Until now, the exact cause of alcoholism has not been figured out yet while it does not show the same progress or phase in every different case: Not only there has been found no effective treatment method, but also the effect of treatment for it has n...
Until now, the exact cause of alcoholism has not been figured out yet while it does not show the same progress or phase in every different case: Not only there has been found no effective treatment method, but also the effect of treatment for it has not been lasting for a long time.
In particular, the characteristics that alcoholism is chronic and recurring progressively shall often cause the severe problem in the treatment aspect of alcoholism. Even though decrease in the possibility of its recurrence is the major purpose of treatment, the alcoholism shall usually recur for 50~60% of alcoholics who have been through the treatment within 3 months.
Most of alcoholics shall participate in the diverse treatment program, and experience its recurrence soon after the treatment throughout their lifetimes.
As referring to the results of studies performed domestic though it is hard to generalize them because they were done for small number of alcoholics during short-term period of time, it is indicated that the recurrence rate of domestic alcoholics reaches to about 70%, and the period of recurrence is in 6 month after treatment in most cases.
In USA, the statistics says that 50% of accidents on highways and one third of crimes are related to alcoholism, and 41% of accident victims have been found out to be drunken before the accident.
Also, alcoholism causes the various complications: 10 % of alcoholics are to suffer from liver cirrhosis. 53% of drug intoxication patients and alcoholics have other mental illness while accompanying with a phobia disorder, cognitive impairments, depression in many cases.
10~15% of alcoholics commit suicides, of which rate is 60~100 times more than the suicidal rate of normal people with no mental illness.
For this reason, the alcoholics in first phase have the mortality rate three(3) times higher than one of normal people. In general, the misuse and abuse of alcohol is not only to shorten the life span of individuals by 10~20 years, but to lead to family problems, poverty and diseases.
Although alcoholism is one of terrible diseases like this, we are very generous to the mistakes or wrong behaviors of drunken people in Korean traditional culture. We regard the ability to drink much as one of the masculine expression, and men who don't drink well can do well in social life actually. Some enterprises even assess the attitudes of recruits in drinking interviews. There is an atmosphere 'men can do mistakes while drunken' in Korean society. Like this way, Korean drinking culture can not be understood in Western culture.
It is fortunate that recently our point of view for drinking has been so much changed that the severity of alcoholics has been stood out, and the intervention and research to prevent the recurrence of alcoholics have been actively performed. But the study for recurrence factors which should be conducted prior to the intervention to prevent the recurrence of alcoholics has been still insufficient yet. Therefore, this study examined the factors to affecting the recurrence of alcoholics by comprehensively treating the recurrence factors of alcoholics while extracting the recurrence factors which were treated simply in the preceding studies.
This study was performed for the 102 alcoholics who had been hospitalized more than two(2) times by the same diagnosis of the misuse and abuse of alcohol dependence by DSM-Ⅳ amongst the patients in mental hospitals located in Cheonju, Chungbuk province. The concept of rehabilitation was used while being changed into the times of hospitalization.
As follows is the result of this study.
First, only whether or not to have jobs amongst population and social characteristics of alcoholics had the meaningful value while it was indicated that there was no difference of times of hospitalization according to whether or not they had been married, whether or not they had lived together with their spouses, whether or not they have religions, and levels of education.
Second, it was indicated that depression, anxiety and stress amongst the population and social characteristics of alcoholics did not affect directly on the recurrence of alcoholism.
Third, it was indicated that the withdrawal symptoms amongst the clinical factors of alcoholic affected the times of the patients' hospitalization.
Fourth, the life events amongst the environmental factors of alcoholics were indicated to affect the times of patients' hospitalization.
As explained above, it can be seen that the recurrence of alcoholics is caused by environmentally complicated factors rather than by a certain specific reason.
In order to prevent the recurrence, it is required to change the drinking culture which has been deeply rooted in Korean culture more than anything else: for this, it is also required to promote the education for drinking in schools, and the campaign for the ordinary people for the awareness.
In addition, the more systematic program should be developed for the hospitalized patients, and it is required to establish the continuous social system for the patients who have been discharged form hospitals in the aspect of local community.