Happy Sunday, friends! How about another English Essay? As I mentioned last week and the week before, I have been asked by several people to share the essays I wrote for my Eng 101 class. Now that class is over (and I made a 98%!) I feel comfortable in sharing my work.

This assignment was a Cause and Effect Essay! Holy crap, this one scared me! The side note said *15% of your final grade* EEEEKKK!!!  I literally waited until the last minute to turn this baby in! No kidding!

The task for this essay was to write an essay that showed either: 3 possible causes behind a situation OR 3 possible effects of a situation.  We were given several “topics” to choose from. This one had to be MLA format, 3-6 pages, and use at least one outside source. The outside source was the book we had read for the semester.

Alcoholism and the Effects

a cause and effect essay by: Bunny Cates
copyright: March 21, 2014
Plagiarism is shitty, do your own work!

Alcoholism is a disease that effects many Americans today. It is like a mold; once it has its grasp onto a victim, it spreads rampant and tarnishes everything it touches. With the ease and availability of alcohol, it is sought as a quick temporary remedy for stress. The temporary fix fades and gradually progresses into the feeling of necessity in order to function. The feeling of necessity is, at the core, the disease. The disease has no preference for males or females, and it doesn’t care how old. It infects those susceptible to it, and the ramifications of that infection can be felt by every other individual in an alcoholic’s life. Alcoholism affects more than just the individual with the disease; it affects entire families.

One of the main downfalls of alcoholism is the decline in health. When people are alcoholics, they no longer take care of the simplest things. They are so preoccupied with “the drink” they often forget to take care of themselves. Alcoholics replace meals with alcohol, causing their general nutrition to falter. Personal hygiene is another casualty as it quickly falls to the wayside. Alcoholics can, and do, pass out without a thought to personal hygiene. When the body is malnourished and unclean, it becomes quickly susceptible to other infections and diseases.

Dealing with the illness of alcoholism is often accompanied by dealing with other chronic illnesses. Headaches, dizziness, malnutrition, dehydration, all the way up to liver failure are just a few of the side effects of alcoholism. When people become ill, they are cared for and supported by their family and their friends. Therefore, alcoholism isn’t just felt by the alcoholic. It is felt by every individual who is there to care for them. Additionally, seeing an alcoholic’s downward spiral from a healthy individual into a weakened vessel takes an immeasurable emotional toll. Unfortunately, it is a task burdened by every person who cares for the infected.

Alcoholics drink regardless of commitments, which will cause issues with: responsibilities, punctuality, and reliability. The infected people will choose a drink over picking up their child, or worse, pick up the child while intoxicated. Thus, putting their child and the public in danger. Due to the intoxication, their ability to reason becomes faulty. Even the most caring and cautious mother can have lax reasoning ability when intoxicated. This is evident in the many accidents caused by drunk drivers each year. Eventually, their drinking will surpass beyond personal issues and affect their job as their punctuality and performance declines.

Obviously, recurrent issues at work will eventually result in reprimand, or worse, job loss. At this point, anyone in the family who is dependent is now left without provisions. Alcoholics will have to be supported financially once they have lost their job. In many instances, the infected person will opt to drink rather than to address any other commitments or responsibilities. Consequently, all of these situations will cause trust issues between most alcoholics and their family, friends, and co-workers.

Whether it is intentional to avoid conflict, or unintentional because they have been “cut off”, many alcoholics become isolated. Alcoholic people have no grasp of time as it relates to the “real world”. Instead, they focus on drinking and the false feeling of relief drinking gives them. When alcoholic people would rather drink than speak to their children, the children begin to feel alienated or worse unwanted. Unfortunately, it may be that years will pass in between contact. As a result, relationships are abandoned in their entirety. This is perfectly illustrated in the book, FULL BODY BURDEN by Kristen Iverson: “Sean and Nathan have never met their grandfather”, is only one heartbreaking example of a family torn by alcoholism (244). In this true story, Iverson distanced herself from her alcoholic father to the point that her children did not meet him until he was on his death bed.

Some people will choose to mourn an alcoholic family member and “cut off” communication with them intentionally. This method effectively cauterizes the painful wound by cutting off the damaged limb. When an alcoholic person consistently fails on promises and responsibilities, some family and friends choose to remove the alcoholic person from their lives entirely. This method is basically removing the constant disappointments and confrontations before they have a chance to occur. Undoubtedly, it is easier to mourn the loss initially, than to be constantly disappointed by broken promises.

All families do not choose to lose contact with their alcoholic. In fact, many families band together, and stand by the alcoholic to assist them through treatment. The end result, if successful, is not only an alcoholic in remission but a family strengthened by their adversity and triumph.

Alcoholism doesn’t just have an effect on the individual person, it touches the entire family. I say this because it is family who care for the alcoholic, and thus have to carry the burden of support: financially, physically, and emotionally. It is family who must nurse the ailing alcoholic. It is family who must pick up the pieces when commitments and jobs fall through. The family members are also the ones who must ultimately decide whether a relationship with the alcoholic is even worth the trouble. Every person in an alcoholic’s life becomes tainted with the burden of the disease. Parents, children, cousins, friends, coworkers, and even neighbors are all victims touched by a single person’s alcoholism.

Works Cited

Iverson, Kristen. Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Print.