The Unstated

Why is it that when I was growing up not a single person told me that alcohol ruins lives? Is it strange that I've never heard of someone who said alcohol enhanced or improved his life? "Thank God for alcohol." "My life is so much better for having alcohol in it."

I'm sure there are some lovely people in the hills of Italy that drink one, homemade, high-antioxidant glass of red wine per day and are reaping the benefits of it. But are their lives truly better because of it or would they be fine without it?

Perhaps there are only two ways to have alcohol in your life. 1. It neither improves or damages your life, it just is. 2. It is detrimental to your life. It's also likely that those who fall into the first category know someone whose life falls into the second category and they actually are worse off because they or someone they love is adversely affected by alcohol.

It's an epidemic that affects nearly everyone in America and many, many other countries. It is masked behind pictures of people happily enjoying their drinks. Dig deeper and you will find abused spouses, neglected children, and devastated sober people trying to clean up the mess.

So why is it that I still look forward to that occasional drink to relieve the tension, escape reality, have a laugh with friends? And why am I not telling my children that alcohol ruins lives? I think it's time to transfom the unstated into the boldly stated.