Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a serious, chronic, potentially fatal condition manifested by a person's powerful addiction to alcoholic beverages. While experts have linked alcoholism to physiological (possibly hereditary), psychological, socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural, and other factors, there is no clear explanation of its genesis. Alcoholism occurs in all economic strata of society, in all age groups, from teenagers to the elderly, and in all races. Thus the popular stereotype of the alcoholic as a down-and-out person is misleading: alcoholics can be sufficiently functional to maintain a successful professional career. Particularly dangerous is the stereotype of alcoholism as an adult disease. Children and teenagers can become alcoholics—no age group is immune. While the abuse of alcoholic beverages has been known from time immemorial, the term alcoholism was coined in the nineteenth century by the Swedish physician Magnus Huss.