There always seems to be a challenge, a month, or a day throughout the year, for people to give up the plonk. That sentence alone is concerning.
Those who know me know that I am an avid drinker. I like to say it is my only vice. Where I am, alcohol is not far behind, and I enjoy a champagne breakfast just as much as I do a well-deserved nightcap. So, my decision to heed the call of one of these challenges for a healthier life resulted in a significant paradigm shift.
‘Alcohol is not only a drug but the deadliest drug which kills more than all other drugs combined.’ This website statement tweaked my interest as I wondered why isn’t it banned if that was indeed true?
With the only other ‘everyday drug’ I could think of being smoking, I started consciously comparing the two. What would drinking look like if we treated alcohol the same way we treated smokes. I envision it would look something like this:
You would sit at your restaurant table, waiting for your meal to be served and admiring your bottle of wine. The wine bottle label has an obscene image of someone killed by a drunk driver with the warning label ‘Drinking Kills’. Alas, you look past this and crack open the bottle anyway.
Gasps fill the air, and you can feel all eyes on you. Looking around, you are intimated by the horrified and judgemental looks making it clear that this is the non-drinking section. The waiter asks you to move, so you take my bottle to a small, uncomfortable dining area with all the other drinkers.
I know this is an exaggerated example but assuming that alcohol is more dangerous than smoking or other drugs, shouldn’t we treat it at least the same way? Why do we make this one drug so socially sexy?
It gets worse. When drinking with friends, I noticed that if I ever declined a drink offering, I could guarantee it would follow with ‘are you sure?’. I confirm I am sure, and 20 minutes later, when fresh drinks are being poured, they ask again, “are you sure? There is plenty to go around.”
If this were any other drug, the person making the offer would be labelled as a Dealer and could even risk arrest. So once again, I ask, why not alcohol? Then it occurred to me that I did the same thing, all in the name of being ‘hospitable and friendly. I was a Dealer, and who knows how many times those pushes had led to an alcohol rated incident that I am unaware of.
Perhaps if alcohol were treated the same way as other drugs, we may be seeing a world where drinking would be carried out in privacy with warning labels and extravagant price tags to not make it so accessible. Arrests and jail time would be punishment for those found Dealing.
After being made aware of my Dealer habits, I can confidently say I am no longer a Dealer.
Can you?