We are immediately aware of that complexity when we experience ourselves feeling one way inside and acting another way outside. When you are constantly being threatened and getting threatening phone calls, you may not know how to respond. Especially if you have tried to resolve the problem and the people involved pretend not to know what they are doing and send you a threatening letter in response. Alcohol, the World’s favorite depressant, breeds our biggest drug problem. Over 200 million people in the United States of America and Canada use alcohol. Approximately 25 million people have serious drinking problems, and there is an alarming trend of a high level of alcohol abuse among adolescents and young adults. In fact, fifty percent of male college students and 40 percent of college women have engaged in binge drinking. Binge is defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in a short time. Apparently, many students think it is entertaining to get completely drunk, or they have problems and cannot express nor resolve them so they used alcohol to depress them. However, binge drinking is responsible for approximately 50 deaths of United States of America college students a year and is responsible for thousands of trips to the emergency rooms in hospitals. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Binge drinking and alcohol abuse have become serious problems among college students. Many alcohol abusers regard themselves as moderate drinkers, which suggest that they are in denial about how much they actually drink. Drinking for pleasure motivate most people who consume alcohol. The perplexity differs for those who are dependent. They experience themselves as dead, helpless, victimized and so they drink as though they no responsibility. Life does not depend on them. Something external determines the course of events. They themselves are unable to engage in life in meaningful and significant ways. Alcohol abusers drink to cope with negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression and possibly physical pain. That is why alcohol abuse increases with the level of stress in people’s lives. People who drink to relieve bad feelings are at a great risk of becoming alcoholics. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

Some people have tried everything from medication to therapy to deal with their problems, but they just do not go away, and these individuals cannot remove themselves from the situation, so they drink to stay alive. These individuals may recognize that consumption of alcohol is a problem, and they many not even really want to drink, but they have no one to turn to. Everything depends upon the setting, the context, the situation in which they occur. One might say why do they not just stop drinking, but it is not that simple. They may be trying to stop and still could be in therapy, but when a person is being targeted by others who relentlessly harass them without being punished, and when you try to address the problems and the people pretend they are doing nothing wrong, life can become extremely difficult. The degree of intensity, their quality of flexibility, their manifestation of balance and stability, and their fittingness all affect the way in which they are evaluated. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

Culture is one of the most influential context in which any behavior is judged. In some cultures, it may be considered normal for groups of reporters to target a private citizen and spend ten years spreading rumors about him, watching him like a hawk in the sky, and telling people to physically attack him. In some cultures, it is considered normal to obey the laws, respect others, and welcome competition, instead of trying to kill it. Thus, cultural relativity (the idea that judgments are made relative to the values of one’s culture) can affect the diagnosis of mental disorders. Still, all cultures classify people as abnormal if they fail to communicate with others or are consistently unpredictable in their actions. If abnormality is so hard to define, how are judgments of psychopathology made? It is clear that all of the standards we have discussed are relative. However, abnormal behavior does have a core feature: Almost always, it is maladaptive. Rather than helping a person to cope successfully, abnormal behaviors makes it more difficult for the person to meet the demands of life. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

In practice, the judgment that a person needs help usually occurs when the person does something (hits a person, constantly bullies others, hallucinates, constantly trash talks others for fun, makes fun of people when they are injured or sick, steals confidential documents, hacks into computers, cannot seem to sit still at works, seems off topic in meetings, and so forth) that annoys or gains the attention of a person in a position of power in the person’s life. That person then does something about it. (A police officer may be called, the person or people may be urged to see a psychologist, a relative may start commitment proceedings, or the person or people may seek voluntary help.) It is sad when people are so jealous of competition that they cannot contain themselves and the bizarre behavior is seen throughout the community, but the reporters involved know they have a mental illness, but will not seek help. How we behave may be adaptive or maladaptive, depending on its frequency, balance, accuracy, and intensity. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5