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Substance use disorders are a major public health problem facing many countries. "The most common substance of abuse/dependence in patients presenting for treatment is alcohol."[115] In the United Kingdom, the number of 'dependent drinkers' was calculated as over 2.8 million in 2001.[131] About 12% of American adults have had an alcohol dependence problem at some time in their life.[132] The World Health Organization estimates that about 140 million people throughout the world suffer from alcohol dependence.[4][5] In the United States and Western Europe, 10 to 20 percent of men and 5 to 10 percent of women at some point in their lives will meet criteria for alcoholism.[133] Within the medical and scientific communities, there is broad consensus regarding alcoholism as a disease state. For example, the American Medical Association considers alcohol a drug and states that "drug addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use despite often devastating consequences. It results from a complex interplay of biological vulnerability, environmental exposure, and developmental factors (e.g., stage of brain maturity)."[98] Alcoholism has a higher prevalence among men, though in recent decades, the proportion of female alcoholics has increased.[19] Current evidence indicates that in both men and women, alcoholism is 50–60 percent genetically determined, leaving 40–50 percent for environmental influences.[134] Most alcoholics develop alcoholism during adolescence or young adulthood.[59] |
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