Alcoholism in Hungary

Alcoholism in Hungary
The effects of excessive drinking among young people.
Bad influence or just having occasional fun?
1. Introducing the problem
Immoderate drinking and its consequences cause a lot of problem today in Hungary. Approximately every tenth person has problems with alcohol and beside this our society is very forgiving towards this fact. 8000 people die because of drinking every year. Average a Hungarian person drinks 12 liters of clean alcohol yearly, and this is higher and higher in the growing society. This rate is rising among women and among young people as well. Does it have a bad influence on them? Does alcohol ruin youth’s lives in an early age? Of course alcohol has negative effects. It is very unhealthy; it destroys one’s liver and kills the nerve-cells, but still its biggest side effect is that it makes you addictive. Once you get used to drinking, you can hardly stop it. There are two types of addictiveness; one is when you drink every day, not too much, but you don’t miss even one day. The other type is when you drink occasionally (1 time a week or 2 maybe), but that time you don’t know where to stop, you drink until you are knocked out. Older generations fight with the first type; they need their daily 2 or 3 beers, or shots every day after work for example. The situation is different among younger ones.
Secondary school students drink for example every weekend, Friday or Saturday. They can’t be considered as alcoholics in my view, or at least not all of them. They simply want to look like the ‘cool ones’ and drink a lot, but in the end it slaps back. University students are a different category. They drink a lot. They have a lot of freedom, they have loose a timetable, and they don’t have to wake up at 7 o’clock every day, so they can allow themselves to party the day before. Doing this every day, every week, they cannot stop, and according to the definition of alcoholism they are alcoholics. Practically I wouldn’t say this. Of course there are some who really cannot miss a day, who should have stopped months or years earlier and now they are the ‘servants’ of drinking, but I don’t think that a person who likes to party even 2 or 3 times a week should be stigmatized! I know both types, even I like to party more times a week, but I don’t feel the intention for it all the time. Is it bad? I don’t think so. Should people know a limit? Yes, definitely!
But let’s take a look at the other side. Society often looks down on people who drink. But why is it such a big problem, if they don’t do anything wrong? Of course there are exceptions, but take a look at an average 20 year old boy or girl. They get together with their friends at home, or at the youth hostel (the place doesn’t really matter), they drink some beer, wine, shots, anything. What comes after it? They go down to a club or disco, dance till they can, maybe hook up with someone (JACKPOT) go home and sleep. Nothing wrong happened, maybe they will have a little hangover next day, their problem. But this they do anything bad for the society? No! They just had a little good time.
There are some people who need alcohol to loosen up a little. They are stiff and discomforted without drinking, or simply they don’t have enough self-confidence. They don’t feel that they can dance (alcohol can help sometimes…SOME TIMES), boys don’t dare to talk with girls etc.
I think that alcohol is a good thing. Of course you have to know a limit, but we already know that. You can let out your stress, party till you drop, or simply think about a hot summer afternoon. Is there anything better than an ice cold beer? Even great poets in the past used to drink to get creative; just think about the absinthe drinking community Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, but even Van Gogh used to drink. They are treasures of art and nobody is thinking about them as drunkards. Alcohol DOES have a good side!

2. Sources
It's a question we've all wondered about, does alcohol enhance our creativity? It's a romantic notion that writers, artists, and actors all derive a great deal of creativity out of drinking alcohol; and it often leads to the romantic ideal of the tortured soul. The artists or writer reliant on the sauce as a means of getting their true creative ideas out. But does this concept actually have any merit? Does alcohol do anything to our creativity?
Many famous artists and writers were alcoholics, for example Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe, which may be a reason why we can easily believe that alcohol spurns creativity. However, after studying how alcohol directly works on the body, it's hard to imagine that the substance could do anything productive for creativity. Well, this is exactly science's standpoint. While there is a hypothesis that alcohol's disinheriting effects lead to more creativity via the ability to get out what is on one's mind more easily, research seems to refute it, citing depressing effects on the brain (Runco & Pritzker, 1999).
Beveridge and Yorston's article "I Drink, Therefore I Am: Alcohol and Creativity," explains the possible reasons why artists and those who regard alcohol as an enhancement to creativity might see it as so. Beveridge and Yorston notes that artists generally view themselves as a separate part of society, as a different class that breaks conventions, and as such these artists turn to means of doing so, which includes alcohol consumption. Another model discussed in Beveridge and Yorston's article is the thought that artists are tortured and sensitive souls that turn to alcohol to dull their overly-sensitive and emotional view of the world and those around them. (1999)
While both these viewpoints may explain why artistic-types tend to drink, it does not provide an answer as to whether alcohol actually makes the creative juices flow more readily. We already have the proof that people like Hemingway drank, but did it spurn on his number of classic novels? Or did it ultimately hinder the creativity? In fact, Beveridge and Yorston goes on to describe grizzly stories of physical and mental ailments suffered by a number of artists well-known for their boozing. Overall, alcohol consumption, especially in excess has clear consequences. While an artist may derive some sense of pleasure from drinking, it isn't because it drives their creative nature, but due to other personal needs.
On the other hand drinking alcohol in moderate amounts can have positive influences on physical and mental health. While alcohol is one of the most widely abused substances on the market, it is also one that features certain benefits for drinkers who consume it in safe amounts. For individuals who consume low levels of alcohol, benefits like reduced stress, increased cardiovascular health and decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes offer a wealth of reasons for consumers to drink in moderation.
Research shows that the consumption of alcohol in moderate amounts can lead to certain psychological benefits. Low levels of alcohol can trigger stress reduction, easy feelings of anxiety and help consumers to reduce tension. In addition, low levels of alcohol consumption can also cause the consumer to feel more pleasant and relaxed. Studies on sleep show that people who drink in moderation get more sleep on average than do those who indulge in excess. These psychological effects of moderate drinking are positive ones that can be beneficial to the consumer.
The positive psychological effects of drinking in moderation can be associated with the studies that show moderate drinkers tend to love longer than people who don't drink at all or those who drink in excess. Studies from a number of different countries including China, the United States and England indicate that longevity is highest among groups of people who drink alcohol in moderation.
Several studies have shown that drinking alcohol in moderation has a positive correlation with certain aspects of cardiovascular health. In particular, the risk of developing coronary artery disease is significantly lowered in conjunction with moderate consumption of alcohol. Another link between alcohol and cardiovascular health shows that moderate consumption of alcohol has a positive correlation with survivability in the event of a heart attack. Those who drink low levels of alcohol are more likely to live and less likely to experience another heart attack. (http://www.fitday.com)
According to the sources mentioned above we can say that alcohol DOES have positive effects on people; even on the brain as well as the body. The only thing you have to do is to know your limits as we discussed previously.

3. My research
In the following part of my essay I’m going to introduce you to a research I made among young people about their drinking habits. My main goal with the questionnaire was to find out whether it is considered to be a good or a bad thing to drink. I also wanted to look into the reasons why do people tend to drink alcohol and at last I asked them about their drinking habits; how much do they drink and how often. I made an online questionnaire with the help of Google Docs and gave the link to some of my friends, 20 to be more exact. They were between the age of 21 and 26, most of them still university students. The 20% of them graduated in the last one or two years, the other part still attends some courses here at the University of Miskolc.
My first questions were personal ones asking about general things about the people I asked. Firstly I gathered some information about the gender of the ones I asked. From the 20 people 12 answered 'male' so basically he 60% of them. The other 40% (8 people) were female of course. Than I went on getting to know them better and I asked about their age. As I asked only university students I gave only 3 options for answer. the first was under 20 so technically those just became 18 in maximum 2 years, the second category was between 20 and 25, and the last one above 25 of course. From all only 10%, so 2 person was under the age of 20, 25% was above 25 and the remaining 13 person, the other 65%, was between the two other categories. As a result of the answers given to these two questions we can get the conclusion, that senior male students (assuming that they went to university right after high school) are the ones who drink most among young people.
My next question's aim is a bit more complicated. I say as a hypothesis that single people tend to drink more often than the ones in a relationship. In a matter of fact it seems to be true. the 55% of those I asked are single against the other 45% (that's 11 to 9) . If we compare this with the drinking habits I also asked about and which we can read about later on we can see, that this 11 people of the 20 drink more than the other half. I think this is an interesting topic, why would people in relationship tend to drink less. Is it because they’d like to measure up to the other one, or simply they just don’t feel that spirit anymore next to an other person, they don’t want to put themselves in embarrassing situations in front of the other one?. Who knows? But that’s not the topic of my research paper so let’s go on to my other questions.
After the personal questioning I continued to inquiring about their drinking habits. How much do they drink, and is it occasional or systematic? People at the university are likely to get on a system in every field of life just like at drinking. They go to party on the same days, so they drink on the same days as well. In this case, if it’s too much, we can talk about alcoholism in their cases. Of the ones I asked about the 1/4 said that they drink in a systematic way. Their answer was that they drink on every Thursday for sure, when it is the biggest party at the uni at every week, also they have some shots on Tuesdays and even if there’s any special occasion they have more days, mostly the weekends. To be exact 25%, so 5 people said that they live this way. The half of the group, 50% drink 1 or 2 times a month and the other 5 people don’t drink only at special occasions in like every 2 or 3 months. Complementing this that 5 person in the last category was only female, while the ones in the first are only male so we can have the conclusion again: men tend to drink more than women.
About the drinking habits I also asked how much to they drink at one single time at a party or simply when they get together in a bar or something. The given categories were 1-2 glasses, 3-5 glasses, and above 5. Nobody gave the answer of 1-2. Even those who don’t drink that much seem to be more likely to get at least a little bit of drunk at parties. Just the half of them, 10 people said that they drink between 3 and 5 and the other 50% answered above 5 glasses.
I went deeper and asked about the different types of alcohol they like to drink. The possible answers were beer, wine, long drink, and shots. Here you could tick more answers as well. The answers were pretty interesting. All of the 8 girls said long drinks and shots, while the boys, the 60% of the group, ticked all four. Again we can see that men tend to be bigger drinkers than women.
My last questions were to find out more about alcohol’s effects on people’s health. I started this part with a simple question whether they are used to have hangover after parties or not. The 90% of them said they are while the 10%, so 2 people, don’t have any, anytime.
I asked how far do they go with drinking, can they stop at a point where they still know what they are doing or they simply drink until they can, so after one point they don’t remember anything of the night. Also I was interested if they have ever been taken to the toxicology because of abusing too much alcohol. Again mostly the girls and 3 boys, so the 55% said they always have control over themselves while the other 45% said they usually hardly remember anything of the parties they go to. What is the good in that? Again I have no idea. Why go to a party with your friends if you won’t remember anything the following morning? Good questions…
And my last question was if any of them have ever had a serious accident which needed medical attention while drunk. Of the 20 people 3 had different problems like this; the other 17, the 85% have never experienced anything like this before.

4. Conclusion According to my research paper we can say for sure that alcohol DOES have a positive side. It can make people more creative, it also has some useful effects (e.g. red wine on blood pressure). Of course you have to know your limits and stop after an amount, but that depends only on you. It is easy to get on the other side of the horse and you’ll be called an alcoholic in an instant. As my research shown university students have different drinking habits, but still similar. Of course this can be because the group I asked is one big band of friends, but still we could see differences. One thing is sure; men drink a lot more than women, but still as ‘good’ alcoholics they still try to look out for their own health and their own safety.
Sources:
http://www.fitday.com

Questionarre

1. Gender? - male - female
2. Age? - under 20 - 20-25 -above 25
3. Are you in a relationship? - yes - no
4. How many times do you drink?
(monthly, weekly, daily; give your answer freely)

5. How much do you drink at a party? - 1-2 glasses - 3-5 glasses - above 5 glasses
6. What do you usually drink? (you can choose more) - beer - wine - long drinks - shots
7. Do you have hangover after drinking? - yes - no
8. Can you keep your consciousness at parties? - yes, I know where is the limit - no, I never remember anything the next day
9. Have you ever had a serious accident while drunk? - yes (if yes what) - no