The Most Dominant Values - Essay Example

Sociology s Submitted by s: April 30, April 30, Susceptibility Factors Values Prior research indicates that there are racial differences in the initiation of the adolescents in the alcoholism. This means that the values that one hold affect the tendencies towards alcoholism. The most dominant values that people consider when entering into the practice of alcoholism include the respect of the parent and familsm. The alcohol intake can be measured according to the alcohol resistance efficacy and the related expectancies. If a person has the above values, he is less likely to indulge in drinking. Broken window theory The theory states that in the event that a house has a broken window and no one take the initiative to repair it, the general assumption taken by the passerby is that the owner of the house does not care. When a person is seen drunk and the society does not take any initiative to correct him or her, the person will most likely continue with the practice since there is no repercussion. This approach is relevant in the explanation of the drinking habits. Social model The social model is a peer oriented model of healing and rehabilitation. The social model draw a lot from the mutual help principles that are advocated for in the alcoholics anonymous. The social model has been effective in the provision of the instances of rehabilitation to the alcoholics. The model works through social assistance. The recovering alcoholic is housed by a sponsor until he comes to his feet. This model has been effective in the reduction of suffering of the people. Feminism and alcoholism The objectification of women in order to sell some product has assumed the center place in the modern marketing. The adverts for alcoholism are designed in such a way that they will convince the average man to buy the product. The adverts also target the women whereby they create the misplaced and falsified notion that the consumption of alcohol will make them be as good as the women in the adverts. This adverts have always been effective in the creation of the notion the people who take the alcohol will be as good as the women in the commercials. Media model The majority of the influential alcohol manufacturers make adverts that are misleading. However, the media is unable to gag the companies in advertising the products since if the companies do not accept them another mode of advertising will. The possible loss of income also makes most of the media gurus abhorrent to the idea of removing misleading information. It is also rare for the media to create adverts meant to educate the consumers of alcohol on the real dangers of the practice. The modelling of alcohol has been misleading to most of the people. Social policy Existing social policies are not as effective as it is anticipated when it comes to the reduction of alcohol consumption. The need to make money often leads to instances when the information on the people that are allowed to take alcohol is ignored. The regulatory framework is inadequate since teenagers are capable of accessing the alcohol stores just as adults. The time frames for the alcohol sales are also lacking with the majority of the people being able to buy alcohol at any time. Therefore, poor social policy on alcohol has led to the development of a trend of intense alcohol consumption. Sociological Factors Sociology is a discipline that focuses on the scientific study of the human social behaviour and its source and development course. The discipline is essentially a social science that applies various methods of empirical investigation and analysis to come up with the information that latter forms the body of knowledge about the actions of the human beings that have a bearing on the society. Many sociologists carry out research with the main aim being to come up with information that may be applied directly on the social policy and welfare of the other people. Others focus on making refinements of the theoretical praises of the society. The focus of sociology could range from micro level where it focuses on the individual and the macro levels where it focuses on the intersection between the people and social structure  (Weinberg, 2012). The human activity is always affected by the interaction between the individual agency and the social structure. The social researchers draw upon various qualitative and quantitative approaches in the development of the body of knowledge. Sociology is a field that is ever growing and it has gained importance in the creation of the explanation about the aspects of the society that demand human interaction. Sociology has an important role to play in the social care and the health care system. The notions of the people towards social care are invariably affected by the sociological aspects (Ewing, 1984). Understanding the sociological bearing on the medical situation is important in that it leads to the creation of a starting base of the treatment (Perkins, 2002). For instance, when one seeks to treat the conditions that are predisposed by the environmental situations, the knowledge of the societal influence on the development of such illness is important (Kelly and Clarke, 2002). Treatment of alcoholism calls for a better understanding of the society where the patients come from. The culture of the patient also has a bearing on the effectiveness of the treatment (Wollschlaeger, 2011). For example, if a patient is treated for alcoholism and placed back in the society that has a tolerance for alcohol taking, he or she will have a high chance of experiencing a relapse (Platt, 2013). Understanding of the family background and its effect on the medical condition also has an impact on the patient recovery or disease advancement. There is no single and self-sufficient explanation to why some people develop problems related to alcohol. Alcoholism could be a result of the combination of psychosocial cause. There are always multiple pathways to the behaviour that involve the intake of alcohol. The social and biological factors have a mutual effect on each other, leading to the development of alcoholism in the people (Wollschlaeger, 2011). This means that it is concurrent to look at the issues of the alcoholism from the social factors, alone or in competition with the biological factors since all of them have a bearing on the alcoholism (Weinberg, 2011). The best outlook it to view the issue of alcoholism as a result of the combination of bio psychosocial influences (Platt, 2013). Family history and alcoholism There is a common belief that in some families, alcoholism is a normal thing. This means that alcoholism is a family linked behaviour (Karr, 2008). The family history of alcoholism is one of the major risk factors towards the development of adverse linkage to alcoholism. Despite the fact that the family has a bearing, the children of alcoholics do not automatically develop alcohol related disorders. In fact, the recent studies indicate significant variation between the children of the alcoholics in relation to their use of alcohol (Jones, 2013). Proneness to deviance The deviance susceptibility model looks at the deficits of the children in the self-regulation and socialization capacity and the cascade of results that emanate from and interact with the deviance deficits. The children of the alcoholics have difficulty to control temperaments and generally have a poor parenting background (Freed, 2011). The above predispositions make the children fail in school and have a high emotional distress probability. The two factors have a chance of making the children affiliate with the peer groups that have high indication of deviance  (Weinberg, 2012). The deviant peer promotes the use of alcohol and other drugs as a way of remaining relevant in the society. Therefore, according to the deviance proneness model, the risk of developing alcoholism is a result of a larger context of poor socialization and adolescent behaviours (Wyborny, 2008). The children that have alcoholic fathers are more likely to have substance abuse tendencies early in life due to the failure in the development of the correct conduct that is expected of the children in the age group (Staddon, 2013). The alcoholic has a poor monitoring capability on the adolescent behaviour which is associated with the membership in deviant peer groups that use the drugs and alcohol. The children later tend to escalate the use of the substance as they progress (Wollschlaeger, 2011). However, the parental alcoholism cannot be explained by the use of the above mediators (Laforest, 1971). This means that there are other external variable that have to be placed into consideration in order to create the real image (Weinberg, 2011). Negative affectivity This model places its focus on the significance of stress and negative affect in the handing down of the alcoholism tendencies from one generation to the other. This model suggests that the children of alcoholics are often exposed to high levels of stress compared to the children of the nonalcoholic parents. The children end up developing high levels of emotional distress and they drink in order for them to relieve the feelings of stress. The environment of the children of alcoholics is more stressful than the environment for the children brought up in the normal parenthood environments. The predisposition of the children to the environment that is stress related has the effect of increasing the stress of the children. The emotional reactivity forms part of their temperament (Cahill, 2000). The children have a negative effect whereby they have self-reported crying and tension. In order for the children to distance themselves from their emotional affects, they may choose to join the alcohol and drug using groups in the schools. They are also likely to increase their drug use as they progress in life (Epstein, Botvin, Diaz and Schinke, 1995). The paternal alcoholism is most likely going to be linked with the childhood stressors such as the disrupted family rituals, embarrassment, abuse and neglect (Selzer, 1971). However, the childhood stressors have a moderate linkage to the development of alcohol disorder in the young adulthood. They account for only a part of the development of the disorders. Sensitivity Of The Effect Of Alcohol The models that link this aspect to the children of the alcoholics is based on the hypothesis that the children of the alcoholics have a high sensitivity to the alcoholic effect and less sensitive to the genitive results of the alcohol such as the body sway and intoxication (Tiger, 2013). The largest proportion of the sensitivity of the children is in the stress response dampening effect. Men from the families that have a history of alcoholism have a lesser reaction to alcohol compared to the men that come from the other group of families (Wood, Read, Palfai and Stevenson, 2001). The men that have a less reaction by large seen to have an alcohol dependence since they are able to effect the normal function regardless of whether they are intoxicated or not (Read et al., 2002). The Family Upbringing The early conduct problems that evolve as a result of the deviance proneness model of alcoholism may be the results of the deficits in the executive functioning. The executive functioning covers the capacity for the attention, concentration and abstract reasoning. The ability of the children that have the disorder to control their individual behaviour is also linked to the deviant group. This is where the peer influence of the group has dominance (Selzer, 1971). The people that have the disorder are largely seen as the ones that fail in the executive functioning and they have to rely on the guidance of the most superior person in the peer group for the direction in what they are supposed to be doing (Selzer, 1971). The lack of the properly laid executive functioning leads to the inhibition of what is inappropriate and they adopt the behaviour that is largely adopted. The children that come from families with the alcoholism linked all along the generation have a poor executive functioning. This is the reason why the children have high chances of being alcoholics than the other children that come from families that do not have any history in alcoholism. However, the research on the executive functioning are not consistent. Role Of Parenting. Various research have looked into the linkage between the parenting approach and the family environment in the creation of an understanding of the transmission of alcoholism from one generation to the other that leads to the alcohol use and consequential misuse in the larger context of the population (Lunnay, Ward and Borlagdan, 2011). Generally, the very factors that are linked to the adolescent alcohol abuse such as lower levels of emotional support from the parents and the lack of any controlling influence in the parents also have a high linkage to the other adolescent behaviours such as smoking and premature sexual indulgences (Perkins, 2002). The children born to alcoholics grow up in a family environment that have poor parenting. The conditions may improve once the parents recover from the alcoholism. In addition to this, the parental alcoholism and its effects are not confined to the relationship between the child and the parent (Andrews et al., 2011). The disturbances extend to other members of the family  (Leggio, 2011). For instance, in the families that have heavy drinking fathers, there is evidence of turbulence in the relationships between the mother and the children. The deficits in the parenting in the families that have high alcoholism are linked to the development of early conduct problems and early drinking. For instance, in the families that are composed of alcoholic parents, there is little monitoring of the progress of the loves of the parents (Trucco, Colder and Wieczorek, 2011). There are higher instances of family conflict in the alcoholic families. The families also have a poor child, parent relationship. This combination is a predecessor for the development of high alcohol intake behaviour in the children. The children that come from the alcoholic parenthood may not develop the ability to regulate their behaviour and emotions (Wyborny, 2008). They may also lack the social skills which increase the chances of their rejection by the members of the mainstream peer groups. The rejection by the peer groups leads to the development of a need of an identity. The only groups that can accommodate them are the deviant peer groups. The children end up in the vicious cycle. The propensity of any person to develop alcohol dependency is also influenced by a couple of factors that are outside the family control (Weinberg, 2011). One of the most dominant factors is the peer group. The people that one relates to make him or her tend towards the group behaviour. In most of the cases, the people that do not have any alcohol dependency or history may take up alcoholic behaviour from the people that they associate with. The leaders of the peer groups have the power of influencing the general behavioural attributes of the group (Lunnay, Ward and Borlagdan, 2011). If the group leader suffers from a family background that has alcohol related issues, he or she may have the influence on the group such that the members will end up with alcohol dependency. Conclusion In conclusion, the treatment of the alcoholism cases has to look into the other factors that emanate from the social background of the patients (Trucco, Colder and Wieczorek, 2011). The patients that have a social background marked by alcoholism may demand attention that addresses the social issues. The major determinants of the alcoholism and alcohol dependency include the family background, deviance, peer group influence and lack of or type of parental control. References Andrews, M., Meda, S., Thomas, A., Potenza, M., Krystal, J., Worhunsky, P., Stevens, M., OMalley, S., Book, G., Reynolds, B. and others, (2011). Individuals family history positive for alcoholism show functional magnetic resonance imaging differences in reward sensitivity that are related to impulsivity factors. Biological psychiatry, 69(7), pp.675--683. Cahill, R. (2000). 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