False ideas about alcohol dependence

Every second adolescent with misconceptions about alcohol dependence

04/22/2014

A representative survey on alcohol dependence showed that one in three respondents had misconceptions about how addiction developed. For the adolescents, even every second person had a wrong theory.

Every second adolescent has wrong ideas
According to a representative survey by "apotheken-umschau.de", a false theory on the origin of alcohol dependence is widespread: According to this, one in three (32.2 percent) of respondents said that they were „determined over a longer period again and again almost to drunkenness“ need to get away from alcohol „really“ to become dependent. Among the 14 to 19-year-olds, there were as many as 50.1 percent who followed this erroneous belief. The survey was conducted in personal interviews with 1,977 women and men aged 14 and over by GfK Marktforschung Nürnberg.

One in ten regularly drinks alcohol
Michaela Goecke, Head of the Unit for Addiction Prevention at the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA), said that this assumption is not true: „Frequent binge drinking may increase the search risk, but usually an addiction develops creepingly.“ Normally, regular consumption, which is slowly increasing, would pave the way for dependency. Against this background, further results of the survey are questionable. For example, about one in ten (9.6 percent) of the respondents say they regularly drink alcohol in the evening in order to be able to switch off. And 15.7 percent fall in the evening or in company hard, the usual „glass“ to renounce.

1.8 million alcohol-dependent Germans
In recent years, the number of alcoholics in Germany has increased dramatically. According to the „Epidemiological Search Survey“, which was developed on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Health by the Institute for Therapy Research in Munich, are now nearly 1.8 million Germans dependent on alcohol. In addition, it would have been shown that there was not only a marked increase in alcohol dependence in general, but also a particularly worrying development among young adults under the age of 25 years. In total, about 7.4 million Germans would consume more alcohol than the recommended maximum daily amount. (Sb)

Image: Jorma Bork