A Drink To Our Death Essay Research

A Drink To Our Death Essay, Research Paper

A Drink to Our Death

Hey! Want a drink. How about one before dinner. Oh, lets celebrate with a drink! Questions and comments like these come up everyday, and everyday thousands upon thousands of alcoholics are born. Some drink to calm nerves, others drink for fun. Whatever the reason, men and women need to realize drinking can be fun in moderation, but over time, drinking can cause many side effects. The issue of drinking is very personal for me. My family has a history of alcoholics, and my sister, whom I am close with, has a drinking problem. Not only has her drinking affected relationships, work, and friends, it has effected my family and me. Although this has been going on for a couple of years, and her drinking progressed through time, she doesn.t think that it is the problem.

My sister is an unlikely woman to be an alcoholic. She has a great job in Los Angeles, a beautiful house, a dog, and friends. Yet behind the .pretty. exterior my sister portrays, I see a lonely, depressed woman that needs help. It is hard for me to go up to her and tell her she has a drinking problem. By doing this research I am ultimately going to get the courage to find out how to approach her and help. It is sad that women are drinking to feel sexy and gain acceptance when the consequences of drinking achieve the opposite, and can lead to health problems, mental problems, and physical abuse.

Drinking may start as a way of being with others. .Peer pressure may be overt.a direct request, invitation, or challenge to drink.or it may be covert.the subtle sense that to .belong. means going along with others. My sister and women like her, drinks to find acceptance. A drink or two may make one feel sophisticated, relaxed, and better able to fit in. (Berman 1). Not only can this quote be associated with heavy drinkers it can be compared with lighter drinkers. The problem with having a drink or two before going out may lead to the dependence of alcohol. My sister has a high powered job where she meets celebrities and CEO.s at parties. Interesting enough, her more masculine job provides her to drink more then if she had a feminine job. .Recent studied suggest that women who work in more traditionally female-dominated fields such as nursing or education have fewer drinking problem than women in traditionally male fields such as banking and finance. (Maugh 2). The overall thought is that women start drinking like the men they are around five days a week.

Our society is the problem causing women to receive mixed message about drinking. When we see a man drunk, we call him silly, but when we see a woman belligerent we see her as a slut or a whore. These double standards that society provides leaves women with questions unanswered. .Women are encouraged to be good caretakers, mothers, and nurturers of others. They are supposed to be self-effacing yet attentive to their bodies, their clothes, their makeup, and their behavior so that they are attractive to others, especially to men. (Roan 2). Women are constantly reminded of their failure and next to men they are unable to drink and have fun. Society sucks in this aspect and needs to make women and men equal.

.Relationships may be formed through drinking at parties and other social events. (Roan 1). Now at 29, my sister is in desperate need to find a relationship and have a family, drinking provides her to open up and meet men. When interviewing my sister she believed that cocktail parties were a way of opening up and feeling more attractive. While looking great and having a couple of drinks allows her to meet people she wouldn.t normally go up to. I found her quote to juxtapose to the article, College women and alcohol: A relational perspective. They say, .A woman may start to drink as she seeks to enhance her sense of herself as attractive and as successful in her relationships. If she drinks too much, she achieves the opposite result. (Roan 1). I know this is the point where my sister is. She is unable to meet anyone without a drink in her hand, and yet when she eventually meets a nice guy they turn the other way. Through the relationships she has had in the past, it has concluded that drinking was the problem that ended them. One ex-boyfriend even spelled it out for her in a letter complaining her drinking was the problem of their relationship. This .loss. of her boyfriend started her to more heavily drink. .The loss of a relationship is especially problematic because it fuels the woman.s perceptions that she is inadequate and has been unable to make the relationship work. (Roan 5). Alcohol eventually becomes a form of self-medication not letting my sister stop and the cycle of everyday drinking to continue.

.Drinking women have difficulty distinguishing between real and fantasized feelings of warmth and affection and physiological arousal. (Roan 4). Coming along with women and drinking and being belligerent is the fact that women are more susceptible to unwanted sex and rape. Sexual overtures frequently occur when alcohol is present (Roan 4). Even when women are in relationships with men may also feel pressure for sex before they are ready. .Some will consent, believing it is the only way to keep the man involved, others will be confused when their intimacy-seeking behavior is misinterpreted as seductive; a man may interpret a woman.s desire for a relationship as an