Saturday, September 20, 2014

I'll Drink to That.

Alcohol. Where do people make the decision when they want to have a drink or two? Why do people decide to have alcohol rather than another comfort beverage? In a study called “Childhood Sexual Abuse, Distress, and Alcohol-Related Problems: Moderation by Drinking to Cope” by Emily Grekin, Kathryn Smith and Philip Smith, researchers decided to go further into the motivation and reasons for alcohol abuse in people who have been abused at young age.  Researchers found that those who were abused whether it was physically, emotionally or just traumatic events were more susceptible to become heavy drinkers. This alcohol abuse was a form of coping. Alcohol was a way to escape the abuse. However, it only worked for just a while until they needed another drink. Since alcohol is a depressant, drinking excessively just caused more pain.

Some implications found in these results are that alcohol is used as a coping method. The depressant in the alcohol is something that numbs the pain for those that have been in traumatizing events.  However also alcohol leads these victims into a never-ending circle. They have to deal with alcohol consequences, which once again lead to heavy drinking. Heavy drinking lead to the over abuse of alcohol.

Some limitations that can be found in this research is the method that the researchers used as well as who the participants were. The method used to find any results of correlation between alcohol and abuse was found by surveys. The participants in a way were only motivated by the reward at the end of the survey. Validity is extremely low in this method because it is all self-report. The participants chosen for this were all mainly women. There was a huge time constraint between when things happened and the understanding of the impact of the abuse on the participants.

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