Eve Tushnet shared five ways to approach alcoholism that could help identify or prevent alcohol abuse in her piece, 5 Things I wish I’d been told about alcohol:
Ask yourself: If you were going to change your drinking habits (or whatever), what might you try? Where might you find models you admire? If you take an interest in the more frightening and humiliating parts of your own life, if you pay attention to them instead of living in denial, if you seek out stories of other people who are in some way similar, eventually you will find guidance. […] Naming them forced me to be honest about whether alcohol was still giving me these gifts. I had to admit that everything drinking once offered, alcoholism was slowly, stealthily removing. Ecstasy becomes blackout, intimacy becomes lying, friendship becomes drinking alone, fearlessness becomes constant, ceaseless fear. You start to miss out on things—whether you’re blacked out (if you don’t remember it, you missed it) or hungover or no longer trusted or just sad.
Perhaps teaching kids about alcoholism earlier, in the family, may prevent them from having such problems. It can’t hurt to raise awareness and let them know what to expect from alcohol. Eve’s lessons were learned through the hardships and internal turmoil that alcoholism provokes. With that in mind, what do you think?
In the US the drinking age is 21 and it is a common argument, mostly among people ages 18-21, that allowing people to drink earlier may decrease the amount of alcohol abuse in this age group. At a time in their lives when people are most likely to rebel, would drinking lose some of its allure if it wasn’t a rule to break?
And today we celebrate...