When I was a sophomore in high school, I enrolled into a drug abuse class. At that time period, I did not grasp the fact that alcohol abuse in reality was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse and especially about alcohol side effects, I read a lot about Alcoholic Anonymous, their meetings, how their programs have twelve steps, and how successful the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program has been for people throughout the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol treatment and the different alcohol rehab clinics that are regularly available to individuals who engage in excessive drinking.
Damaging Outcomes That are Correlated With Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse
Some of the injurious results associated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class certainly worried me. The ruined lives and countless problems experienced by most alcohol dependent people made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. That is, I did not want to face the damage and devastation that alcohol dependent people almost always experience.
Ponder upon this for a moment. What fifteen-year-old individual wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What teenager wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that drinking alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What young person wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related issues before he or she becomes twenty-one?
What young person wants to go through alcohol withdrawal symptoms when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would an individual engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause serious issues in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after an individual has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would an adolescent want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that centers on hazardous drinking?
These issues were so significant that I talked about some of them in class during the school year. What was absolutely astonishing to me was the number of students who openly didn’t care about the detrimental results of abusive drinking that I discussed. It was almost as if they couldn’t care less about the truth and how these effects can shatter their lives. For the first time in my life I started to figure out something that my grandfather used to articulate all through my youth: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
It’s Important, Beneficial, and Liberating to Keep Yourself From the Unhealthy and Debilitating Outcomes of Alcohol and Drug Abuse
And even at my young age, I also started to understand how important, beneficial, and liberating it is in life to keep yourself from the damaging and unhealthy outcomes of drug and alcohol abuse.