Causes of Alcohol Addiction

Alcohol addiction is developed over time through repeated overuse. Alcoholism, recognized as a disease by the American Medical Association, is a physical and emotional condition that is exacerbated by a variety of environmental and genetic factors. Chemical changes following repeated alcohol abuse, coupled with emotional and mental factors combine to produce an addiction that is, to date, incurable.

Chemical Changes

• Alcohol depletes certain chemicals in the body, such as dopamine, glutamate and impulse inhibitors, causing the body to crave the very chemicals in another form that it can get from more alcohol.

Inherited

• The Mayo Clinic reports that genetics play a role in alcohol addiction in that people can inherit a disposition to develop the disease if they engage in excessive alcohol use.

Stress Factors

• For some people, drinking is used as a coping mechanism when they become stressed. Researchers believe that imbalanced stress hormones play a part in the development of alcoholism.

Emotional

• An underdeveloped coping mechanism leads some people to abuse alcohol to deal with extreme feelings. Without proper coping skills, many people turn to alcohol when they become depressed or fearful.

Peer Pressure

• Certain groups promote the use of alcohol, which can lead a person with a disposition to alcoholism into a dependent state by following the crowd.

Codependency

• Family and friends who see a person abusing alcohol often cannot point the budding alcoholic toward treatment because of their own inadequacies and tendencies, which only enables the alcoholic to continue drinking.