Content
When you know what type of alcoholic you are, you can also identify what treatment programs could be best. People who fall into the young antisocial subtype group tend to behave recklessly, increasing the likelihood of developing an alcohol use disorder. Understanding the types of alcoholics first relies on having an understanding of alcohol use disorder . While research has depicted seven types of alcoholics, we will discuss five types of alcoholics based on what we know about addiction at this time.
They tend to drink alcohol every other day, an average of 181 days per year, and they consumefive or more drinks on 54% of those days. The young adult subtype is the most prevalent subtype, making up31.5% of people who are alcohol dependent. Theaverage age of dependent young adultsis almost 25 years old, and they first became dependent at an average age of around 20 years old. However, most of their drinking is binge drinking –they drink 5 or more drinks on 73% of their drinking days. On drinking days, the average maximum number of drinks is almost 14. This pattern of alcohol use is more likely to be hazardous than non-binging patterns. The young adult subtype is less likely to have a full-time job but is more likely to be in college than other groups.
History
Young adult alcoholics are most likely to be male and not seek treatment. You are likely to seek help for your drinking and may have already been through a treatment program. You started drinking and experiencing alcohol-related issues at a young age. Nearly one-third of all alcoholics types of alcoholics fit into the young adult alcoholic subtype. Get professional help from an online addiction and mental health counselor from BetterHelp. The term alcoholism was first used in 1849 by the Swedish physician Magnus Huss to describe the systemic adverse effects of alcohol.
When most people think of a stereotypical alcoholic, this is the type they’re imagining. One point worth mentioning is that this subtype actually has the highest rate of retired individuals at around 5%. However, there are some distinguishing factors that separate this subtype from the others.
Young Adult Subtype
Another factor is whether or not someone is also addicted to other drugs. This additional substance abuse is noted as co-occurring substance dependence, which can be caused by alcoholism or go on to cause alcoholism. The type of alcoholic can also be determined by any additional mental health diagnoses.
- Around 80% of people in the severe chronic subtype have a familial and genetic alcoholism link.
- These types of assessments will give you the opportunity to ask questions, get clarification, and have a truly personalized experience in determining your level of addiction.
- In Southern California, the best resource for individuals and families in crisis is Chapman House Treatment Centers.
- About 12% of American adults have had an alcohol dependence problem at some time in their life.
- Beyond that, these types of drinkers have the lowest probability of getting in trouble with the law and are the least likely to have co-occurring mental disorders too.
Alcohol is often implicated in exacerbating aggression, and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence publishes that 40 percent of all violent crimes cite alcohol as a contributing factor. Chronic severe alcoholics suffer from psychiatric disorders more often than other subtypes of alcoholics, including bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety disorders. Around 19.5 percent of the alcoholic population in the United States falls into the functional alcoholic subtype. Someone who is considered a functional alcoholic may lead a kind of double life, compartmentalizing their drinking from the rest of their life. Stereotypes of alcoholics are often found in fiction and popular culture. Stereotypes of drunkenness may be based on racism or xenophobia, as in the fictional depiction of the Irish as heavy drinkers. Studies by social psychologists Stivers and Greeley attempt to document the perceived prevalence of high alcohol consumption amongst the Irish in America.
Why Create These Types?
In steady endogenous symptomatic drinkers, alcoholism is secondary to a major psychiatric disorder. Subtypes of this category include schizoid, schizophrenic, and syphilitic alcoholics. In 1893 Kerr, who also was an honorary member of the American association, published the influential textbook Inebriety and Narcomania, which divided inebriates into two groups, periodic and habitual . Periodic inebriety is characterized by intense drinking or craving for alcohol interspersed with periods of abstinence. For some alcoholics, the drinking periods are determined by internal cues, such as the onset of menses in women. For others, external opportunities, such as a worker’s payday or sailor’s shore leave, govern the periodicity of inebriety.
Sobered: Podcast Re-Drop Transcript – WUNC
Sobered: Podcast Re-Drop Transcript.
Posted: Thu, 12 Jan 2023 18:51:00 GMT [source]