People who are most sensitive to the effects or taste of alcohol are also those who will have the most difficulty managing their consumption. Eventually, this can lead them to alcoholism.
- People who enjoy alcohol for its effects and taste are most likely to become alcoholics.
- These people find it difficult to control their use, which eventually becomes problematic over time.
Alcohol, that treacherous liquid. If its consumption does not pose a problem when it is moderate, it can quickly become problematic if it is not controlled. Researchers at the University of Medicine in Chicago (United States) followed young adults who consume alcohol for ten years. They realized that those who are more sensitive to alcohol and to the pleasant sides it can have are more likely to become alcoholics. The results of their study were published on January 5, 2020 in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry.
Increased consumption among alcohol lovers
For this study, the researchers followed 190 young adults for ten years. At three regular intervals during this decade, they put them in a situation akin to a student drinking party, with lots of alcohol available. In parallel, they also inquired about the consumption habits of the participants, and their degree of appreciation of alcohol.
At the end of the ten years, the researchers measured the participants’ consumption to see which ones were most likely to develop alcohol-related disorders. Of the 185 remaining participants in the experiment, compared to their consumption at the start, 21%, or almost 40 people, developed alcohol-related disorders. Among them, people who became alcoholics showed higher levels of arousal, liking and craving for alcohol. This appreciation of alcohol was already higher than their baseline level, with no signs of tolerance to these pleasurable effects.
“The idea that alcoholics dislike the effects of alcohol over time is based on ad hoc reports of patients entering treatmentsays Andrea King, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Medicine in Chicago. It was only by testing the same people over a long period of time to see if responses to alcohol change over time that we were able to observe this elevated response to alcohol, and in participants who did not know the content of beverages, so effects on waiting have been minimized.”
Party drinkers who can’t stop
Although it may seem relatively obvious that people who experience the pleasurable effects of alcohol most intensely are most likely to develop problems with alcoholism, it is interesting that “party” or “social” drinkers remain so throughout their lives, and that this can have an impact on their health. “Our results support a theory called ‘incentive-awareness’develops Andrea King. In response to an intoxicating laboratory standard dose of alcohol, the number of people wanting to drink more alcohol increased dramatically over the decade among people who developed more severe alcohol use disorders. Furthermore, the hedonic response—how much a person liked the effects of alcohol—remained high during this interval and did not decline at all. This is what has always been at the heart of the tradition of addiction, namely that addicts do not like drugs (here alcohol) but cannot stop using them..”
According to figures from Public Health France23.6% of people between the ages of 18 and 75 exceeded the alcohol consumption guidelines (no more than two drinks a day and not every day) in 2017. Each year, alcohol is responsible for 41,000 deaths, including 30,000 in men and 11,000 in women.
It is also with a view to better understanding one’s relationship with alcohol that Dry January, or dry January in French, was set up. The principle is to abstain from drinking alcohol throughout the month of January, in order to better understand the effects of alcohol on our body.
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