Along with the extreme physical dangers that binge drinking presents, there is also a devastating amount of issues that can affect your mental health, including different ways that alcohol addiction and dependency can begin playing an unhealthy role in your everyday life. Consuming large amounts of alcohol will cause problems regardless of your age, but there can be more at risk for teenagers and young adults. These individuals are at a stage in their life where they are still growing and progressing as human beings. As your brain is still developing, binge drinking can stunt the growth and progression of your brain. Certain skills, memory, thought processing, and other functions requiring the use of your brain can become impaired and produce long-term damage and affects. Depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia are all mental health disorders that that can amass from alcohol problems.  A statistic on young adult’s states that approximately 42% of those aged between 18 to 25 admit to binge drinking once a month ("Teenage Drinking" 6). This could be the start for many of a dangerous addiction that is not easily reversible. The most severe form of problem drinking is alcoholism, which is the dependence of alcohol to function or feeling physically compelled to drink ("Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse" 1). The abuse of alcohol and the misuses of it like binge drinking, may eventually lead to an individual becoming an alcoholic. Although many can admit that they binge drink and do so quite often, some fail to realize or choose not to believe that they are becoming addicted or must rely on alcohol to have fun or
socialize with others. When binge drinking and the use of alcohol switches from an occasional occurrence to an everyday necessity, that is where every single aspect of your life becomes affected by your choices. Alcohol abuse and alcoholism may be two different things, but they go hand in hand with each other in the destructive path that they can leave behind. Like many other people that suffer from some form of addiction, it is very difficult to quit and you have very little control over it. There are many side effects or symptoms that can come with an addiction that show when you’re having a withdrawal from the substance. Withdrawal symptoms from alcohol can include anxiety, nausea/vomiting, insomnia, depression, irritability, fatigue, loss of appetite, and headaches. In more severe cases, it can cause symptoms that induce hallucinations, confusion, seizures, fever, and agitation. These symptoms can be dangerous and create serious long-term issues for your body and mental health. If an addiction lingers on too long without treatment, a person’s behaviour and interests become affected as well. Binge drinking and excessive alcohol use leading to addiction can make you choose to give up on certain activities that you used to do to drink or because you are incapable of doing certain things now. A lot of your energy and time is being wasted and consumed by alcohol and it begins to affect things such as your production at work, education, relationships with friends and family, and future and current goals. One of the most devastating effects of someone being an alcoholic is having to watch their minds and bodies slowly deteriorate, and the relationships between them and their loved ones growing thinner and farther apart. Episodes of binge drinking and addiction can change the way someone thinks and acts, and some begin to neglect the most important things in their life. There is so little to gain but everything to lose, and alcohol can be the single determining factor, which is why we must not allow ourselves and those around us to fall victim to the dangers of binge drinking and addiction.