Health Behavior and Drugs - Essay Sample

Introduction

The use of drugs can lead to effects such as overdose, poisoning, blackouts and death, damage to important body organs such as liver, brain, and heart, psychological and physical dependence, memory loss where one can barely remember important information, psychological problems such as severe anxiety, psychosis, and depression. Alcohol and other drugs use are associated with low coordination and impaired judgment which leads to rape, unplanned sexual experiences, DUI/DWI arrests, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections like AIDS, falls, hazing, injuries, and drowning. Dependency on drugs and risk-taking behavior patterns not only affect the lives of those using them but also the individuals around them. Drugs also harm emotional well-being, student's academic work, and college adjustment life.

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Alcohol

The use of this drug leads to a progressive disorder where physical dependency develops. Even low intake of alcohol doses causes impairs the function of the brain, reflexes, coordination, alertness, and judgment. Very high alcohol doses lead to death and respiration suppression. Chronic alcohol abuse can cause Liver cirrhosis, heart disease, and sexual impotence. Withdrawing from alcohol use all of a sudden can produces hallucinations, tremors, life-threatening convulsions, and severe anxiety (Witkiewitz,2018).

Some of the negative consequences that are as a result of using alcohol both to those using it and the ones around them are: arguing with friends, your sleep or study interruption, humiliation and insults, trouble on campus or with the police, having property and that of pothers damaged, treatment requirement for alcohol poisoning which incurs unnecessary expenses, getting assaulted, injured or sexually assaulted, hangovers, engaging in unprotected and unwanted sexual activity, arguments with others and friends, academic problems due to missing of classes and getting behind in schoolwork, developing dependence, addiction, and tolerance on the drug, death caused by alcohol poisoning or injury causes by alcohol-related issues and weight gain due to the campus dining.

According to the Neuroscience research done, alcohol tampers with new memories' information and learning especially at a young age when the brain cells are still developing for the college aged-students. Alcohol cause leads to both short- and long-term problems for the individuals using it. This drug is a central nervous systems' depressant whose effects vary depending on how much someone drinks it.

The effects start with inhibition loss with only one drink which makes an individual stumbling drunk to acute alcohol poisoning which leads to consciousness loss and difficulties in breathing. Rapid alcohol intake like drinking games, key stands, funneling and shots situations usually occurs during Acute alcohol poising. Someone's BAC (Blood alcohol concentration) keeps rising in their stomach even after them passing out. Serious injuries and death can be prevented by critical medical attention.

Alcohol affects women to a greater degree than men because of their higher body fat where alcohol-soluble to water hence having a greater concentration in a woman's' bloodstream after consumption. Alcohol is less diluted after reaching the brain in a smaller body and this case, women tend to be smaller than male individuals. One to three days before their menstruation periods, women get more intoxicated easily(McCutcheon,2020).

More alcohol is absorbed in a woman's bloodstream because there is a lack of alcohol dehydrogenase in their stomach unlike in a man's body where it is broken down before absorption. Alcohol is so addictive and using it regularly can lead to alcoholism, addiction, and dependence even for young people especially in colleges. Individuals with a family lineage of substance use are 4-10 times likely to abuse this drug later in their lifetime and this happens to them mostly at an earlier age.

Drinkig Age

All people that start drinking alcohol at the age of fifteen are also likely to develop issues of substance use in their lifetime. Some of the warnings signs of alcohol dependence are frequently using it, spending most of the time thinking and planning how to take it, needing more of it to experience the same effect(tolerance), missing classes, and failing to complete assignments because of its use, spending more money on the drug that you have it, a continuation of its use even after consequences, finding and making new friends who take much of it and letting go of the old ones that do not drink and finding it so hard to stay happy without using alcohol regularly (Moure-Rodriguez,2018). The addiction warning signs include the above and the physical withdrawal system after skipping a drinking episode such as seizures, hallucinations, sleep distracts, tremors, and anxiety.

There are different ways of taking care of an intoxicated person such as staying with them or calling a RA or with any trusted friend because leaving them alone is not advisable, communicating to the nurse on duty in case any student at school passes out because of excessive drinking, getting help from the Student Health Center, knowing how to spot respiratory failure danger and during an individual on their side and not to give them coffee, aspirin, ibuprofen or put them in a shower (Long,2017).

If the individual is not vomiting, it advisable to give them some water to drink. Consumption of alcohol causes more than sixty diseases and 2.74 million which is 4% of the world's population is also a result of alcohol use. It is on the fifth list of global diseases that are causing many deaths. People admitted to the hospital between 2003 and 2013 due to alcohol-related diseases has risen by 42% in the United Kingdom.

Some of the risks of its use include domestic violence, disorder, and crime, poor mental health is also linked to excessive use of alcohol, acute, and chronic physical health problems, unwanted pregnancies, and unprotected sex. This year, the United Kingdom's total cost has a total estimation of 25.1(440.2) billion due to the harm being caused. Females between the age of 25 and 64 are using a lot of alcohol and males aged forty-five. Such data shows that not only the young ones that are consuming alcohol but also people of an older age which is a burning issue that should be looked into by the government and public health interventions (Cerea,2017).

The survey that was conducted in Australia on people who have already left school and having celebrations showed that 17 to 18-year-old are so much involved and an average of 18 male standard drinks and 13 in females had increased more than the normal levels of drinking. Drinking initiations and addition to the celebrations that young ones hold, we have promotional activities and advertisements that are linked with drinking initiation and young people's regular use of alcohol substances, also pro-drinking development attitude.

Research

Research shows that UK and Netherlands ' mid-adolescents are said to be more exposed to advertisements about alcohol per hour viewing than the adults. There is an addition to this evidence of papers from Pitts and Lyons which are looking into the UK media alcohol content frequency (Cowie, 2020).

The Lyons concentrated more on media broadcasting and Pitts examined the print media. These studies state that there is an increase in a toxigenic environment which makes alcohol use for young people normal through daily life presentations. The Lyons also realized that imagination on alcohol was common in the United Kingdom television through more than 405 broadcasts such as comedies, sports, soap operas, and feature films in which young people get involved in their daily lives.

Pitts also realized that marketing messages on alcohol are likely to be used more than advertisements on food concerning quality, fun, location, and taste matters. There is a development of focused policies whose main role is to ensure that they help people realize that too much drinking is not good for their health and advise behavior change on good health. Screening effective will also help people control too much consumption of alcohol hence no accidents will because of drunk drivers. There are however some barriers to this where there is no enough time for this process, financial support for this work. The financial issues in London were handled and more screening took place where patients suffering from cardiovascular disease increased in number and mental problems' percentage moved from 4.8 to 65.7% (Wood,2018).

Conclusion

The screening process was however lower for the patients with mental condition problems than those suffering from cardiovascular disease. Alcohol has however been overlooked so much in comparison to other public health issues like obesity and smoking cigarettes and bhang. The range in social and health issues from alcohol use has impacted society so much and this needs immediate action that will manage the problem nationally and globally.

References

Cerea, S., Bottesi, G., Grisham, J. R., Vieno, A., & Ghisi, M. (2017). Dispositional and situational coping among individuals with alcohol use disorder. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 80, 79-87.

Cowie, N., & Healthwatch, A. (2020). Submission to the Advertising Standards Authority on the Influencers: Making it clear that ads are ads consultation.
http://www.ahw.org.nz/Portals/5/Resources/Submissions/2020/Alcohol%20Healthwatch%20submission%20to%20ASA%20Influencer%20Consultation%20August%205%202020.pdf

Long, E., Barrett, T. S., & Lockhart, G. (2017). Network-behavior dynamics of adolescent friendships, alcohol use, and physical activity. Health Psychology, 36(6), 577.

McCutcheon, V. (2020). Alcohol Use As a High-Risk Health Behavior. Perspective.
https://publichealth.wustl.edu/alcohol-use-as-a-high-risk-health-behavior/

Moure-Rodriguez, L., Carbia, C., Lopez-Caneda, E., Corral Varela, M., Cadaveira, F., & Caamaño-Isorna, F. (2018). Trends in alcohol use among young people according to the pattern of consumption on starting university: A 9-year follow-up study. PLoS One, 13(4), e0193741.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0193741

Witkiewitz, K., Kranzler, H. R., Hallgren, K. A., O'Malley, S. S., Falk, D. E., Litten, R. Z., ... & Anton, R. F. (2018). Drinking risk level reductions are associated with improvements in physical health and quality of life among individuals with alcohol use disorder. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 42(12), 2453-2465.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6286196/

Wood, L., & McMurray, I. (2018). Perceptions of alcohol use in UK 12–14-year-olds. Drugs and Alcohol Today.