Types of Alcoholics: The 5 Subtypes of Alcohol Addiction You Should Know

About half of those in this group have an anti-social personality disorder and are more likely to experience a co-occuring mental health condition such as depression, bipolar disorder, dysthymia or anxiety. They’re also extremely likely to have another addiction to cigarettes, marijuana, opioids or cocaine. Nearly a third of those who have an alcohol use disorder fall into the young adult subtype.

• Functional alcoholics are more likely to smoke but usually aren’t addicted to other substances.
• Two-thirds of the people who come under this subtype end up seeking to treat for their alcohol addiction.
• More members of this group have full-time jobs than any other, but their income level tends to be lower than the functional subtype.
• The intermediate familial subtype makes up nearly 19 percent of U.S. alcoholics.
• You might not recognize how much you drink or how many problems in your life are related to alcohol use.

No matter what subtype you are, long-term alcohol addiction can damage your physical, mental and emotional health and impact the people you care for. Previous efforts to identify alcoholism subtypes focused primarily on individuals who were hospitalized or otherwise receiving treatment for their alcoholism. Thus, a substantial proportion of people with alcoholism were not represented in the samples previously used to define subtypes of this disease.

Types Of Alcoholics

She took her Bachelor’s Degree in Medical Technology at Angeles University Foundation and graduated with flying colors. The combination of having a good medical background, being a mom, and wanting to help people, especially the elderly has cultivated her passion for working in remote areas with love and compassion. And Hsiao-Ye Yi, Ph.D., of the Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System at CSR Inc., in Arlington, Virginia. American Addiction Centers (AAC) is committed to delivering original, truthful, accurate, unbiased, and medically current information. We strive to create content that is clear, concise, and easy to understand. Like methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol also has a use as an industrial solvent and as a fuel additive.

Individuals in this group are about 38 years old and initially started drinking around the age of 16. However, for this group, alcohol dependence typically develops at around 29 years old. This research helped scientists identify several different types of alcoholics. Understanding these categories provides more insight into alcohol addiction and the effective treatment options for people suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD). These young adults usually don’t have diagnosed mental disorders, substance-related or otherwise. Most people falling within this type do not seek help in their dependence on alcohol and they usually come from families with little to no alcohol abuse problems.

Symptoms

One of the criteria is tolerance, meaning that a person needs larger quantities of alcohol to achieve the same desired effects. Another one of the criteria is drinking larger quantities than intended. Consider the fact that https://trading-market.org/essential-tremor-alcohol-treatment/ alcohol abuse tends to be glamorized on college campuses2. It is easy to understand how many young adults could meet the criteria for alcoholism but fail to seek treatment because their behavior has been normalized.

• Each kind of alcohol also has particular applications in personal and industrial environments.
• Chronic severe alcoholics are usually middle-aged men with a long history of alcohol problems, co-occurring mental and physical health issues, and significant impairment in social functioning.
• When seeking treatment, they tend to turn to social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and private physicians.
• It also includes binge drinking — a pattern of drinking where a male has five or more drinks within two hours or a female has at least four drinks within two hours.
• In discussing the general causes and conditions favoring inebriety, Crothers (1911) also classified alcoholism as either acquired or hereditary.

However, it can be managed through educational treatments and behavioural changes. The functional subtype accounts for about 19 percent of U.S. alcoholics. They’re generally middle-aged, working adults who tend to have stable relationships, more education, and higher incomes than other alcoholics. They tend to drink every other day, often consuming five or more drinks on drinking days. Moss and colleagues studied data from 1,484 U.S. adults who took part in a national survey conducted by the NIAAA from 2001 to 2002.

Types of Alcoholics According to the NIAAA

People who fall into the young adult alcoholic subtype also rarely have a family history of alcoholism. Alcoholism is considered to be a heritable disease, as NIAAA reports that genetics can account for about half of the risk for developing the disease. The flip side of this coin, however, is that environmental and other factors make up the other half of the risks for the onset of addiction.

The benefit of a person being in this category is that their addiction is evident and disturbing enough for them to seek help. Two-thirds of the people who come under this subtype end up seeking to treat for their alcohol addiction. The chronic severe subtype is the Bored, Bored, Bored, and Overeating rarest subtype, accounting for about 9 percent of U.S. alcoholics. This subtype mainly includes men, has the highest divorce rate, and frequently includes users of illicit drugs. Many people with AUD do recover, but setbacks are common among people in treatment.