Alcohol more dangerous for young people

More than AIDS, tuberculosis and violence combined… One in 20 deaths worldwide is due to alcohol. Acute alcoholism, more and more among young people; chronic alcoholism with classic diseases such as cirrhosis, but also traffic accidents, injuries, homicides, and what is less known: infectious diseases, cardiovascular or diabetes. Unfortunately, France is not the last!

Admittedly, we are world champions in football, but we have long been European champions in glass football; Europe is the region of the world where people drink the most. Sad title since it is that of alcohol consumption per capita.

Beware of misconceptions

A vast program in a country where the “biture makes you laugh” and where the initiation to wine is an almost unavoidable family rite. There are received ideas that often fuel our good conscience. For example, between 3 friends who meet at the café and who drink one a pint of beer, the other a glass of wine, and the third a whisky, there is a picture: they have indeed all drunk the same amount of pure alcohol.

Second, alcohol is not a stimulant, but slows brain activity. This is even why it causes car accidents. The cheerfulness and excitement that follow the absorption of alcohol are therefore decoys.

Drinking to warm up is heresy. We certainly feel a feeling of heat because alcohol causes an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. Unfortunately, this reaction lowers the body temperature. In fact, the alcoholic resists the cold for less time… You will understand why the Saint-Bernard with his little barrel of rum under his collar had the same effect for the missing in the snow as a burst of machine gun fire. Legends die hard…

To return to the so-called protective role of alcohol, it is American studies which have shown that the risk of heart attack, for example, is lower among those who consume a little alcohol each day than among followers. of sobriety. However, first, it is only a small decrease, then the risk of skidding, therefore of alcoholism, seems more important than protection.

Although women are unfortunately increasingly beginning to practice this pleasure, which becomes an ugly habit in the event of excess, it should however be noted that men are three times more likely to drink alcoholic beverages every day than women.

More than 30,000 men will die this year from the damage of alcoholism, many more from cancer or road accidents than from cirrhosis – which all drinkers fear – but which only represent 20% of this sad toll. Because we know unfortunately that with alcohol, it is not necessary to be drunk to die of it.

13.5% of young people die of alcoholism

According to a study of data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, published in The Lancetthe specialists also emphasize the alcoholism of young people, in particular on “binge drinking”, this express “burnt”, often extremely brutal, which would have the consequence of leaving on the brain a kind of indelible mark facilitating more addiction to this ancestral drug later.

Besides, what to say to a teenager who comes home drunk? Specialists in this addiction are categorical: you should not refer to your own experience, because young people no longer drink as their parents did. You have to apply an absolute rule: don’t say anything at the moment and wait until the next day, because, after bragging, a teenager very often admits the bad sides of drunkenness…

Alcohol, a drug that has the particularity – along with tobacco – of being perfectly legal. However, unlike nicotine, in no case do these same specialists claim, quite the contrary, the outlawing of this important part of our heritage and our culture. Lobbying in this area dies hard… We must insist on a fundamental point: the so-called beneficial effect is completely counterbalanced by the risk – when you put your nose in these drinks – of seeing addiction set in, which encourages the 25% of totally sober French people not to change anything in their habits.