The Psychology of Alcoholism and Drug Addiction
Alcoholism and drug addiction are complex illnesses. Getting to the bottom of their causes 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 looking at the role psychology plays in alcoholism and drug addiction - a large part of our psychological makeup is formed in our early childhood years. Primarily through our parents and family environment.
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.
Chances are - speak to an alcoholic or drug addict - that there will be a significant trauma or event that affected them, most likely when they were young. In my case it was having an alcoholic parent and the strain that put 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.
