Alcoholism: The Accepted Addiction?    

by Tom Anselm

Heroin? Awful.

Opioid abuse? Deadly.

Cocaine? Terrible.

Alcohol? Accepted?  —  More on this later.

An estimated 13% of the population has the disease called alcoholism in the United States.

According to The Journal of the American Medical Association’s Psychiatry division, that is about 1 out of 8 citizens. And there has been an alarming rise of 49% in the first decade of this century.

This disease comes with a ‘cornucopia of variants”, as was cited in the article. Fetal alcohol spectrum, hypertension, cardio vascular disease, stroke, liver issues, cancers, pancreatitis, type 2 diabetes, other organ damage. Some more statistics… 88,000 deaths a year. Loss of work, on job injuries, abuse and neglect of spouses and children. Legal problems. Loss of job. Brain damage. Suicide.

Alcoholism is an equal-opportunity destroyer. It shows itself across all races and genders. Granted, statistics say more men than women have this disease, more people of color than white, and more recently, more people under 30 than older. Much research has gone into this problem, not to be recorded here today. Bottom line, it is a killer and ruiner the likes of which ekes into every aspect of our lives, every community, every school, every workplace, every family.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has some more facts. We recently went to a commemorative walk for one killed by a drunk driver and saw these posters. Given all the stuff that alcohol abuse can do to an individual, there is this other place where it takes its toll. On our roads and highways.

In Missouri, 205 people were killed by a drunk driver in 2014. Over 3480 were injured. Multiply that by the damage done to the families of these people, the responders who worked the accidents, the perpetrators themselves. If they survived. How many times do we hear of a fatality in a drunken driving case, and the drunk driver walks away with minor injuries? But then there is arrest, legal charges, sometimes jail, fines… this family, too, is negatively impacted. Forever.

I said ‘accepted’ in the first sentence. Here’s what I meant by that.

The point here is that we are expected to drink. A June, 2016, story in Business Insider says that advertising by alcohol-related companies was up 26% from the year before, to $421 billion dollars. The defense budget for that same time was about 600 billion. Just for comparison sake.

That first number is staggering to me.

Consider the number of beer ads, which are at the top of the spend list, that we see on any given day on television. Wine comes in a close second, followed by distilled spirits. And unlike, say, marijuana, which can be bought legally in 10 states so far, alcohol is available in every state, on nearly every street corner, every convenience store, supermarket, service station, restaurant bar, golf course, bowling alley, professional sporting event… ahhhh. The list is endless.

So it is deeply woven into the fabric of our culture. It’s cool to be old enough to drink, hip to have that craft beer or two, awesome to pop a couple brewski’s at the ballgame, a few at happy hour, buy a tray of shots at the birthday party, several cocktails at dinner, a cooler of beer at the soccer game, wine with your art class, fill your Tervis tumbler with Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum (who’s gonna know?), get a handful of 2-ounce Fireball’s for the glove box… and so on. And on. And on.

(Now I must stop here and say I am no choir boy. Most of the stuff I just listed I have done. Lucky for me, it’s never caused me a problem. Never wrecked a car, blacked out, gotten a DUI. But so many are not that lucky.)

Some people, many people it seems, may be genetically predisposed to alcoholism. For them, even if the beer was hard to get, they’d find a way. Their bodies and brains need this. I get that. For them, as the saying goes, ‘one is too many, and a thousand is never enough.’ But what if they don’t take that drink? A story for another day, perhaps.

I know that we are responsible for our own behavior. No one is pouring that shot of Jack down our throat. But I have to laugh at the disclaimers at the end of beer ads that say ‘Drink Responsibly.” If everyone did that, they’d go out of business.

So, a lot here on this subject, one that deserves volumes of discussion.

As we head into the summer of fun, family gatherings, picnics, golf games, vacations, it might be good to keep some of this in mind. I know I will.

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