Drinking excessively year after year may cause pancreatitis, or an inflamed pancreas. Side effects of pancreatitis include extreme abdominal pain and abnormal weight loss. These can lead to death.
Alcoholism improves a drinker’s odds of developing cancer of the throat, larynx, liver, colon, kidneys, rectum, and oesophagus. It may also contribute to immune system irregularities, brain damage, harming an unborn baby, and cirrhosis of the liver.
People who have a good relationship with their spouses have an 8.9% probability of developing alcoholism over the course of their lifetime. Contrarily, 29.2% of adults who are living with a partner and have never married are likely to become alcoholics.
Generally, employees who have divorced, separated, or never married are twice as likely to have alcohol problems as those who are married.
It takes about 15 years for an adult to become a full-fledged alcoholic, but the process is sped up in teens and young adults.
One out of every five alcoholics who attempt to stop drinking without medical intervention end up dying as a result of alcohol withdrawal delirium.
Studies show that the offspring of alcoholics have a greater chance of becoming alcoholics themselves than those whose parents are clean.
HIV AIDS awareness campaign
As the global AIDS epidemic is entering its third decade, the hardest hit continent is Africa, where more people die from AIDS than any other disease. But no region of the world has remained untouched. The epidemic has driven many people to destitution, and is undermining poor countries' chances of development. FWF is hugely supporting HIV and AIDS awareness campaigns.
Alcohol Rehabilitation
Alcohol is one of the oldest and most dangerous drugs in our society, and few people recognize alcohol as a drug because of its legal status. Many people wrongly believe that just because alcohol is legal and virtually always available, it poses less of a threat. But the fact is that alcohol is the most dangerous and most insidious drug known to our society. As with any addiction, alcoholism is chronic and lasting the rest of the alcoholic’s life. Because of this, the drug addicts must remain fully aware of their addiction and do anything possible to go back into the habit. So de-addition programmes should be coupled with other long term rehabilitation processes. FWF view alcoholism as the root cause for many social and community problems. It accentuates abuse of women and children and family unrest.
