Alcohol Takes Another Good One From Us….
Praise God I quit drinking alcohol of any kind a little over 3 years ago. I had already cut way down and drank on occasion but it started affecting me badly. I stopped being able to process it as before and my body said enough so I quit and never looked back. Others in my life haven’t been able to pull out in time and now they’re gone.
” Alcohol abuse kills some 75,000 Americans each year and shortens the lives of these people by an average of 30 years, a U.S. government study suggested Thursday. ” That’s from a study in 2005. The number now is over 90,000 and is probably higher than that. Those numbers also don’t account for all of the strife alcohol causes in people’s lives. It is the evilest drug mankind has created (and probably the oldest) and yet it’s legal.
So what’s the answer? There isn’t an easy one as we know prohibition doesn’t work. You can’t legislate morality. Taking the ads off of TV might help a little so it doesn’t appear so glamorous. One big thing people can do is stop the enabling of these folks. It’s not easy but tough love needs to be applied at times so the person can hit their own “rock bottom”. If that doesn’t happen then neither does any significant change.
Now it’s May 2019 and I get to deal with another friend who just passed on from alcohol abuse. While it didn’t surprise me it still hurts because he was such a good person outside of the booze. My cat Jack loved him which told me all I needed to know because Jack doesn’t take to people very often. He’s very picky but he picked Kevin. We tried to help but he was trapped in a prison of his own making.
Off the top of my head I count 5 friends and relatives that have passed on in the last 10 years because of this drug. It’s a symptom of the messed up world we live in that holds no hope. People abuse drugs because this world keeps getting darker and the world can’t fill the void they feel in their souls. So they try to fill the void with drugs and booze so they can feel better even if it’s only for a few hours. For that few hours they can feel like they are in control, that people like them and they settle into a booze filled comfort zone.
I know because I drank to “fit in”. I never needed to do that but modern society programs us to think we need to follow the crowd and don’t make waves. That mindset almost killed me more than once.
Thankfully because of Jesus I was able to break free and see the errors I was making. I came around in time but sadly many others do not. Please don’t ever stop praying for your addicted loved ones. Don’t enable them but don’t ever stop praying for them. Jesus will send someone who can break through. Pray that your loved ones listen when he does. God bless and take care.
Johnny