Why People Become Alcoholics

How Did We Get to Alcoholism

If you’re anything like me, you started drinking in high school with your friends. It seemed like the cool thing to do. You partied on weekends, but never drank during the week. You hid it from your parents, even though they were drinkers themselves.

And then you turned 18. Maybe you headed for college, where binge drinking seemed to be the extracurricular pastime of many students there. At least the ones you were drawn to. You may even have gotten a DUI, but so did a lot of kids. What’s the big deal?

This is how it begins for many alcoholics. It may be peer pressure that got you into drinking, or it may have been watching your parents drink, sometimes to an excess, modeling a dysfunctional problem-solving behavior that doesn’t usually work. But you started drinking and liked the way it made you feel. It brought you out of your shell. It took away the fear and insecurities you had, ones that infect most of us at that time in our lives, while setting out to face the overwhelming task of growing up.

Risk Factors for Alcoholism

Alcohol is a drug that blocks out emotional pain, due to this it has a strong draw for adolescents and young adults. Those who might find the confusion of feelings associated with the looming responsibilities of adulthood a major challenge. For example, famed author Stephen King was fueled by his fears and wrote them into his novels. According to his biographer, his dysfun