorientation and memory loss. Constantly abusing
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Under the influence of alcohol a person's personality can change which affects a person's social health. A person may become violent and abuse a family member or friend. Relationships and trust can be broken from one night out leading to the alcohol consumer social health being affected.
Mental: If a person's relationships have been impacted by alcohol they would be feeling down and depressed. Many people under the influence of alcohol feel happier while being drunk so they become alcohol dependent. Being unable to get through a day without a glass of alcohol severely impacts on a person's mental health. Due to their negative mindset their decision-making can also lead to their cognitive health being impacted.
Cognitive: Since alcohol is a depressant drug a person under the influence of alcohol's brain functions are slower. This can lead to bad decision making such as driving while over the legal limit. Such decision-making can lead to legal issues such as jail time or heavy fines. If a person makes numerous bad descions under the influence of alcohol they may not trust themselves to make an important descion again. This negative view of themselves leads to their spiritual health being
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A single disastrous mistake made while under the influence of alcohol can lead a person to feel out of touch with their friends and family, therefore their spiritual health being impacted.
Part B
Alcohol has numerous dangerous affects on a person's brain development. Constant alcohol abuse and binge drinking short-term effects include disorientation, memory loss, slurred speech, impaired vision, slow reactions and difficulty walking. The long-term effects of alcohol abuse on the brain are much more disastrous as they include brain damage, impaired brain development and many mental health problems. All problems associated with alcohol and misuse impacting brain functions are referred to as Alcohol Related Brain Impairment (ARBI).
Statistics show that 2 million people every year are putting themselves at risk from developing ARBI due to their dangerous drinking practices. Alcohol interferes with the communication of nerve cells by changing the actions of the two main neurotransmitters located in the brain. Neurotransmitters allow the body's cells to communicate with another but alcohol suppresses nerve pathways therefore slowing down a person's brain's
Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant it has a huge impact on the lives of a drinker . In small quantities, alcohol results in a mild euphoria and usually removes inhibitions, and is relatively harmless. However, when used in excess, it has the power to change many lives in many ways. Alcohol causes a lot of trouble in a lot of peoples lives not just in the drinkers life. . Some ways it effects peoples lives include alcohol poisoning and alcohol-related traffic fatalities by individuals who are problem drinkers but who are not alcohol dependent. Because alcohol has so many negative effects on a person's mental and physical health, people should avoid the consumption of it altogether.
Ethanol is a central nervous system (CNS) depressant. It is the principal psychoactive constituent in alcoholic beverages making it the most commonly available drug in society. Ethanol can cause alcohol intoxication when consumed in high amounts. Once consumed, ethanol diffuses rapidly from the digestive tract into the bloodstream. As ethanol is a small, uncharged molecule it can easily cross the blood-brain barrier (Chandra 2008). Ethanol affects neuronal activity by altering the function of specific proteins, and inhibiting neurotransmission. Ethanol primarily exerts its effects by potentiating the action of endogenous neurotransmitters at the inhibitory receptor GABAA, or via inhibiting the excitatory effects of glutamate on the NMDA receptor (Harris et. al. 2008).
...nd spatial skills. There are many changes that occur while consuming alcohol such as brain volume decreasing, white matter quality and abnormal patterns in the brain are shown. Although it may be ‘fun’ at the time, drinking alcohol affects the brain in the long run and someone can be diagnosed with many syndromes and disorders.
Most alcoholics proceed to a stage where their brains or their bodies have been so harmed by alcohol that the effects persist even when they are not drinking. This stage may be reached...
To add, the alcoholic’s family is in a turmoil. The alcoholic can become violent to those around him or her. This can become fatal to anyone. Bottles left around the house can lead to children grabbing ahold of the alcohol and them themselves enjoying it. The younger drinking starts, the more chance that child has of becoming an alcoholic. The alcoholic can find it hard to find a job due to being drunk constantly. They will have less ambitions. They could end up neglecting their family; children, parents, and spouse. Depression can also develop.
Alcohol is a dominant tool that controls the human’s body when it takes over its major systems. In addition, alcohol has a huge impact on people’s behaviors so that their behaviors go out of their control and could lead to things rather more serious.
The National Institution of Health published this article for the purpose of explaining about the human brain and it’s relation to alcohol. According to the article, people with alcoholism have been known to have problems with skills in their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and emotions. These same people show exaggerated neural responses in the dorsal striatum due to alcohol-related cues. This information shows that excessive drinking can affect learning and control of behavior and emotion. This information can be helpful in my paper because it explains that alcohol is a disease that affects the brain and it will help me try to prove my point of view.
Alcoholism is a major problem in today’s society it is considered a disease. The effects of this so called disease are a lot more serious than one might think, and can effect your life in a big way. Many of alcohols consumers drink frequently that they will eventually get used to it, and it becomes an everyday thing. That right there is where the problem starts. Some of the effects I found are economical, physiological, and physical, which are some of the negative effects alcohol, can have on someone’s life.
Alcohol is something that people use to help with multiply different things and some studies have shown that alcohol may help protect our bodies from cardiovascular disease. Alcohol does have side effects to our health the surroundings around us and can cause violence, vehicle crashes and even suicide. Alcohol does have an effect on people that many social drinkers may not realize. Many people usually have tried alcohol around 13 years of age and high school students consume more wine coolers that are sold in the U.S. and they drink more than 1 billion beers a year. To understand the effects of alcohol, it begins with the brain. It is a curiosity as to why people feel the need to drink and drive. The way the brain works while influenced with alcohol has always fascinated me. Drinking and driving is one of the biggest decisions that alcohol leads to. The National Public Services Research Institute (NHTSA) did a study on 600 people who admitted driving while under the influence of alcohol. They described in detail the decisions they made leading up to the occurrence of driving while impaired like whether to take part in a drinking event, how to get to the event, how much to drink, and how to get home. The people being interviewed revealed more than 2,000 individual decisions that led to alcohol impaired driving. The decisions were then broken down into several categories as shown on the graph attached. Little is known as to what leads people to continue to drinking and driving. But as research shows, people do think, prior to drinking, how they will get home. It’s after they have already had been drinking that they decide to get behind the wheel.
Alcoholism is a disease in which the drinking of alcohol becomes uncontrollable. Compulsion and craving of alcohol rules the life of the alcoholic. Many of us drink alcohol to socialize which is not alcoholism. An alcoholic is a frequent habitual user. Alcohol, a central nervous system depressant, dulls the senses especially vision and hearing. Signs of alcoholism are tremors, delirium, inability to concentrate and many others. “According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, more than 13 million Americans abuse alcohol”(Mayo Clinic Health Information 1). There are many causes leading an individual to alcoholism. Alcohol damaging effects are physically, psychologically, and socially devastating.
Alcohol consumption not only does harm to the drinker, sometimes it also hurts the innocent people in a terrible way: drunk driving. Alcohol affects you by changing your judgments, depth perception as well as vital motor skills required to drive safely. Without a clear mind, immeasurable
Many people could tell you what alcohol will do to you. Blurred vision, memory loss, slurred speech, difficulty walking, and slow reaction times are all very common side effects depending on how much one consumes (National Institute on Alcohol abuse, 2004). To most, there is nothing wrong with this. Party all night, have a good time, find somewhere to sleep, pass out, and wake up in the morning. A couple of Advil and a glass of water and you are good to go, no harm done. This is where many are wrong. These effects are not just short term, they all add up in the long- run. Some of these impairments are detectable after only one or two drinks and quickly resolve when drinking stops. On the other hand, a person who drinks heavily over a long period may have brain deficits that persist well after he or she achieves sobriety (National Institute on Alcohol abuse, 2004).
Alcohol has many terrible effects on a person’s health. Alcohol affects many different parts of the body, but first of all, alcohol affects the brain. A person’s brain is very important, it shows how someone thinks, makes decisions, and controls their body. According to National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Effects of alcohol are many and are all bad. There is not one good effect of excessive alcohol drinking, except what an alcoholic considers a good feeling after getting drunk. The alcoholics drink for many reasons, but the results are all the same. Alcohol has very bad effects on all human body organs; it causes disease and some of those diseases are dangerous and even fatal, and the most common diseases re...
Alcohol damages the pathways that connect different parts of the brain and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These pathways, when affected, can change a person’s mood and behavior, and not only make them an entirely different person, but also make it harder for them to think clearly an...