What is Alcohol Awareness Month?
Alcohol Awareness Month is an annual observance that encourages local communities to focus on alcoholism and alcohol-related issues. AAM began as a way to inform the American public that alcoholism is a treatable disease, not a moral weakness, and that people who are addicted to alcohol can and do recover. Since 1987, AAM has been sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, an organization dedicated to fighting the stigma and disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions. What is alcoholism? The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines alcoholism (or alcohol dependence) as a chronic disease with four symptoms: First, a strong need to drink (craving); second, an inability to limit the number of drinks (loss of control); third, signs of withdrawal, such as sweating, shaking, and nausea, once drinking has stopped (physical dependence); and fourth, a need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to get “high” (tolerance). People who crave alcohol hav
