Let’s Booze-up for New Year’s … Nothing but Lives Are at Stake

         Let’s Booze-up for New Year’s … Nothing but Lives Are                                                at Stake

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/30/18

            Looks like breweries will soon cover Cobb County like the dew.  Americans have gotta have their “likker,” you know, especially around New Year’s Eve.

            I call all alcoholic drink “likker” because my parents did.  I’m sure there is a big difference between beer and whiskey, but I don’t really care to know how much.  What I care about is the effects of both, and far too many of those effects are bad.

            Dead is dead and sorrow is sorrow whether it’s the alcoholic or the teenager led by beer to his Friday or Saturday night highway death.  Sorry, but I get angry when I think of how Americans have gotta have their alcohol.  Whatever its benefits - the buzz, the taste, the forgetfulness, or the desired social status – we are paying a high price for our love of our pet drug.  At home, at the parties, after work … gotta have it! 

            I wish we took the harmfulness of alcohol as seriously as we do that of tobacco.  The expression “adult beverage” doesn’t work for me, and obviously, in a different way, not for teenagers either.  For teenagers the expression is an enticement.  Don’t teens want to be adults or feel like they are adults?  Guess what the rite of passage still is for the American teenager.  It’s not sexual experience.  It’s easy-to-get alcohol.

            If teenagers see their parents drinking and know that drinking is simply their parents’ way of life, what do we expect teenagers to do?  Become tee-totalers?  No, no, no.  They don’t have to be tee-totalers.  That’s a bit drastic and old-fashioned.   They just need to be taught to “drink responsibly.”  For parents who believe that “drink responsibly” will work for more than 5 % of America’s youths, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona.

            Another expression that doesn’t work for me is “moderate drinking.”  Moderate or social drinking isn’t a cure for alcoholism.  It’s the cause of much of it.

            Two things have led to my stiff – and I do mean stiff – opposition to alcohol: my parents and teaching school.  My parents were as full of practical wisdom as anyone could be.  I can’t think of anything they were wrong about except maybe Little Richard and The Beatles.  But they were not stern.  They merely shook their heads at “this new ‘50s music,” saying little and sometimes half smiling.

            Even with “likker,” they were not preachy.  The thought of people drinking made them sad.  It brought to their minds carnage and sorrow.  They issued kind, but strong warnings.  Their teachable moments were supplied by the “town boys,” those inebriated rebels without a cause who turned Old U.S. 80 Highway into a virtual drag strip right in front of our house way out in the country, creating havoc more than once. 

            But there was a more deeply embedded reason for my father’s opposition to alcohol.  His father drank and so did his only sibling, a brother.   This lovable brother was reckless and wild when drinking.  Two people whom my father loved most turned him off to drinking.

            Teaching teens and college students is a good way to learn what alcohol can do.  You not only overhear things.  You are sought as a confidant by students who live with alcoholic parents and endure alcohol-induced sorrow.

            Researchers at the Archives of General Psychology report that 78% of teens from 13 to 18 drink alcohol and view binge drinking as no big deal.  The Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that the average age for first use of alcohol is 12.  For marijuana it’s 14.  The CDC claims drinking is responsible for more than 4300 deaths among youths each year.  Unfortunately these facts don’t bother those who gotta have their booze.

            Regarding alcohol’s “moderate” use, how many moderate drinking state legislators have been stopped for DUI while returning home from a party?  At least four of my legislative friends have.  I’m glad they were stopped.  Their moderation could have killed somebody.

            I expect Americans to continue popping the corks, lifting their glasses at parties, and building their breweries.  Something else that will continue is the sorrowful and deadly effects of drinking.

            Frankly, I don’t think too many people really care.  They love drinking too much.  On New Year’s Eve, I also suspect, drinking and its sad consequences will intensify.  They always have. 

That’s why I hate “likker” and why I believe tee-totalers aren’t foolish.

Roger Hines

12/18/18