The Alcohol Related Problems and Alcohol Related Deaths That Are Linked To Excessive Drinking

How many children are born each year with fetal alcohol syndrome? How many people’s lives are cut short due to excessive and abusive drinking? How many people get injured or lose their lives in alcohol related traffic accidents every year? How many individuals lose their lives every year because of drinking problems? How many junior high, high school, and college students lose their lives every year due to an alcohol overdose? How many people are the victims of alcohol related crime or violence each and every year? How many people face serious consequences in their lives because they received a DUI conviction? How many people die each year from a condition that is totally preventable, such as alcohol poisoning? On an annual basis, how many alcoholics fail to get the professional alcohol treatment they need?

Why Would Anyone Want to Drink in a Hazardous Manner?

So what’s the point in asking these questions? Basically to highlight the destructive and devastating nature of unhealthy and abusive drinking. Indeed, and based on the above questions, I wonder why anyone would choose to drink in a hazardous manner.

Stated more precisely, with the host of legal proceedings, relationship issues, financial problems, health dilemmas, and employment difficulties that are associated with chronic alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction, why would any person with any sense at all want to drink in a hazardous and excessive manner? In fact when some of the above topics are put under the microscope more closely, abusive and excessive drinking becomes more illogical and makes even less sense.

Wouldn’t you think that alcoholics would be able to see some of the alcohol symptoms that they display? In a similar way doesn’t it seem logical to think that more families would involve themselves in an alcohol intervention for the person in the household who is an alcohol abuser or an alcoholic? Not only this but wouldn’t you think that individuals who drink excessively would try to learn more about their drinking behavior by reading about various alcohol related statistics?

After reviewing the alcohol dependency and alcohol abuse research literature, the point is so critical that it needs to be restated: With all of the destructive and debilitating outcomes that are directly or indirectly associated with continuous and repetitive alcohol abuse and alcoholism, why would any person want to engage in abusive and excessive drinking?

What Can be Done About the Extensive Nature of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse in the U.S.?

So what can be done about the extensive nature of alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction in the U.S.?

1. Our students need more meaningful and more relevant educational and preventative approaches and methods so that more students at all grade levels, including those at college, are “reached.
2. With a similar line of thought, our students need to learn how to become problem solvers in life rather than getting easily attracted to the “instant gratification” and the “quick fix” of a drug or alcohol abuse ”high” or “buzz”.
3. Individuals who are alcohol dependent or alcohol abusers need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask why they are not getting the professional alcohol therapy they require.
4. Society needs to get the message to more people about the debilitating and destructive outcomes of careless and abusive drinking.

There’s Room For Hope if Those Who Engage in Abusive Drinking Can Become Encouraged to Get the Alcohol Treatment They Need

There’s room for optimism and hope if individuals can start drinking in moderation and those who engage in abusive and excessive drinkingcan become encouraged to get the alcohol rehabilitation they need. Indeed, why put your loved ones through pain, turmoil, and suffering because of your abusive and careless drinking when you have the power to control your life by drinking responsibly or even stopping drinking if you cannot control your drinking?

A Young Couple Appraises Their Irresponsible and Excessive Drinking and Their Short and Long-Term Aspirations, Goals, and Dreams

Augie and Merissa have been going out for five-and-a-half years. They met while taking the same world trade class at a medium size, countryside, Church affiliated liberal arts college located in the Northern part of the United States. While they were in essence good friends at first, they finally started dating when they were in their second year of college.

Given the fact that both of them came from very conventional backgrounds, neither one of them drank very much beyond the casual drinking stage when they first began dating. As the time proceeded, then again, they began to go to more sorority and fraternity parties, happy hours, keg parties, and football bashes. As a consequence, they slowly but surely began to drink more as time passed by.

Their Social Life Usually Consisted of Going to Happy Hour With Their Friends, Going to Professional Sporting Events, Going to Restaurants Three or Four Nights Per Week, Going to Parties With Their Friends, and Going With Their Friends to the Local Cabaret on the Weekends

After they graduated from college, they both landed jobs in a relatively small city that was located just about seventy miles from their undergraduate college. Then they finally made up their mind to move into the same apartment together.

Because they were far removed from the college drinking scene, nonetheless, their social life regularly consisted of going to happy hour with their friends, going to restaurants three or four nights per week, going to parties with their friends, going to professional sporting events, and going to the local cabaret with their buddies on the weekends. In short, Augie and Merissa began drinking quite abusively.

Now that they were living in the same apartment with one another and starting to get more resolute about their relationship, nevertheless, they started thinking about becoming more responsible, buying a house, getting married, and having children.

With any momentous alteration in an individual’s life there is typically something that elicits the specific alteration in question. For Augie and Merissa the thought of having children and buying a new house was this “vehicle for change.” In a word, for the first time in their lives, Merissa and Augie started to critically review their abusive and hazardous drinking and the long term effects of alcohol on their health.

How Would Their Abusive Drinking Affect Their Ability to Have Children, Their Relationship With Their Parents, Their Mental Health, Their Finances, and Their Relationship With One Another?

Would their heavy and abusive drinking negatively affect their ability to have children? How would they be able to continue spending nearly all of their money on drinking if they were to begin saving for a new house? How responsible would they be if they had children and continued to drink in an abusive manner? How would they be able to face their parents and tell them about their long term dreams, hopes, and aspirations while they still drank in an abusive and hazardous manner while having fun as they did when they were in college? What would their heavy and hazardous drinking do to their relationship? How would their drinking behavior affect their mental health?

From a different perspective, although neither one of them ever suffered from alcohol poisoning, received a DUI, or experienced alcohol withdrawal symptoms, they realized that their heavy and abusive drinking was becoming a troublesome issue that they could not ignore anymore.

After Giving Their Circumstances Much Deliberation, Merissa and Augie Concluded That Their Dreams, Hopes, and Plans Would not be Met if They Continued Their Heavy and Hazardous Drinking

All of these uncertainties clearly resulted in the same conclusion: Augie and Merissa needed to understand more fully that they couldn’t continue their irresponsible drinking if their dreams, goals, and aspirations were to be reached.

Once they got to this conclusion, they notified their drinking pals about their plans to start a family, about their goal of buying or building a new house, and about their marital plans. They also told their drinking friends that they still wanted to pal around with them but that they would be drinking in strict moderation from this moment forward so that they could start to realize their future goals, dreams, and aspirations.

Much to their amazement, all of their friends expressed relief because they too had been recalculating their lives and concluded that their life-styles were much too often centered around drinking. They also believed that they would have to change notably if they were to become more responsible and display more respect for their careers, their health, and for their goals in the next ten or fifteen years.

After their frank discussion with their pals about their aspirations, hopes, and dreams, Merissa and Augie basically started to have more meaningful relationships with all of their friends. The primary reason for this was the fact that all of them had a similar attitude regarding their heavy and hazardous drinking and their relatively short and long-term goals, aspirations, and plans.

A Tuesday Night Out With Classmates at a Local College Club Results In Hazardous and Abusive Drinking and Alcohol Poisoning

When Janice was in high school, she had established a reputation as an individual who studied a lot and who rarely, if ever, let her hair down by drinking with her peers. She seemed determined to do well academically so that she would be able to pursue a career that she not only enjoyed but one that also gave her some security from a financial position.

After much contemplation, finally she decided that she wanted to be a lawyer. In order to reach this goal, nonetheless, she would first have to complete four years of undergrad education.

After Completing High School Janice Gets Accepted Into A Well-Known Undergrad University as Training For a Career as an Attorney

After Janice graduated from high school, she applied to and was accepted into a highly regarded program in philosophy. Her analysis of her options regarding this decision was based on the fact that this subject matter would be good preparation for law school and wouldn’t be comparable to the bulk of law school applicants who select political science as their undergraduate major.

After graduating with a 4.0 GPA at the undergrad level, she applied to and was accepted at a renowned law school at one of the Ivy League universities.

She was energized by her legal studies but every now and then she was beleaguered about all the work that had to be accomplished at law school. In much the same way as she had done in her high school and undergraduate days, however, she made buddies without much effort but hardly ever took part in social functions until the school period was finished.

After Being Elated With the Fact That She Had Done Extremely Well on Her Exams, Janice Wanted to Take a Break and do Some Celebrating

Janice was the type of person who worked attentively to finish what she was doing and then would take a break when she could. As it turns out, however, the vast majority of the things she did between terms or during summer breaks did not have anything to do with drinking. Clearly, Janice was anything but a party-girl. Now that her finals for her second year in law school were completed and pleased that she had done very well on her exams, nonetheless, she wanted to take a respite from school and have some fun.

Drinking at a Local Watering Hole Leads to Alcohol Poisoning, Calling 911, The Emergency Number, and a Visit to An Alcohol Rehab Facility

So Janice and a few of her friends from college went to a local club where they had a few wine coolers. As the hours passed, Janice persisted in drinking without having to worry about tests the next day. As a matter of fact, Janice mentioned to her friends how much fun it was to have fun drinking with her law school friends.

As the evening advanced, Janice and her buddies continued to drink. In fact, she was having so much fun that she didn’t want the night to come to an end. It was almost like she was making up for lost time and attempting to compress a year’s worth of fun and laughter into a single evening. Such a “game plan,” it needs to be emphasized, does not often work. If truth be told, when Janice went to the lady’s room and vomited, her buddies started to get anxious about her health.

Around fifteen minutes later when Janice started to slur her words, speak in a confused manner, and then pass out, nonetheless, her friends immediately knew that they needed to call 911 and ask for emergency assistance because they thought that Janice was displaying alcohol poisoning symptoms.

Once Janice was in the hospital, the lead doctor validated what her pals had assumed, to be exact, that Janice drank far more alcohol than her body could metabolize and, as a consequence, she experienced an alcohol overdose.

After the emergency room medical staff pumped her stomach until no gastric contents were detectable, Janice was placed in the recovery room. After staying about three hours in recovery, Janice was then relocated to one of the regular hospital rooms. Fortunately, the most perilous part of her hospitalization had passed and all of her vital signs were back to normal.

In response to Janice’s medical predicament, her pals attentively called her Mom and Dad. As a result, early the next day, her Mother and Father and her best buddies went to the hospital to visit Janice and look into her medical progress.

Janice Comes Close to Losing Her Life, is Thankful to be Alive, and Promises to Never Again Drink in an Irresponsible and Abusive Manner

Janice was very aware that she came close to losing her life and, consequently, was grateful to be alive. Her Mother and Father realized how rigorously she worked in graduate school and how little she let herself socialize with her buddies. Nevertheless, they also knew that Janice needed to stay away from abusive drinking.

Consequently, they recommended that in the future, whenever a drinking opportunity develops, that she always drink in moderation and responsibly. Janice was of the same opinion and promised her friends and her Mom and Dad that she would never again drink in an irresponsible and abusive manner. As stated by Janice, “I never thought that I would become one of the alcohol abuse and alcoholism statistics in the local town newspaper. I now grasp the fact that irresponsible and excessive drinking is not for me. I proclaim that this will never happen again.”

Fortunately, Janice was not only “school smart” but she also possessed common sense. Stated another way, she instantaneously knew that she had made an error in judgment and decided that she would never make the same error in judgment again. In fact, she now grasped the fact that she had involved herself in “binge drinking” and that even one instance of this form of hazardous drinking can end in a fatality.

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