Introduction
Unethical approach to alcoholism has deterred hundreds of people from admitting the problem and giving up drinking liquor. The news article considered in this paper is devoted to the changes on the way to which modern medicine is ethical in its aspirations. As stated in the article, scientists are seeking to eliminate the use of the words “addict” or “abuser” in relation to those suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction in the medical vocabulary (Research Society on Alcoholism 2022). The article tells that in this way this group of people is not only freed from discrimination, but also gets much more. The absence of social stigma is described as a real step towards the cure of the patient.
Cultural Constructs and Individual/Social Body
The cultural construct theory can be easily applied to the problem of the disease of alcoholism and its perception considered in the chosen article. According to this theory, a certain order and symbolic significance are assigned to certain actions in order for them to have a meaning and a justified place in human culture. Alcohol consumption is often a cultural construct in which it is unreasonable to refuse an alcoholic beverage. Such cultural aspects of social life like parties in the student community, include the consumption of alcohol as a way of social initiation. Bar culture, widespread around the world, normalizes alcohol consumption by making it an acceptable human activity with recognizable symbolic overtones. These cultural constructs that make it natural to consume alcohol in appropriate social situations are precisely what provide that ambiguous attitude towards the problem of alcohol dependence that is still prevalent in the collective consciousness.
An alcoholic is habitually associated with rudeness, laziness, and lack of will caused by addiction. However, often the psychological portrait of an alcoholic is such that the qualities caused by the disease are transferred to the traits of the person themselves, whose character is no longer perceived separately from their illness. This perception is reminiscent of misrepresentation of the black body, especially among African women, which in the eyes of the colonialists was associated with heaviness, laziness, and rudeness. Stereotypic discrimination has a long history and, as the news shows, there has only recently been progress towards overcoming it in relation to alcoholics.
People with an alcohol disorder have additional stigma in society relative to other social groups with mental disorders. Compared to people whose deviations are not related to the intake of substances, alcoholic disorder is a disease where responsibility is transferred to the patient himself. Moreover, alcoholics are perceived to a lesser extent as mentally ill, but much more as people with behavioral disorders and, accordingly, more dangerous to society (Research Society on Alcoholism). This perception is a public stigma, which largely occurs through labeling and stereotyping (Chadha et al., 2020). With an inherently negative connotation, the word alcoholic is associated with reprehensible stereotypes of unpredictability and insecurity, leading to misrepresentation. Thus, the individuality of an alcohol-addicted person is replaced in public perception by the stereotypical image of an alcoholic, as it historically happens with less represented members of society (Chadha et al., 2020). This is an example of gradual discrimination, in which an identity is taken away from a person and replaced by a symbol of a discriminated social group.
Nominalist/Realist Paradigms
The dual problem of the perception of alcoholism can also be viewed through the opposition of the theories of nominalism and realism. Nominalism as a concept of perception looks at things as unreal concepts that are given power when they are used in discourse (Hacking 2000). There is a feeling that the stigma of an alcoholic is taken largely due to the careless and incorrect use of vocabulary in colloquial and written speech. The illiterate use of such words as “addict” or “abuser” is not only incorrect but also offensive, and most importantly, this is an example of how nominalism is reflected in actual reality. Words create conceptual constructs that reality can strive to reproduce, and thus the social condemnation of the alcoholic is realized in their proportionately growing alienation and proof of the stereotype. Unfortunately, nominalist conceptualization occurs implicitly in relation to alcohol addicts, which pushes a realistic and medically reasonable perception of this issue.
This is an example of how the social perception of the disease can be extremely reprehensible to the patients themselves. People tend to condemn the psychological qualities of the alcoholic as if they were inherent in them even before the development of addiction (Research Society on Alcoholism). Accordingly, for this reason, alcoholics themselves can be considered people who do not have sufficient nervous stability or willpower (Research Society on Alcoholism). Thus, the causal relationship necessary for a real understanding of the logic of the disease is distorted. An alcoholic is perceived as a person initially with a flaw, and therefore his illness is natural. All this in total produces a tragic situation of the impossibility to show empathy for the patient, to perceive this problem of alcoholism on a par with other mental disorders.
The problem of alcoholism, if considered in a social dimension, can exist to the extent that alcoholism prevents a person from functioning. It may be considered as a way of constructing one’s social identity (Hacking 2000). Medicine knows examples of high-functioning alcoholics who use this substance in reverse to maintain activity constantly. Despite the fact that this type of lifestyle is extremely dangerous and is a signal of a person’s acute dependence on alcohol, society may be inclined to turn a blind eye to the disease. Thus, if alcoholism does not manifest itself in a sharp violation of the social functionality of a person, it may not be perceived as a real disease. In the event that a person falls out of the social sphere due to a destructive addiction, people may be inclined to apply derogatory labels to them.
Mind-Body Problem
From the same problem of the social body comes the controversy in the perception of responsibility in the case of alcoholic disease. Social identity is considered to be a construct built from various perceptions of reality, and in case with alcoholics such construct is ambiguous (Hacking 2000). There is still a debate among professional doctors whether alcoholism is the result of problems in the social mechanism or whether an individual’s lifestyle affects its development. it is the responsibility of the individual One gets the impression that professionals are arguing not only about the problem of alcoholism itself, but also about the man’s place in the world in general. To tie alcoholism to social factors is to interpret the disease in terms of problems existing in organization of society.
The problem of dualism between body and mind can shed some light on the issue under discussion. The high addictiveness of alcohol during its long and regular use completely rebuilds not only the perception of a person, but also their entire autonomic nervous system. On the one hand, a person turns out to be addicted to alcohol due to the psychological aspects of addiction. On the other hand, it is not possible to completely separate the body and consciousness here, since in the case of extreme stages of dependence, the human body itself begins to act up in a variety of functions, thus expressing alcohol starvation. Thus, despite the value of this dual perspective, heavy alcoholism is a purely holistic problem, that is, it perceives the human psyche and physics as a direct unity. Despite multiple social and psychological factors, including social stigma or a desire to relieve tension in society, severe forms of alcoholism are no longer purely mental problems, since alcohol becomes an integral element of human metabolism.
Conclusion
The medical problem of alcoholism in interpreted through a series of sociological concepts. This essay examines how the social construct of perception of certain concepts and groups of people is built, and also refers to the historical example of building stereotypical antipathy. Discrimination of alcohol-dependent people is interpreted in this essay through the opposition of the individual and social body. Public condemnation of alcohol addicts and their stigmatization in society is a manifestation of the concept of the social body in action, where there is a need to perceive society as a healthy unity of people. This perception is expressed in social and even workplace discrimination, which is based on established cultural stereotypes.
References
Chadha, N., Lim, B., Kane, M., & Rowland, B. (2020). Toward the abolition of biological race in medicine: transforming clinical education, research, and practice”. Web.
Hacking, Ian. 2000. The Social Construction of What? Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Research Society on Alcoholism. 2022. “Science is Rejecting Language about Alcohol and Drugs That Perpetuates Stigma and Worsens Outcomes — But Must Do More.” NewsWise. Web.