Alcoholism Essay

The most important question that we can ask in respect of alcoholism is, "what causes it?". If we know the answer to this question, we can cure it, stop it call it what you like.

Certain people have a propensity to alcoholism. This means that under the same conditions a person more susceptible to alcoholism will succumb to it more often than one who is not susceptible. This doesn't tell us about the underlying cause.

Humans are self-conscious animals. We can evaluate ourselves. We can assess ourselves. I understand that our cousins the apes can do the same thing. Humans think that the other animals on this planet are not self-conscious.

When we evaluate ourselves we conclude that we don't like ourselves. We also conclude that we don't like the societies on this planet that we have created. As a result we subconsciously want to destroy the planet. This is manifest in the mindless violence of the young who express themselves and the mindless destruction of the peoples of the world of our natural resources and nature. The older people keep it to themselves and get drunk.

In disliking ourselves we also wish to destroy ourselves. If you have a propensity to alcoholism you do this through alcohol which breaks down the body. If you don't have a propensity to alcoholism, your instinct for survival keeps you going.

Those in between alcoholism and sobriety sometimes drink too much but can't stop themselves. They are on the boundary of alcoholism. They stay at that point through discipline.

In conclusion I believe that the cause of alcoholism is a deeply subconscious dislike of ourselves and the world we have created. There is, therefore, no cure unless we change as a world population. This will happen over many thousand of years. The drugs, psychology and treatments restrains the desire to destroy what we are, but these treatments cannot rid this thought from out minds.

The only other cure is to stop being self-conscious, which means returning to the stage in evolution at which we we not self-conscious. That event may happen if and when we destroy the world.

Photo copyright iwouldsay creative commons