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“Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness it brings is merely negative,
a momentary cessation of happiness” (Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest
of Happiness")
I consider that the abuse in consuming alcohol is one of the biggest problems
of the society we live in. Though it is a problem of our every day life and
it spreads like a plague, environing us no matter what we do. This black hole
in the society is its own product, and with every day that goes by it becomes
more and more incontrollable. Living has become a struggle and each one of us
find different means to win the contest of life. Not all of us succeed in doing
that. The first step is making the difference between the good and the bad choices
we have to make in order to thrive. I presume that there are few persons who
wonder why some people direct their attention to the bottle. There is more than
one answer to this question. The response stands hidden deep within our minds,
in the arts of psychology.
We walk pass them each day and we feel either repulsion or pity, but we never
think about what exactly makes a drunkard of a sane person. It never occurs
to us that one out of ten persons sitting next to us may die because of this
very reason. Whether it is an inherited bad habit or simply a means of sedation,
drinking is the worst dependency there is. Beggars lying on the cold pavements
of the street, asking for money just to get a little more alcohol revolt us,
and make us angry, but we don’t usually see this situation from the right
point of view. People selling everything they have, betraying every little crumb
of the humanity they’re left with are left lying in misery, having nothing
else to face but the same filthy bottle of gin. How can they get out from this
horrible situation if they get no help from us, the reasonable people? But only
leaves me to wonder: are we not the ones who can distinguish what is right and
what is wrong? Yes, we are… That means we are the ones in power to understand
what a drunkard has to go trough each day, having the bottle of vodka as his
only friend, his only confident. We get scared that we will “catch”
some illness of some kind from them, but we should know better. A little research
in this domain would automatically make us realize what those poor people are
going through.
Since the beginning of all times, man used different substances with the purpose
of mutating his own of consciousness, of stimulating or relaxing himself, of
inducing sleep or preventing it, of intensifying usual perceptions even of producing
hallucinations. The taught of facing the drastic reality each day scares people,
and that’s what they feel the urge to cut themselves off from all their
every-day problems. Some substances have the property of “tricking”
people’s minds, separating it from reality, taking it away from the real
time and space. The substances that affect the behavior and the psychical disposition
are called psychoactive. These include not only drugs like “crack”,
“speed”, “marijuana” or “angel dust”, but
also alcohol. These sedatives, as they are called, sometimes produce a state
of tranquility to the user, setting his mind away from concern, making his body
float into a dreaming state. It may be pretty hard for the nowadays students
to understand the major changes, concerning the behavior models involving the
use of drugs, that intervened in the past 40 years. Although in 1950 few people
used any form of drugs, we changed into a relatively drug-free society. Many
parts contributed to this metamorphose.
Alcohol is some kind sedative, and the most frequently used of them. Sedatives
reduce the activity of the central neuronal system. The consuming of alcohol
is considered by most of the students to be a part of the social life. That’s
where they go wrong. Though they are convinced that alcohol does no harm, they
are terribly wide of the mark. Sedatives favor sociability, calm tensions, free
us from inhibitions, and in all, they generally add to what we tend to call
“fun”. Even so, the use of alcohol in the social life caused problems.
A lot of time is being lost in the disfavor of learning, not to talk of the
low performances at exams. The worst of all is that accidents may occur while
being under the influence of alcohol, sometimes even fatal. A survey shows that
most of the car accidents occurred because of alcohol, involving people between
15 and 24 years. Another survey shows that approximately 2/3 American adults
consumed alcohol. At least 10% from them have social, psychological or medical
problems as a result from using sedatives. Probably 10% from them are physically
addicted to it.
The use of alcohol is widely spread between the youths under 21. Starting at
a party, “just for fun”, lasting until the victim realizes the strong
implications of the use of sedatives, alcohol kills you slowly, but for sure.
Drastic measures were taken, concerning this problem. In New Jersey, The Rutgers
University made up a rehabilitation program for the youths. The efforts of the
universities and colleges were intensified in 1989 beginning with “The
Drug Free School and Campuses Act”, a law that forbids the use of alcohol
and obliges the institutions to have a reconciliation program for the addicted
students. But students are not the only ones affected from this sickness of
the society. The use of alcohol is forbidden to pregnant women. The mothers
who drink much are vulnerable to the alcoholic syndrome of the fetus. The child
could be born with a mental retardation and multiple malformations of his face.
The addiction to alcohol is called alcoholism. Alcoholism is one’s incapacity
of retaining himself from alcohol. Usually, alcoholics “cry for help”
before reaching 40. If the problems caused by it persist, it is possible that
the life of the person is shortened with 15 years. They think that their last
alternative is alcohol, and whenever they are confronted with some problems,
they treat them in the most inefficient way. In the attempt to elevate their
self esteem they consume more and more alcohol. The intense use of alcohol on
a long term leads to physical addiction (one’s tolerance of alcohol rises
and the consumer has to use more alcohol to get the same pleasure) and the individual
suffers great pain while trying to put a stop to the consuming of the substance.
The restraining symptoms vary from irritability to intense anxiety and shaking.
In some cases, these symptoms include hallucination, confusions and convulsions.
This syndrome called delirium tremens(DTs) usually takes place in the case of
chronic alcoholics who stopped the use of alcohol after a long period of practiced
this unusual “sport”.
After all, why do people start drinking? There are many theories supporting
the fact that alcoholism occurs in 70% of the cases in families with a low social
support, in the lower classes of society. Probably one of the basic factors
that influence alcoholism is the low level of education that some of the children
of our society get. Even though we are equal in rights and obligations, we do
not have the same background and we are not always able to distinguish the good
from the bad. That is actually the reason why most of the alcohol consumers
are under the legal age of 18. Teenagers tend to be rebels. They don’t
always listen to adults, trying too many times to go up against the adults.
That may be one of the reasons. Another theory sustains that people find a refugee
in drinking when they have problems. This situation also occurs in families
with problems. As much as people think alcohol is going to solve their problems,
the reality is the contrary. Another hypothesis is that alcoholism is a genetically
inherited habit. This is terribly wrong, because it is a proven fact that habits
are not normally inherited this way.
In all, I guess we finally reached the conclusion that alcohol has no use and
no benefits other than in medicine. As Thoreau said in “Walden”:
“Water is the only drink for a wise man.”.
Millions of people died until now because of it, and millions are still going
to die. We are the only ones that can make a difference: “All excess is
ill, but drunkenness is the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind,
and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous
and bad.” (William Penn).