The fact is that the consumption of both legal and illegal psychoactive substances is on the rise, and behind the demand for them is the desire for enjoyment, as well as the effort to distance oneself from the frustrating reality.
"The overall context to which this civilization has been exposed in recent years (Covid-19 epidemic, wars, earthquakes, economic crisis, damaged value system...), has a negative effect on the emotional state of people, who are increasingly worried, anxious, depressed and scared about perspective," he explained to Ordinance Professor Dr. Slavko Sakoman, neuropsychiatrist.
Alcohol is dangerous because it is socially acceptable
When asked by the Ordinance, how much alcohol can we drink in a day without becoming alcoholics and, of course, without endangering our health. prof. Sakoman also explained why we actually drink alcohol:
"In Croatia, to a greater extent than is the case in most EU countries, the quality of life of people has been impaired and the intensity of frustrations due to unfulfilled expectations and injustice has increased, and in connection with this, people's mental health has deteriorated. The fastest, simplest and 'apparently' most effective way to change the psycho-physiological status and perception of reality for the 'better' is "I have to take something". The choice is large, from the ubiquitous and most readily available alcohol, to tranquilizers, analgesics, weed, cocaine..."
Alcohol, he says, will deceive people the easiest, because the attitude towards drinking is positive, and the "drinking culture" is seen as a socially acceptable behavior for improving the mood and it is embedded in almost every pore of people's lives.
Looking at man and alcohol consumption, the doctor says that several categories should be distinguished; Abstainers (always), occasional, moderate, occasional consumers, excessive consumers (some of whom have visible harmful consequences, but are still not addicts) and finally alcoholics, people who suffer from that chronic, progressive relapsing brain addiction disease.
"When we talk about the amount and tolerance of alcohol, you have to be very careful. For a "beginner" due to low tolerance, even a very small amount of alcohol can hit the head hard. But even for the most severe addicts, if they are in that last stage, tolerance drops and a small amount can cause a state of severe drunkenness, while at the beginning of the 'career' of developing that type of addiction, those people could drink ten times the amount, walk straight and not fall into in the eyes of others silly. Alcohol is a 'legal drug' and a person who travels towards the most severe clinical picture of alcoholism goes through three stages (the so-called Jelinek curve); an increase in tolerance, a phase of blasphemy, a decrease in tolerance," explains prof. Sakoman adds that minors should not drink like that at all and it is the task of families, schools and the state to use their mechanisms to protect children and young people from jeopardizing healthy growing up and all risks associated with impaired self-control of behavior under the influence of alcohol. Unfortunately, most of the very young teenagers have experience with drinking, and many with drinking alcohol.
How much alcohol can we drink per day/week - if we are not alcoholics?
"Healthy adults (if there are no special contraindications) could drink the amount of alcohol containing, for example, 2 dcl of wine (men) and 1 dcl of wine for women per day without harm, and if so, we are talking about socially responsible and controlled consumption. Speaking about the difference in quantity by gender, it is not about discrimination against women, but about the fact that a man's organism is genetically more resistant to alcohol and he "needs" about 10, and women 5 years of continuous excessive drinking, in order to develop alcoholism. People who consume alcohol, in order to reduce the risk to their health, must also take into account the distribution of consumption. Drinking a bottle of beer with lunch during the week or 7 bottles on Saturday night is not the same. After every heavy drunkenness, poisoning of the body (often accompanied by alcoholic amnesia), a person simply becomes dumber, because a high concentration of alcohol irreversibly kills millions of the smartest brain cells and destroys countless inter-neuronal connections. 'Stupidity', of course, does not hurt, but you can feel the difficulties of memory and recall... In drunkenness, countless liver and pancreas cells are also destroyed, which can be regenerated to a certain extent, and when this stops, symptoms of liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, myocardiopathies begin to appear. , polyneuropathy...", adds the professor and concludes - it's better to be than to drink.
Bonus video:
