Alcohol Abuse and Addiction Problem

Alcohol has been popular since the Dark Ages. Wine, Mead, and Beer has been around for ages and is still legal. Except the problem is that there are many bad side effects of alcohol but its still in massive production. You might be watching TV and see an ad how amazing and refreshing that beer is , and yes in a way the ad isn’t lying it is refreshing but its not showing you the bigger picture. In Proverbs 23:31-32 it says “ Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things.” This gives an idea of what God thinks of alcohol, but I know that’s not enough evidence to convince you that it is bad. Nowadays God’s word isn’t enough proof that is why people find ways out of it using fake evidence trying to prove God wrong. Alcohol causes innocent lives to leave this world because of abusers who drive under the influence. Alcohol causes a lot of lives to die because of health issues that it causes. Families get separated because of the damage alcohol has spawned such as adultery and financial problems.

Since 1982, drunk driving fatalities on our nation’s roadways have decreased 48%, while total traffic fatalities have declined nearly 18%. Among persons under 21, drunk driving fatalities have decreased 80%. Furthermore, “according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 37,133 people died in traffic crashes in 2017 in the United States (latest figures available), including an estimated 10,874 people who were killed in drunk driving crashes involving a driver with an illegal BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration). Among the people killed in these drunk driving crashes, 67% (7,052) were in crashes in which at least one driver in the crash had a BAC of .15 or higher.” Just go on your local news and at least once a month you will hear how some infant/pedestrian was run over or a car crash causing a death with the drunk man/woman being alive. Alcohol will never be safe because we will always have people who can’t drink responsibly. Especially teens that get intoxicated causing many crashes and acts of vandalism.

Alcohol isn’t your average Orange Juice because it has components that make you feel unstable, this is why it has a age restriction. But even though it has an age restriction, that doesn’t mean these components become more healthy for you as you grow older. Alcohol abuse causes Cardiomyopathy which is when your heart muscle stretches and droops. Fatty liver disease, Alcoholic Hepatitis, Fibrosis, Arrhythmias, Strokes, Liver Cancer, Esophageal Cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, and etc. You should be starting to realize by now that alcohol can be deadly ,but here is how much people die from all those diseases. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) 6 people a day die from alcohol poisoning and 76% are men averaging ages of 36-64. Not to mention that excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years. Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink. This is just sad to read knowing that this one of the most preventable deaths.

Family, what is family it is a group of people that are blood related or very tight bond. Those couple of components in that drink can destroy and rip that whole bond into pieces. “A study published in May 2014 in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, researchers from the University of Michigan used information from a nationwide endeavor called the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) to compare the divorce rates for people with diagnosable alcohol use disorder to the divorce rates for people unaffected by this condition” “researchers concluded, nearly half (48.3%) of the study participants with a past or present case of alcohol use disorder got divorced at some point in their lives. Between the first and second waves of the survey, the divorce rate for these individuals was 15.5%. By comparison, only 30% of the participants unaffected by alcohol use disorder had gone through a divorce. Between the first and second waves of NESARC, these individuals had a divorce rate of just 4.8%.” These statistics are very heartbreaking to see, In our day families fall apart because of a liquid substance filled bottle.

This sums up my conclusion with Ephesians 5:18 “ Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,.” Alcohol can be fun and exciting but, just like everything on this earth it doesn’t last very long. Eventually the cons of these alcohol components will bite you so hard and you won’t see it coming. As you know it you will just see you life rolling own off a cliff and it will be very hard to stop it at the momentum it will be going. Only through Jesus Christ we can stop, so let’s try to praise the Lord and be our best.

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