Researchers Identify Alcoholism Subtypes National Institutes of Health NIH

Other common co-occurring conditions affecting this group include depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders. This group consists of young adults in their mid-twenties who developed alcohol problems at an early age. Many have a family history of alcoholism and tend to use other substances in addition to alcohol. For the young adult subtype of alcoholic, the brain is still developing. Early introduction of alcohol to that development process can mean a lifelong struggle with addiction, mental health issues, and an increased risk of life-altering and potentially deadly accidents.

Why Does Addiction Affect Everyone Differently?

People with alcoholism need treatment to stop drinking and avoid relapsing. Support groups, therapy, and medication are commonly prescribed treatments that promote long-term sobriety. Treatment for alcohol use disorder generally consists of medication, therapy, and support. Medications can help alleviate withdrawal discomfort, treat co-occurring mental health conditions, reduce alcohol cravings, and either block the effects of alcohol or induce unpleasant side effects when alcohol is consumed. AUD can involve binge or heavy drinking, but some people with this condition do not engage in these drinking behaviors.

Second, the adoptees and both their biological and adoptive parents were monitored for alcohol abuse and other related characteristics during their entire lifetimes. Previous studies usually had evaluated the birth parents only up to the time of adoption, when alcoholism and other behaviors may not yet have developed. In addition, those studies frequently lacked information about the birth fathers.

Intermediate Familial Alcoholic

1. Most are middle-aged, began drinking at about 17 and were addicted to alcohol by their early 30s.
2. The CDC estimated that 56% of all alcohol-related deaths in the US from 2011–2015 involved people between 35–64 years of age.
3. While approximately 15 million American adults suffer from alcohol use disorder, fewer than 1 in 10 typically seek treatment for addiction.
4. They tend to be well-educated, high-income earners with a relatively stable home life.

This can also mean that much of your time is spent recovering from the effects of alcohol, with hangovers Difference Between Alcohol Use and Alcoholism or withdrawal symptoms. This second stage involves the withdrawal symptoms a person experiences when they stop drinking after becoming addicted. The basal ganglia have become reliant on alcohol for activation; without it, a person may feel anxious and irritable.

The term alcoholic refers to a person with a condition known as alcohol use disorder (AUD). The disorder makes a person who has it experience an intense desire for alcohol even when it adversely affects their health. However, referring to a person with this condition as an alcoholic has negative connotations that can be harmful and hurtful.

It typically includes individual and group counseling and medication-assisted therapy like naltrexone (Vivitrol). This post discusses five distinct categories of people who suffer from alcoholism. By exploring each category in depth, you’ll better understand the complexities surrounding alcoholism. You’ll also know why it requires special treatment for successful recovery.

Sabino Recovery Provides Trauma-Focused Treatment for Alcoholism

When they do seek treatment, they’re more likely to attend a 12-step group or seek treatment from private health care professionals. Experts in the field of addiction say these categories are more than just labels — they can also be useful tools in treating alcoholism. Because there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to treating an alcohol addiction, understanding a person’s alcoholic subtype can help patients and physicians identify the most effective form of treatment. It’s a chronic disease marked by an inability to control alcohol consumption.

How to Help a Loved One Dealing with AUD

Moreover, these individuals are expected to be high in novelty seeking and, therefore, low in dopaminergic CNS activity. In contrast, type I alcoholics, who typically are high in harm avoidance and reward dependence, are likely to be high in both dopaminergic and serotonergic CNS activity (Cloninger 1995). These predictions reflect the empirical findings that type II alcoholics consistently exhibit high novelty-seeking traits and low cooperativeness; however, their levels of harm avoidance may vary. Similarly, it was unexpected that the genetic backgrounds of mild and severe alcohol abusers should be the same, whereas the genetic background of moderate abusers differed. The following section summarizes the findings of this replication study, which included adoptees from Gothenburg, Sweden, and their biological and adoptive parents. In initial studies, type I alcoholics frequently exhibited high harm avoidance, low novelty seeking, and high reward dependence (Cloninger 1987a), personality characteristics indicating high levels of anxiety.