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Awash
By lindamuralidharan on 2019-09-13 05:08:39
Another post that I am reluctant to write is presented here. I am reluctant because it is repetitious. I have raised this issue
before and yet I have not seen evidence it is getting any kind of attention from other sources in our society. Recently I read a
feature article on the web about three major league athletes who had died more or less mysteriously and were honored
greatly by the sports world at their deaths at a pretty young age. The author wondered what their legacy would be like now,
some time later, that it is clear all died from their own risk taking, especially the misuse of drugs. Tyler Skaggs was the most
recent and it took some time to reveal that he did not die of some natural cause like a heart attack. And then the family was
quoted as saying how devastating it was that he had died from overdosing on "dangerous drugs and alcohol." I wanted to
scream. Yeah, we know that folks in our country are pretty ignorant about the most essential facts related to mental illness,
homelessness, and substance abuse. The problem is, this type of nonsense is reported in my local news reports at least once
every week. You would like to think that reporters would be a bit better informed than the person whose main vocation is as
a Fish and Game agent of the government or a person whose main vocation is driving truck. It's hard to fault families like
that of Tyler Skaggs even though we all need the correct information about drugs and use and misuse and overdoses.
Hopefully before something disastrous befalls someone we love. One would also like to think
that law enforcement is better educated than the average person and would know that alcohol is a drug and a very dangerous
one at that. We have reports from credible sources that alcohol is more dangerous than heroin and cocaine and many people
have already figured out that it is less dangerous than LSD or marijuana. Nonetheless my local paper reports on average
once a week that police are investigating a serious vehicle accident to see if "drugs or alcohol" are involved. How hard is it
to say "alcohol or other drugs"? Alcohol is a drug. However you believe with regard to its use, the plain fact to start with is
that it is a drug. I repeat, how hard would it be for the police report to refer to an investigation of "alcohol and other
drugs"? One word makes all the difference. The fact that alcohol is also a "dangerous" drug is an added piece of
information the public needs to digest. I think people in general think of alcohol as pretty much the same as other social
drinks from slushies to all kinds of soda pop. And coffee. And tea. And hot cocoa. Yeah you can get too much of a good
thing. Excessive coffee might make you jittery and bring on a bout of insomnia. Too much sugar.....well, you know the
drill. So....a little too much alcohol might bring on unwanted nausea and you better be careful not to drive after more than a
couple drinks so you don't get arrested. We want to keep other recreational drugs illegal with the horrible result of the
wasted lives and money in the drug war while we remain awash in the all too often fatal use of alcohol. I am not a teetotaler.
I spent one year abstaining after I had had some emotional issues, and I have too much alcoholism in my own family not to
have noticed a few years prior to that that I myself was abusing alcohol. My awareness may have saved me and my family
much pain. In the last couple of decades I drink one or two drinks of wine or a cocktail often. Mostly I stick to one drink
only, just as I stick to owning no more than two cats at a time for fear there will be no end to my feline collection.
Budweis er
where
the
is hk Why do I make such an issue of the need to name alcohol for what it is? Why is this a
topic for a blog promoting peace in the world? For one thing it is hard to negotiate or advocate for peace from false
premises. The folks living here in this country need to get used to giving up some of their delusions. One disastrous
delusion was that Saddam Hussein and Iraq created the 9/11 attacks. Following a false premise, resulted in thousands of
American and Arab deaths. If we cannot own up to the fact that alcohol is a drug (and since it can be used responsibly with
little harm, the corollary is that other drugs like heroin and cocaine and forms of methamphetamine can also. All can lead to
destructive chemical dependency but not to all people who use. The quantity used, the settings and attitudes within which
drugs are used, and the individual's proclivity for addiction help determine whether the experience is indeed recreational or
instead part of a progressive and destructive disease.
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eS OWhy we have the youngest
_— ge customers in the business
is ote : on P q Second, we waste so much
money in our denial. There is public stigma towards many who use "illegal" drugs but tolerance for our friends and
neighbors who get tipsy. Moneys are misdirected toward anti drug enforcement policies with the resultant creation of
criminals and drug gangs. When did you last hear of your neighborhood liquor store owner shooting up or bombing a rival
purveyor of alcohol? Not need for gang rivalries because alcohol is legally licensed to qualified purveyors and appropriately
labeled and controlled for content. We certainly can find better uses for of enforcement money: treatment and research
about substance abuse prevention, perhaps? If we recognize alcohol as a dangerous drug, perhaps we would think more
about who uses it, how we use it, when we use it. And when you come right down to it, the popularity and overuse of
alcohol has implications for good judgment on the part of the military and I can't help wondering if politicians making deals
over three martini lunches or happy hour imbibing are making deals in the bests interest of their constituents. And we do
know that alcohol plays a role in the incidence of domestic violence and other violent crimes in our nation.
of
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Scolding and a control freak approach do not work in discouraging young people from
starting up the use of many different drugs....including what some find in the family medicine cabinet. A few years back a
teen in my family stole pills from his grandparents' bathroom. Well, he was a little shocked later on to find they were Viagra
or one of its clones. More research is needed, but it seems pretty clear to me that giving young and old alike accurate and
frequent information about what drugs are, how they are alike or differ, good uses and bad, negative and positive effects.
Why is this so hard? Maybe we love our alcohol too much. Maybe the incessant marketing of all kinds of alcoholic
beverages has overwhelmed us. Maybe the liquor lobby gets to our influential opinion makers and law makers. It certainly
is in the interest of the producers of alcoholic beverages to make alcohol seem so much more acceptable than any of the
street drugs. I doubt they are keen on the competition. If we can begin to call alcohol a drug, I think we get closer to the
habit of being honest about so many things, including the fact that people of color are normal, "competent" human beings,
and they or their countries of origin are not posing a threat by virtue of color or history. Some behaviors abroad are suspect:
we need to watch carefully any bullying or aggressive tendencies of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia (see Yemen), Israel, etc.
And we need to be very honest about how big a threat is out there and what are reasonable and practical approaches to
ameliorating any possible threats. We also need to be more honest about the US tendency to bully. Instead we need to get on
La
board with a whole host of diplomatic possibilities. Mr. Skaggs apparently lost his
life and deprived the world of a great talent as a result of imbibing alcohol plus prescription opiates. All those who know
about this mourn for his loved ones' loss.
