What Type of Alcoholic Are You?

In a recent research done by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism an interesting observation was made. A typical alcoholic falls into any one of 5 types. More on the types of alcoholics shortly. The most proliferate category of alcoholics were found to be “Young Adults”. This is an alarming trend and cause for serious concern.

Out of a sample size of nearly 1500, Dr. Howard B. Moss conducting the research along with a team of researchers found that nearly 31% of the alcoholics were young adults and about 20% did not have a family history of alcoholism and were highly functional individuals.

The NIAAA researchers categorized the alcoholics that were studied as part of the research into 5 categories.

Young Adult Alcoholics

This group was by far the largest with 31.5 % of the total sample size of alcoholics studied. They also found very low rates of parallel substance abuse and low rates of a family history of alcoholism. Another noted characteristic was that this group very rarely asked for any help to stop or control their drinking habit.

Young Antisocial Alcoholics

The second largest group of the lot with 21%. Most of the alcoholics in this group were in their mid 20′s and most of them started drinking at a very early age. More than 50% of this group however had a family history of alcoholism. A large percentage of this group, around 75% also usually had other addiction problems such as smoking cigarettes, cocaine, marijuana and opium addiction. The good news though with this group was that more than 30% actively seek help to curb or recover from their addictions.

Functional Alcoholics

The next group categorized as functional alcoholics were typically well educated, middle aged, relatively well to do with stable families and jobs. This group was slightly lesser than 20% of the total sample, 19.5% to be exact. Also nearly 50% of this group were found to be smokers and about 25% had major depression symptoms and illness at some point in their lives.

Intermediate Familial Alcoholics

This group at 19% also was pretty close as far as the sample size to the functional alcoholics group. Again mostly middle aged with close to 50% of them having some family history of alcohol abuse. Close to half of this group had clinical depression with a smaller percentage also having bipolar disorder. Most of the is group was found to also smoke and nearly 20% were found to be addicted to cocaine and marijuana.

Chronic Severe Alcoholics

The smallest of the sample size thankfully at 9% Again most of them were found to be middle aged and had spiraled down the alcoholism route relatively early on in their lives. Close to 80% came from families with a history of alcoholism and also had high occurrence of depression, bipolar disorder, addiction to smoking and marijuana and anxiety issues. This group was found to be more open to alcohol treatment and made up the most percentage in numbers as far as people currently undergoing alcohol treatment.

Sometimes categorizing alcoholics can help individuals and people who treat them assess the situation and come up with the required help, counseling and alcohol treatment options.

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