In the FIRE movement we have people break everything down, shouldn’t we do the same for every important decision of our life? After all, a few simple lifestyle changes can be the difference between retirement in our 30’s vs 60’s. Let’s take a closer look at alcohol. And for starters we might do a cost benefit analysis.
Benefits: you get a buzz, feel less inhibited, helps to break down barriers between people, enhances a good mood, relaxation, and it’s an escape.
Costs: addiction, expensive, enhances a bad mood, accidents, DWI’s, hangovers, bad for physical health, destroys brain cells, negatively effects future generations mind and body, i.e. your kids if you plan to have them, increased opportunity for poor judgement, a bad example for kids, potential to lose (job, friends or family), and as drinking increase so does the mentality of the crowd, i.e. fights, theft, unscrupulous behavior, etc.. The general theme behind alcohol is to enjoy now, and pay later.
Addiction is something that should be covered in depth in Jr. High. Here is how it works.
1. If you don’t like something, for example some drug, no worries you won’t do it again – best case scenario.
2. It’s just OK, here there is no immediate risk of addiction, but with repetitive use dependency becomes a real possibility.
3. You love it: addition is likely, it’s the worst case scenario
To become addicted to anything is just like making yourself a slave to a large fat, ugly, ruthless bully who will go on progressively treating you worse each month and year of your life. So it’s a beautiful day out, and you want to be outside enjoying the sunshine. But not so fast, your tied to a bully who prefers to sit in the dark basement drinking alcohol and that is how you will spend the remainder of your day. Anyone who has ever dealt with addiction knows the horror of being compelled against our own will - over, and over, and over again!
Youth verse old age. In youth we are given, free of charge, a grace period. For example we can go out and drink, and the next day our body recovers quickly. But as we get older we start to notice hangovers last longer, and they take more out of us. As a teenager we might recuperate in a few hours, in older age this progresses first to a day, then days, weeks, even a month. For an older person who goes on drinking their body NEVER has time to fully recover between their habits of drinking. This is when the mind and body truly starts to break down, because the damage being done is never repaired.
“ Last year, the average American household spent $435 on beer, wine, hard liquor, and mixed drinks.” “Overview of study findings. The cost of excessive alcohol use in the United States reached $249 billion in 2010, or about $2.05 per drink”
It would be easy to go on, and on here. Personally I think we have been duped as a society. Alcohol is big business, in commercials we are shown beautiful young people hanging out at the beach, drinking a beer, laughing and having fun. Why don’t they show scenes of someone getting a DWI and being hauled off to jail, or vomiting in their bed, or in your sink? Or how about the guy with anger issue who starts fist fights, domestic violence, or even waking up next to a stranger. How about wrecking your liver, or have you ever been to a nursing home and seen a man or woman clicking their teeth blankly staring at the wall… they did something to get like this.
All of us in Western counties have a lot of personal freedom to make our own choices, but it’s a pity we seldom look in depth at where our actions lead.