SOC212H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Health Canada, Vehicle Insurance
Lecture 8: Addiction (alcohol and drugs)
Alcohol (use and addiction)
• Common
- Consequences – can lead to a lot of health problems
- Drunkenness – drunken actions largely learned behaviour and come down to cultural and social contexts
◼ Norms also influence the type of reactions to alcoholism
- Health impacts – liver disease, birth defects, fetal alcohol syndrome, premature death
- Other impacts – drunk driving
• Moderate consumption can decrease anxieties
• Physiological effects
- Alcohol does not lead to a physiological habit in the way that some other drugs do
- Non-universal consequences, effects of alcohol vary depending on rate of consumption and individual
biological nature
- Drunken actions are largely learned behavior
Types of drinkers
• Norms set standards for consumption of alcoholic beverages
- Types – beer, wine, champagne, etc
- Occasions (party, dinner vs everyday routine), amount (controlled vs lavish) and behavior (to death vs
controlled)
• Social/controlled drinker
- Drinking for social reasons
- May or may not like alcohol and the effects that it produces
- Can drink/abstain or cannot drink at will – they choose to and often refrain from alcohol
- They choose to drink in certain social contexts and rarely have negative consequences for drinking
- Will use alcohol in certain circumstances
• Heavy drinker
- Frequent alcohol use and intoxication (not all the time but occasionally gets drunk)
- Drinking exceeds norms for social use
- Interferes with health, social and/or economic functioning (calling in sick for work)
- Actual definition from health Canada for men and women are different
- Males – 5 or more drinks, per occasion, once per month
- Females – 4 or more drinks, per occasion, once per month
• Problem drinkers
- Amount may be the same as heavy drinkers but consequences are different
- Drinking negatively impacts life but not physically dependent on it
- It is despite the characteristics of drinker or frequency or amount of consumption
- Consequences of alcohol use, rather than the person or the frequency or quantity of consumption
• Alcoholism
- Physically dependent on it – their bodies NEED it
- Results after consuming large quantities of alcohol over long periods of time
- Compulsion, solitary drinking, morning drinking, general physical deterioration
- Alcoholics cannot escape problems caused by alcohol consumption by stopping drinking
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Global heavy drinking
• Around 600,000 thousands addicted, 2000 die each year (2002)
• Canada tops heavy episodic drinking in youth 15-19
• Problems with body start with heavy drinking
• Canada – 31.2% males and 14.7% females
• Canadians drink more than US and Australia (16% alcoholics in Russia, 5 million Canadians are heavy drinkers)
• 31% over the age of 15, and 15% over age of 15 females are heavy drinkers or more
• Problem drinkers are 6% of men in Canada and 2% of women
• Per capita 471 drinks per year in Canada
• The definition for heavy drinkers changed – used to be 5 cups for both females and males but decided to take
into account body mass and implications and so reduced it to 4 for women
• 2001-2014 We are slowly drinking more than we used to (18-34 are peak group of heavy drinkers)
Drinking behavior patterns
• As a social behavior, drinking follows a socially determined pattern
• Drinking patterns are learned behaviour
• Drinking frequency varies
- Age – heavy drinking peaks at different ages even for men and women, consumption patterns declines with
age (after 35, it decreases)
- Gender – men more than women
- Education – more education you have the more you drink
◼ Varies with education and income – the more formal the education, the more you drink
- Community – urban people drink more than rural
- Marital status - single people drink more than married (may also come down to age)
- Religion – drinking more common with Jews than catholic
Ethnic differences
• Culture – not race or biology – determines patterns of alcohol consumption
- For immigrant groups, drinking associated with acculturation (acceptance and adaptation to the social and
cultural norms of a new environment) in the US and Canada
• Certain types of people drink more: not tied to race or biology but by culture
• Beer is more common in western and wine in Quebec and government policies change as well
• France drinks more because of drinking spirits after meals
• Italians drink with eating and the more they eat, the less they drink
• Some cultures disapprove of public drunkenness and so teach children not to, whereas in other cultures drinking
is associated with masculinity
• Indigenous self-medicate – imagine living with 77% unemployment rate, you have drinkers 5 times more than
other cultures
• It is culture and not race or biology that influence amount of drinking
The costs of alcohol
• A lot of drinking statistics come from car insurance companies
• It can affect economy and criminal justice system
• Economic losses - $13 billion for Canada
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Document Summary
Consequences can lead to a lot of health problems. Drunkenness drunken actions largely learned behaviour and come down to cultural and social contexts. Norms also influence the type of reactions to alcoholism. Health impacts liver disease, birth defects, fetal alcohol syndrome, premature death. Other impacts drunk driving: moderate consumption can decrease anxieties, physiological effects. Alcohol does not lead to a physiological habit in the way that some other drugs do. Non-universal consequences, effects of alcohol vary depending on rate of consumption and individual biological nature. Types of drinkers: norms set standards for consumption of alcoholic beverages. Occasions (party, dinner vs everyday routine), amount (controlled vs lavish) and behavior (to death vs controlled: social/controlled drinker. May or may not like alcohol and the effects that it produces. Can drink/abstain or cannot drink at will they choose to and often refrain from alcohol. They choose to drink in certain social contexts and rarely have negative consequences for drinking.
