Binge Drinking and the dangers of it All

Why do many still ask, “Is alcoholism a disease or still of moral stigma?  It’s not how much or how little you drink that proves alcoholism, it’s what happens to you when you do drink; social stigma has plagued the alcoholic through the years with moral judgment due to people being uneducated about the disease. The American survey done in 2010 states that 51.8% of Americans were current drinkers of the beverage alcohol. That is 131.3 million people. Youth aged 12-17 were at 13.6% for binge drinking and heavy drinking for young adults was at 40.6%. Binge drinking is 5 or more glasses in one setting and heavy drinking is 5 or more days in a 30 day period (American National Survey, 2010).   Benjamin Rush, the famous philosopher of reason was the first to come up with the disease theory when it came to alcoholism.  Rush stated that those losing control over the drink alcohol would create an imbalance to the nervous system (Meyer, 1996).  The National Drug Survey in 2009, said 19.3 million people (ages 12 and older) needed treatment from the problem with alcohol but only 1.7 million received this treatment due to lack of insurance or insurance not covering the plan (Williamson, L. 2012). The Centers for Disease and Control says that more harm comes from not those that are alcohol dependent but those that drink in excess or hazardous drinking. When 10% of the population is doing both drugs and alcohol it costs our society a staggering half a trillion dollars a year (Carr, 2010). We have attributed addiction and alcoholism to willful misconduct, character flaws, weak will, moral turpitude, or just bad people. Science does not support these out dated stereotypes (Carr, 2010).  Addiction is a disease of a person’s rewards system, which alters behaviors which limits conscious control. Decision making becomes damaged that abstinence simply is no longer a matter of choice (Carr, 2010).