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The Effects of Alcoholism on Children Abstract Within the conceptual framework of this research, we will elaborate on the effects that alcohol has on children. The background of the problem will be given, together with the various reasons why it has become such a huge issue recently. Reasons for teenage drinking will be discussed, as well as the underlying theories behind those reasons. The physiological and mental effects of alcohol will be discussed as well; children will be compared to adults in terms of alcohol consumption. A significant portion of the paper will be devoted to different illnesses that might result from alcohol consumption and abuse by children. Although awareness of widespread use of alcohol is increasing, this is not to say that problem drinking among youth did not exist in earlier times.
Throughout history and in practically every society there have been homeless youths, living on the streets or along the roads; living by their wits, stealing, begging. They have followed older vagabonds and imitated their rough talk, their smoking, and their drinking. Their numbers have depended on the conditions of the particular society in which they found themselves. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 103) In the United States, teen-age drinking increased markedly during the 1960 s, but few really noticed it, probably because teen-age use of illegal drugs also reached a high point during that decade. (Berndt, Thomas and Keefe, Keunho, 1995, p. 1312) Parents who realized their teen-agers were drinking were not alarmed. In fact, they were relieved that their sons and daughters were not on drugs. The police reacted in much the same manner. Meanwhile, the pressures and desires that were causing kids to turn to drugs were also causing them to turn to alcohol.
And since no one seemed to worry much about youthful drinkers, more and more became addicted to the drug alcohol. By the early 1970 s, teen-age alcoholism was a serious problem and society recognized it. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 107) But by the time people had thoroughly digested the idea of a teen-age drinking epidemic, studies were beginning to show a sizable number of problem drinkers among adolescents and even younger kids. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 107) Nine-year-olds are missing school because they are too hung over to attend. Ten-year-olds are sneaking bottles from their parents' liquor closets. Eleven-year-olds take thermoses of vodka and orange juice or scotch and milk for lunch.
Twelve year-olds are admitted to hospital emergency rooms vomiting blood. Today, there are some 500, 000 alcoholics between the ages of ten and nineteen in the United States; and it is estimated that one out of every fifteen young people today will eventually become an alcoholic. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 66) There are many reasons why children drink. In attempting to explain the basis of youthful drinking, psychologists and others have pointed to many of the conditions of contemporary life: the awareness of the possibility of worldwide destruction, the alienation, the utter breakneck speed of life. Certainly these conditions affect young people. Some young people are even able to explain their drinking by citing these factors, but when they do they are really avoiding more basic reasons. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 48) When asked why they drink, most children give simple and direct answers. With minor variations here and there, they are the same reasons why adults drink.
The fact that they do not mention the atomic bomb or the effects of television violence does not mean these factors do not affect them profoundly. It is simply that the conditions of their own lives affect them more directly. Four answers are given most frequently by young people who are questioned as to why they drink. In order of importance, they are: because of parental and societal influences, because it makes them feel good, because their friends drink, because they have serious emotional problems. (Berndt, Thomas and Keefe, Keunho, 1995, p. 1315) A 1994 study of junior high and high school drinking habits in Berkeley, California, revealed that over half the students in each of the grades surveyed were with their parents when they first used alcohol. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 60) Other studies show similar results. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 60 63) It is not surprising that parents offer their teen-agers a taste of their alcohol, especially beer.
Many parents expect their children to be drinking in a few years, anyway. But it seems nearly as acceptable to introduce children to drinking at a much younger age. Many restaurants have fruit drinks called Shirley Temples to serve to children while their parents are having a before-dinner cocktail. Part of the fun of many a New Year's Eve party held in the home is allowing a very young child to stay up until midnight and to taste grown-up drinks. Some young drinkers trace their experience with alcohol back to age seven, or younger. Thus, many parents actively encourage their children to experience liquor, although they generally frown on regular drinking and on drinking outside the home.
When they find the level of liquid in their liquor bottles suspiciously lower, or when their teen-ager arrives home with liquor on his or her breath, they may be disturbed. But, rather than punishing their sons and daughters, or taking any serious steps to deal with the drinking behavior, they rationalize away their concern by reminding themselves that "at least they " re not on drugs. " (Haugaard, Jeffrey J. , 2000, p. 118) The effects of alcoholism on children are tremendous. Alcohol reaches and affects every part of the body. Too much liquor, taken over a period of time, can seriously impair the functioning of the bodily organs and can cause a variety of ailments and diseases. As childrens immunity is generally weaker than that of an adult person, the effects of continuous drinking are more devastating. These effects will be more thoroughly elaborated upon in the following sections of this report.
The first area of the body Alcohol reaches is the digestive system. (Mason, B. J. , 1996, 10 A) Heavy and sometimes even moderate use of alcohol can damage the lining of the stomach and small intestine, causing inflammation and quite frequently ulcers. Nausea and vomiting after too much drinking are usually the result of this inflammation, although nausea and vomiting can also result from the mixing of drinks. It is a popular belief that mixing drinks can increase the effects of alcohol. This is not so. All it does is make the drinker sicker, because the various chemicals in the drinks react upon each other and upon the stomach.
With increasingly heavy use of alcohol there may be damage to the nerve cells in the stomach and to the stomach muscles. They lose tone, the rate of digestion is slowed, and food breakdown is hampered. Heavy use of alcohol can also damage the blood vessels in the tongue and cause it to become permanently swollen. Diarrhea in children often results from excessive drinking, and it is thought that the various oils present in most alcoholic beverages provoke the condition.
Chronic use of large quantities of alcohol can also cause disease of the pancreas. (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 2000, p. 143) The liver is the part of the digestive system that is most seriously affected by alcohol abuse. Cirrhosis of the liver is among the top ten causes of death in the United States. (Anton, R. F. , & Swift, R. M. , 2003, S 60) Cirrhosis is a condition of cell destruction, caused both directly and indirectly by intake of too much alcohol. While it is not clearly understood how, excessive amounts of alcohol cause the build-up of fat in the liver and destroy its cells, which are replaced by scar tissue. It becomes swollen in some parts and shrunken in others.
The more fat and scar tissue present, the less the liver can function. Weakness, loss of appetite, weight loss, chronic indigestion, and constipation result, as well as hepatitis. Cirrhosis of the liver is believed to result in part from malnutrition, which is why alcohol also causes the disease indirectly by deranging the appetite mechanisms, destroying the appetite for food. (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 2000, p. 147) Alcohol calories provide energy, but they cannot be stored for future use, nor can they be used to build up body tissues. All they do is cause fat. Heavy drinkers can thus be overweight but malnourished in proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and the other essential substances that foods provide. Alcohol intake also affects the circulatory system.
One of the first effects a drinker notices is a warm, flushed feeling. This is because the blood vessels in the skin enlarge. Small doses of alcohol cause an increase in blood pressure and an increased heart rate. But this condition does not last long. Alcohol actually slows down the heart rate, causing less blood to be pumped throughout the system. (Casswell, S. , Pledger, M. , & Hooper, R. , 2003, p. 601) Thus, alcohol is not beneficial to a person who is very cold.
In fact, it is bad for the person because it slows the circulation rather than increases it and lowers the body temperature. In extreme cases, the cardiac nerves are paralyzed, causing instant death. Alcohol abuse contributes to a variety of heart diseases, the primary cause of death nationally. Heavy drinking causes the walls of the blood vessels to thicken, which accounts for the swollen, red appearance of the noses and faces of many alcoholics.
This slows down the passage of blood through the vessels and thus hinders the carrying of nutritional materials to the body cells. Eventually, these cells deteriorate. Alcohol reaches the brain and spinal cord through the blood. (Freed, P. E. , & Nattkemper, L. , 1997, p. 24) First it is carried to such higher brain centers as those that control speech, memory, and reasoning. It causes a decrease in the number and speed of the impulses transmitted back and forth from the body and brain, which is the reason inhibitions are reduced and, after too much drinking, a person may exhibit behavior totally unlike that of his or her sober condition, and have no memory of that behavior. Next, alcohol reaches the brain's motor centers, which control speech muscles, movements, reflexes, etc.
After too much alcohol, the impulses from the motor centers are reduced and slowed. Speech becomes slurred, the person staggers, vision becomes blurred, hands become shaky. (Freed, P. E. , & Nattkemper, L. , 1997, p. 27) Then the alcohol hits the lower brain, affecting the breathing and the circulation. As mentioned earlier, excessive amounts of alcohol can cause heart failure by paralyzing the cardiac nerves. It can also paralyze the respiratory center of the brain, causing breathing to become slow and deep and possibly to cease altogether. Prolonged, heavy drinking destroys brain cells, and the body cannot produce new cells in the brain.
The optic nerve may be impaired, causing a loss of vision for both near and far objects. Cells of the motor system are damaged, affecting the reflexes and the movements of the voluntary muscles. Cells of the higher brain centers are killed, resulting in the inability to learn or to remember. Autopsies of chronic alcoholics have revealed massive destruction of brain cells.
About 20, 000 cells die in the brain with each bout of excessive drinking. (Kipke, Michele D. , 1999, p. 153) Children tend to think of themselves as immortal. Age thirty seems light years away, and they cannot even imagine themselves as old. Since the diseases that have been described here generally occur over a long period of time -- cirrhosis of the liver, for example, usually takes fifteen to twenty years to develop in adults -- children with a drinking problem are not alarmed by the possible effects on his or her body. How can he or she relate to something twenty years off? (Haugaard, Jeffrey J. , 2000, p. 149) Unfortunately, alcohol does not take as long to damage young bodies as it does to affect adult bodies. Cirrhosis of the liver may take fifteen to twenty years to develop in an adult, but in a young person of fourteen it can occur in fifteen to twenty months! (Haugaard, Jeffrey J. , 2000, p. 150) Organs of adolescents and teenagers are often not completely mature. Often they cannot handle the abusive effects of a large amount of alcohol as well as adult bodily organs.
It was noted by the researchers that very small children have died after a single glass of wine or hard liquor. (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 2000, p. 74) Their systems simply could not handle the liquor. This could not happen, say, to a twenty-five-year-old. Place adolescents and teen-agers on a continuum according to age between a child of five and a person of forty, in whom it has taken fifteen years for cirrhosis of the liver to develop, and figure the ability of the body of, say, a fifteen-year-old to handle liquor. Being younger than adults, children are also generally smaller. It has already been noted that larger people can hold their liquor better because they have more body water, and thus adults as a general rule can handle alcohol better than young people for this reason.
Also, adult drinkers have had more experience with liquor than youthful drinkers. They have learned how to compensate for the slower reflexes, the difficulty in concentrating, and so forth, which accompany even moderate drinking. This is not true of children, which is an important aspect to consider, especially when it comes to drinking and driving. Studies have shown that even low concentrations of alcohol in the blood are a factor in teen-age driving accidents; among adults aged twenty-five to sixty-nine, the same low concentrations of alcohol are not a factor in auto crashes. Despite the insistence of some youthful drivers that their reflexes are quicker than those of adults, even when they have had a drink or two, that simply is not true. (Haugaard, Jeffrey J. , 2000, p. 170) A discussion about the effects of alcohol on the body cannot be ended without mention of the hangover. (Richardson, J. , 1997, p. 131) This common and highly unpleasant aftermath of drinking too much involves headaches, nausea, extreme thirst, sensitivity to bright lights and loud noises, and exhaustion. These symptoms are the result of poisoning by the drug alcohol.
Headaches are caused by the substances in alcohol that have not been completely oxidized. The causes of nausea have already been discussed -- it is generally the result of alcohol irritation to the stomach lining. Insatiable thirst occurs because alcohol causes some of the water in the body's cells to move out and into the spaces between the cells. Overreaction to lights and noises is a result of the sensitivity of the nerve cells in the brain. Exhaustion results from over activity while under the influence of the energy-producing calories in alcohol. Very little can be done to ease a hangover.
It is a myth that more alcohol will help. All it does is to act as an anesthetic by paralyzing the body's organs and masking the effects of the hangover for awhile. Some people drink hot beef bouillon, and there is evidence that the salt in the liquid does help a little, for the body produces a type of salt in its oxidation of alcohol. The best way to get over a hangover, unfortunately, is to wait it out. Aspirin, solid food, and bed rest in a quiet place are recommended. People suffering from hangovers are usually pretty quiet anyway, for not only are...
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