Christmas Cheer Without the Beer … Is It Possible?
Published in Marietta Daily Journal Dec. 20, 2015
I
know little to nothing about anything alcoholic. For me, it is enough to observe what
America’s intense love affair with alcohol has led to.
Three things have caused me to
literally hate the thought of alcoholic drink.
One is my parents, simple people who never drank and who, without
ranting, would speak warnings now and then of the “evils of strong drink.” So sincere were they, so low-key and yet so
convicted that drinking was wrong, that I simply chose to believe them. Their quiet but occasional, loving warnings
were persuasive. From his father and
only brother, my father saw what drinking could do to a family.
To my parents, the words “drinking”
and “divorce” were sorrowful. They didn’t like to mention or talk about either
one. During the 50s and early 60s when I
was growing up, drinking and divorce were not prevalent, but they were
beginning to be. My parents were well
aware of the trend. The
second influence, which bolstered my parents’ position, was a sister-in-law, a
very special sister-in-law from Trieste, Italy.
Brought to the states by my older U.S. Army brother in the mid-50s, Antonia
began to make comments about all the news stories on alcohol-related automobile
accidents. Those were the days of James
Dean’s “Rebel Without a Cause,” and drag racing was a Friday and Saturday night
sport for many a rebel. Somehow, even in
dry Southern counties, teenage and twenty-something dragsters managed to get their
beer and oftentimes hard liquor. One can
imagine what the mix of drinking and drag racing produced.
My sister-in-law was puzzled and
alarmed by America’s drinking habits. A
teetotaler (and from Europe?), she would shake her head. In her broken English and accent that
followed her to her grave, she once remarked, “A-med-i-cans no drink
right. They go crazy. Italians no go crazy.”
The third influence, and actually
what sealed my opposition to alcohol, was becoming a high school and college
teacher and hearing much too frequently about the deaths of students - my
students - brought on by alcohol. During
my third year of teaching, two high school seniors were killed in car wrecks
because of drinking, a girl and a boy, both good students whom I thought the
world of. My first thought was “I wonder
if they learned drinking from their parents.” Since then, nine students of mine have met
death via alcohol’s path. That’s not the
total of all in the schools where I’ve taught, only those whom I’ve personally
taught and knew well.
Apparently the wimpy preachment,
“Drink responsibly,” didn’t work for them.
Nor did that wobbly crutch, “designated driver.” All eleven of these students were promising
young people. Most of them were
seventeen, so I cannot lay all the blame on them. They weren’t even old enough to vote. I lay much of the blame on a culture that can’t
seem to make do without its alcoholic beverages: can’t seem to have a good
time, to find another way to get a buzz, to relax after work without that
drink, or to acknowledge that drinking is still a dangerous initiatory rite for
youth.
My sister-in-law was correct. Americans actually have gone crazy when it
comes to drinking. Gotta have it,
whatever its cost in addiction, loss of productivity, or lives. No longer taboo
in any corner of the nation, not even the Bible Belt, drinking is now
pervasive. According to Jay Reeves of
the Associated Press, drinking is like gambling in that its acceptance in the
South is a fait accompli. As for gambling, all but two Southern states, Alabama
and Mississippi, have lotteries. Perhaps
there is a connect between this fact and the recent finding by the Pew Research
Center that 19 percent of Southerners don’t identify with any organized
religion. Churches used to keep quite a
few things at bay, but no more.
If
Reeves and Pew are right, we could say that the Bible Belt has come unbuckled. The only remaining taboo is to consider
anything taboo.
Several
years ago the Atlanta Public School superintendent was arrested for drunk
driving on his way home from a social event.
Last year a good friend of mine, a leader in the Georgia General
Assembly, was arrested for the same thing in the same context. So it goes.
No wonder teens and college kids drink, even binge, and then kill with
their vehicles.
In
all things there is a more excellent way, a higher ground socially, morally,
and practically. Seems to me the
highest, certainly the safest ground, is to leave alcoholic beverages alone.
Christmas
is a good time to think about it.
Roger
Hines
12/16/15
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