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Alcohol abuse | |
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"The Drunkard's Progress", 1846 | |
Specialty | Psychiatry |
Symptoms | Relationship difficulties, legal problems, problems at work or school, insomnia, irritability, chronic fatigue. |
Complications | Alcoholic liver disease, Pancreatitis (acute or chronic), cancer |
Diagnostic method | Clinical history, DSM-5 criteria |
Treatment | Contingency management, motivational interviewing, Alcoholics Anonymous meeting attendance |
Alcohol abuse encompasses a spectrum of alcohol-related substance abuse. This spectrum can range from being mild, moderate, or severe. [1] This can look like consumption of more than 2 drinks per day on average for men, or more than 1 drink per day on average for women, to binge drinking.[2]
Alcohol abuse was a psychiatric diagnosis in the DSM-IV, but it has been merged with alcohol dependence in the DSM-5 into alcohol use disorder.[3][4]
Alcohol use disorder, also known as AUD, shares similar conditions that some people refer to as alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, alcohol addiction, and the most used term, alcoholism.[1]
Globally, excessive alcohol consumption is the seventh leading risk factor for both death and the burden of disease and injury,[5] representing 5.1% of the total global burden of disease and injury, measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).[6] After tobacco, alcohol accounts for a higher burden of disease than any other drug. Alcohol use is a major cause of preventable liver disease worldwide, and alcoholic liver disease is the main alcohol-related chronic medical illness.[7] Millions of people of all ages, from adolescents to the elderly, engage in unhealthy drinking.[8] In the United States, excessive alcohol use costs more than $249 billion annually.[9] There are many factors that play a role in causing someone to have an alcohol use disorder: genetic vulnerabilities, neurobiological precursors, psychiatric conditions, trauma, social influence, environmental factors, and even parental drinking habits.[10] Data shows that those that began drinking at an earlier stage in life were more likely to report experiencing AUD than those that began later. For example, those who began at age 15 are more likely to report suffering from this disorder than those that waited until age 26 and older. The risk of females reporting this is higher than that of males.[1]