Excessive Drinking Concerns

Alcoholism - and any addiction for that matter is extremely complex. Getting to the root of what causes alcoholism and addiction certainly isn’t straightforward.

The fact that alcoholism and drug addiction is to a large degree hereditary due to genetic influences, certainly explains one of their major causes. But most significantly, we’re largely shaped by our environment - parents, the media, our peers and our various experiences.

Now when considering alcoholism and psychology and the role the psychology of alcoholism plays in alcohol/drug addiction - you need to understand that our psychological profile is formed largely in early childhood - mostly through the influence of our parents and family.

If our family environment is generally loving, supportive and stable through our early years especially, we’ll develop a healthy sense of self-esteem, feel generally comfortable in our own skin, and be relatively well-adjusted.

However, if our younger years are filled with some sort of trauma, instability or emotional turmoil - like there being alcoholism in the family, abuse, losing a loved one, our parents separating, or anything we regard as being traumatic - we tend to create all sorts of coping mechanisms to help us deal with that, which can then show up in our lives in a number of different ways.

This could mean you find yourself developing a whole bunch of stuff - which could be anything from depression to anger, anxiety, different kinds of eating disorders and naturally various forms of addiction, including drugs and alcohol.

If you speak to someone who has suffered from alcoholism or drug addiction, chances are there will be something pretty traumatic that happened to them when they were young. Having a parent that struggled with alcoholism was my main one - and obviously the impact that then had on our family.

Of course that won’t always be the case and I’m sure you’ll find many drug addicts and alcoholics who came from stable, loving and supportive environments. But when looking at alcoholism and psychology - and trying to understand the psychology of alcoholism and drug addiction, hopefully you’ll now have a better understanding of things.