Everything Must Go

Just saw the Will Ferrell movie Everything Must Go and while at one time living outside with nothing but a recliner, a George Foreman grill, and a buttload of Pabst Blue Ribbon may have appealed to me, it makes finding a company with a good 401k plan rather more difficult than it is now.

Ferrell is an alcoholic who loses his high paying job after a series of drunken incidents. Upon his arrival home, he sees that all his stuff is on the lawn and all the locks are changed on the house. This triggers a 3 day binge while living in his front yard.

I could identify with the character. The desperation he felt when he couldn't buy alcohol... the relief he felt when he could. The unrealistic thinking. Disregard for consequences. Detoxing. Buying a little time and squandering it all on the pursuit for booze.

Didn't see much about AA except for the occasional reference to months or sponsor, but that may have been more out of respect for the program and its policy of non-promotion.

Been a great, rainy day. Work went well. Got to watch a relevant... and sometimes funny... movie with Cupcake.

Think I'll go ahead and get ready to turn in. Goodnight all!

Scary Statistics

I was just going over some statistics for my next H&I meeting. Some were shocking. Some were not surprising at all. I really wanted to share some of these...

Each year, a typical young person in the United States is inundated with more than 1,000 commercials for beer and wine coolers and several thousand fictional drinking incidents on television.

Alcohol is involved in 50% of all driving fatalities.

In the United States, every 30 minutes someone is killed in an alcohol related traffic accident.

Over 15 million Americans are dependent on alcohol. 500,000 are between the age of 9 and 12.

Each year the liquor industry spends almost $2 billion dollars on advertising and encouraging the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Americans spend over $90 billion dollars total on alcohol each year.

An average American may consume over 25 gallons of beer, 2 gallons of wine, and 1.5 gallons of distilled spirits each year.

Pregnant women who drink are feeding alcohol to their babies. Unfortunately the underdeveloped liver of the baby can only burn alcohol at half the rate of its mother, so the alcohol stays in the baby's system twice as long.

Each year students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol, more then they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee, or books combined.

56% of students in grade 5 to 12 say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink.

6.6% of employees in full time jobs report heavy drinking, defined as drinking five or more drinks per occasion on five or more days in the past 30 days.

The highest percentage of heavy drinkers (12.2%) is found among unemployed adults between the age of 26 to 34

Up to 40% of all industrial fatalities and 47% of industrial injuries can be linked to alcohol consumption and alcoholism.

In 2000, almost 7 million persons age 12 to 20 was a binge drinker; that is about one in five persons under the legal drinking age was a binge drinker.

The 2001 survey shows 25 million (one in ten) Americans surveyed reported driving under the influence of alcohol. This report is nearly three million more than the previous year. Among young adults age 18 to 25 years, almost 23% drove under the influence of alcohol.

Drunk driving is proving to be even deadlier then what we previously know. The latest death statistics released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), using a new method of calculation show that 17,488 people where killed in alcohol related traffic accidents last year. This report represents nearly 800 more people where killed than the previous year.

Alcohol is the number 1 drug problem in America.

43% of Americans have been exposed to alcoholism in their families.

Nearly one out of 4 Americans admitted to general hospitals have alcohol problems or are undiagnosed alcoholics being diagnosed for alcohol related consequences.

Alcohol and alcohol related problems is costing the American economy at least $100 million in health care and lost of productivity every year.

Four in ten criminal offenders report alcohol as a factor in violence.

Among spouse violence victims, three out of four incidents were reported to have involved alcohol use by the offender.

In 1996, local law enforcement agencies made an estimated 1,467,300 arrests nationwide for driving under the influence of alcohol.

What's Your Poison?

Alcohol is poison to the alcoholic. Poison is not too strong a word, because alcoholism leads eventually to the death of the alcoholic. It may be a quick death or a slow death. When we go by package stores and see various kinds of liquor all dressed up in fancy packages to make it look attractive, we should always make it a point to say to ourselves so we'll never forget it: "That stuff's all poison to me." And it is. Alcohol poisoned our lives for a long time. Do I know that since I'm an alcoholic all liquor is poison to me?

Talked about the thought for the day at my meeting before work... Yes, alcohol has poisoned my life. It has physically poisoned me too. I'd drink so much while on a binge, I could feel it in my kidneys. While working in the medical field I saw people in their death throes resulting from cirrhosis. It's a ghastly sight to behold. You'd think that would be enough of a deterrent. Not for me. Shows how hard-headed I was. And reckless.

Just got back to the house from work. Had a pretty good day. Caught the tail end of the Morpheus parade on the way back, but I missed one of my faves... d'Etat. I'll leave you with a couple of pics I took on the way in today.... Goodnight!

These people do their porch

up with skeletons dressed

in various holiday themes.

You should see it on Halloween!