Alcohol Abuse

Alcohol abuse is widely recognised as the single most expensive and detrimental drug in society. According to the World Health Organisation alcohol is directly related to 2.5 million deaths per year and 320 000 young people between the age of 15 and 29 die from alcohol-related causes, resulting in 9% of all deaths in that age group.(WHO 2011). It is therefore surprise that alcohol is the most commonly legal drug and readily available drug in society. In Australia alone, tens of thousands of people become victim of alcohol addiction or alcohol abuse, such as binge drinking. In the youth, binge drinking is seen as ‘cool’ and socially acceptable.

In 2010, the World Health Assembly approved a resolution to endorse a global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. The resolution urged countries to strengthen national responses to public health problems caused by the harmful use of alcohol.

As a paramedic, I treat more patients who have become injured or been injured as a direct result of alcohol abuse than any other person! Alcohol is associated with many serious social and developmental issues, including violence, child neglect and abuse, and absenteeism in the workplace.

If you need any inspiration to try to quit drinking, then think of this case I once attended. I was called to a women who was 25 weeks pregnant and alledgedly assaulted by her husband. When I arrived the patient appeared to have been beaten quite badly from head to toe. She later miscarried and the baby was still borne. While I treated her, she explained how her husband was a good man, but that he gets carried away when he starts to drink. She then mentioned that I should check out her daughters. She had three young girls, who had tried to stop their father from beating their mother to death. One of them had taken the full brunt of their father’s alcohol induced violence and had suffered a major head injury (resulting in a sub-arachnoid bleed).

Alcohol leads to many chronic and permanent diseases, including epilepsy, cirrosis of the liver, imune deficiencies, cardiovascular disease and multiple cancers.