Recently I was pondering on why I hate alcohol. I realised there were personal, societal and religious reasons for this hate and that they all stemmed from how much I love people and how much I hate the damage alcohol causes to individuals, families, organisations and society itself.
Personal
I hate alcohol because:
- When I used to drink alcohol, I turned into a completely different person – and I hated that person. I became loud, silly, often argumentative and sometimes even sexist.
- When I used to drink alcohol, I hated how I lost control of myself and gave in to having sex with men I hardly knew. I was even raped while I was under the influence of alcohol.
- Now that I no longer drink alcohol I hate the effect I can see, smell and feel that alcohol has on others. They become different people entirely and, although sometimes it can be funny watching others being as silly as I used to be, in reality it is not funny at all – it is very sad.
- I hate how alcohol detrimentally affects my relationship with my husband, whom I adore. I find it hard to be with him as he is not his normal gentle, tender self when he drinks alcohol. This affects my connection with him.
I love my alcohol free life now. It feels very different when I attend events – yes, even parties – where there is no alcohol. I had a gathering recently without alcohol and it was so joy-full being able to talk to people without the influence and interference of alcohol – everyone simply stayed themselves and so we had true and meaningful conversations and loving connections. Everyone said how much they had enjoyed it.
Similarly, with other gatherings or when I am with people where there is no alcohol present I have observed a much deeper level of conversation and discussions and everyone seems so much at ease with themselves and each other. I am therefore able to connect with people at a much deeper level and I love feeling their essence (who they truly are inside) and how we are all equal in our essence. Everything appears so simple and loving and time seems to slow down somehow.
Societal
I hate alcohol because:
- Alcohol is a big factor in why men and women are in prison, especially for violence charges. It is estimated that about 80-90% of crime occurs under the influence of alcohol and drugs or is committed to feed an addiction (1).
- Alcohol is a huge contributor to road accidents and the consequent clogging up of our hospitals and the endangering of others’ lives, including those of our medical personnel.
- Alcohol fuels domestic violence, which is largely against women and children – domestic violence is escalating in New Zealand, which has the worst rate of family and intimate-partner violence in the world, even though it is estimated 80% of incidents are not reported (2).
- Alcohol causes arguments, brawls and altercations, between friends, family members and strangers.
- Alcohol can be a big factor in marriage split-ups. It can cause financial strain and can lead to violence, bullying and neglect.
- Alcohol related issues cost the country one heck of a lot of money – would this money not be more wisely spent on health, education and reducing poverty?
- Alcohol causes many health issues including liver disease, heart disease and some cancers. The recent May 2018 expert report released by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research on the link between diet, nutrition, physical activity and cancer found that there was strong evidence linking alcoholic drinks to an increased risk of breast, colorectal, stomach, mouth, pharynx, larynx and oesophageal cancers (3). As such, not only do these health issues cause much pain, grief and stress to sufferers and their families, and their employees/employers, they are also a huge strain on our health system.
Imagine what our society would be like if we didn’t have alcohol?
Many families would have more money to spend on essentials such as food, power, clothes and rent, which could improve their quality of life. Not as many school children would go to school hungry or be poorly dressed for the cold weather. We would have way less people in prison, which would not only mean more money in the national and regional budgets available for health, education and reducing poverty, but would also mean way less men, women and children detrimentally affected by being in prison. Not as many women and children would be injured, maimed or killed through beating and not as many people would be subject to psychological, emotional and verbal abuse. We would feel safer in our homes and on our streets. Our emergency medical staff would not be subjected to abuse by drunk people in hospital emergency departments, and our health budget would not need to include the huge amounts set aside to treat alcohol-related illnesses and diseases. Our police would not be put in as much danger, nor would they have to deal daily with drunken people or with domestic violence – one call every five minutes in New Zealand (2).
Without alcohol we would have more chance of returning to being who we truly are, living to our potential and with solid purpose in our lives. Our relationships could improve immensely without the influence of alcohol because they would be based on truth and love, without the damage caused by alcohol. We may even be more kind and loving to all we meet and our organisations would be more caring as a result.
In short, our societies would be far more loving, kinder, equal and inclusive of all, and our lives far more joyful.
Religious
I hate alcohol because:
- Drinking wine as part of communion in many churches is a bastardisation of the life and teachings of Yeshua (Jesus). After Yeshua commenced his teachings he would not have drunk any substance that was poisonous for his body. He loved himself and all of humanity too much.
- Drinking wine as part of communion in many churches is a bastardisation of the Last Supper, which symbolised the letting go of food and drink which does not honour and support our bodies.
- Because some institutionalised religions sanction drinking and some sects even manufacture alcohol, it normalises and enables the drinking of alcohol by their congregations.
Now I’m not perfect, so sometimes some reaction creeps in when I think about alcohol. But mostly I hate alcohol because I love humanity so much and I hate to see and feel the huge harm caused by alcohol.
You often hear the old “moderation in all things” argument as an excuse to keep drinking alcohol, i.e. “I only have one or two drinks a day – where is the harm in that?” The harm is that alcohol, a substance that is poisonous to the human body and to societies, becomes ‘normal.’ Children see their parents and other adults drink alcohol, so they drink it when they grow up. Indeed, many people believe they cannot ‘celebrate’ major milestones without it and so there is often a lot of pressure on everyone to drink to “help them celebrate.” So many end up drinking alcohol, not because they want to or because they like the taste (remember your first taste of alcohol? Yuk!): more so to ‘be social’ or to ‘fit in’ or to be “one of the boys.”
But… would you give a baby even a ‘moderate’ amount of alcohol? If not, why not? Let’s be absolutely honest: we all know deep down that alcohol is harming us and harming our societies.
Is it not time that we de-normalised the drinking of alcohol? There will come a time when the harm caused by alcohol will no longer be sustainable. A future without any alcohol is coming – how about we bring that time forward?
By Anonymous
References:
- co.nz. (2018). Qualified addiction counsellors not wanted in NZ prisons | Pundit. [online] Available at: https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/qualified-addiction-counsellors-not-wanted-in-nz-prisons [Accessed 10 Aug. 2018].
- Leask, A. (2016). Family violence incidents increasing. [online] NZ Herald. Available at: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11674698 [Accessed 10 Aug. 2018].
- org. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.wcrf.org/sites/default/files/Summary-third-expert-report.pdf [Accessed 10 Aug. 2018].
Further Reading:
The Abuse of Alcohol – The True Harm
Giving up Alcohol
Shopper Dockets & Alcohol Abuse – Is There Such A Thing As Responsible Service Of Alcohol?
445 Comments
You can tell when a substance is ingrained in the fabric of our society when you read that ‘over 90% of adults in the UK drink alcohol.’ It’s going to take some time before people would want to walk away from this one.
It is interesting how something is normalised when the majority of people partake in the activity. Drinking poison to check out or take the edge off our choices can never be normal.
If the truth be known and if people were willing to look at the harm caused by the consumption of alcohol, I doubt there would be a man or woman standing who hasn’t witnessed the negative consequences to family relationships, either with their own or others.
It is the normalisation of alcohol consumption that is so devastating to the point you have to explain yourself when you do not drink alcohol… this shows us how wayward we are.
Can we just ask ourselves the question why we normalise, accept and actively encourage the consumption of a known poison?
How often do we normalise not just alcohol but many others ways living in order to remain complacent and in total comfort.
It really is quite crazy how we can think its ok to drink alcohol despite the fact it is a listed poison!
What I Love about alcohol is that it has given me a sense of what it is like to be totally disconnected from my body and now days sugar and overly sweet things have the same affect on me so if I can easily see the virtues of non-drinking, which was relatively simple now this feeling of disconnection is transpiring across many other aspect of my life so it is now up to me to eliminate any thing that disconnects me. You have got to Love that.
To react in life and this includes alcohol is feeding the ill and abusive energy. Alcohol is a poison, abusive, harmful, destroys relationships, contributes to illness and disease, causes mayhem in hospitals on particular dates of the year and so much more but I am here to observe it all and not allow one ounce of reaction in my body… this is love.
For most of my life I buried the emotion of hate within my body. I did not allow myself to hate anything. It was not the thing to do. These days it is so freeing to allow myself to acknowledge and feel the hatred when it arises – it is an essential part of healing and great medicine for the body.
I used to drink alcohol regularly and convinced myself that it was a cool thing to do, and that it gave me confidence. Admitteldy I did feel more confident, but it was false confidence and made me do silly and sometimes wreckless things that definatley weren’t responsible. It is indeed crazy how we have become so accepting of something that is ultimately so harming to so many, whether it is the drinker of alcohol or those who are around drinkers of it.
There is a great deal about how we live that simply does not make logical sense. A while back the ban of alcohol in a part of the world led to many people drinking alternative versions of it and this led to dramatic results including blindness. The type of alcohol normally sold does not create such dramatic ills, but they accompany plenty of ills none the less, some of which have been highlighted in this blog.
Our pride in our intelligence is not quite in keeping with such widespread behaviour that shows the absolute opposite .
Tis the season once again, that the Health Services hate! It is the time of year where emergency rooms normal attendances of 12% to 15% are alcohol related can jump to 70%. Mad Friday, the last Friday before Christmas has come and gone. But, New Year’s Eve is just around the corner. The countdown has started for the end of the year here in the UK with one drunk driver killing two, Friday night.
For me I hate alcohol because of the way it affects relationships with others and how damaging the effects of it can be and are which I find is a result of it being accepted as being normal. So often people who go alcohol free can feel ostracised and cut off when all they are doing is making a loving choice. And what is shows is often when we make loving choices they show others the unloving choices they are making and so rather than change the choices the outward attacks come to try to make the other cave in so then it becomes normal again and the unloving choices are not exposed or questioned by anyone, even if it is unconsciously.
I have come to detest anything that takes us away from the truth of who we all are. And there are a lot of things that do this, in fact our entire world pretty much revolves around and strives on all that exists to take us away from the truth. All of our suffering is as a result of these things and all of our suffering is completely in vain. There would be no need for even one person to cry if we were living the truth of who we all are.
Alcohol has been very much normalised in our society to the point where we have perhaps become blind to what it truly does to us…
Alcohol is a poison and interestingly the human body is not designed to be able to detoxify it properly in fact we lack the enzymes in the liver to be able to convert the alcohol molecule into a non toxic molecule. So the only way we can detoxify alcohol is by converting it first into a molecule that is even more toxic than alcohol and then from that we can convert it into something else that can then be flushed out of the body. Crazy….and even crazier is the fact that we still continue to drink this when science shows what it does to us.
“…. everyone seems so much at ease with themselves and each other. ” yes I have noticed this too and as you say conversations can go deeper withour alcohol – no false bonhomie or small talk.
I have been to so many parties and weddings now where there is no alcohol. The atmosphere is amazing as there is no false jollity fuelled by alcohol. The joy and conviviality has to be experienced to understand that alcohol is so not necessary in social settings in order to have fun.
Very few cases of domestic violence are not associated in some way with alcohol or drugs. And yet alcohol remains legal and many drugs are being normalised and in some countries made legal. This makes no sense in terms of making supportive decisions for our societies.
Alcohol is a known poison, yet we still consume it. This is just one example of many things that we use to medicate ourselves. But what are we medicating ourselves for? What is going on with us that requires us to use a substance that takes us out? We may feel our lives are fine – that all the boxes are ticked and we are ‘happy’ and yet still we have the glass of wine or two…but my question is if we know the damage it does to our brain cells, the guts, the liver and more, then what are we compelled to still continue to use it?
And the fact that we are often introduced to it when younger than the legal age by our parents – as it was when I was young, and our brain cells are still forming. Maybe this happens less these days?
One of my friends recently reminded me of just how horrible the human race can be when drunk, prime examples being those ’18 to 30′ holidays and the ‘Booze Cruise’ trips over to France to buy lots of duty free alcohol, activities that in the past have made me recoil in horror and leave me wondering why we still champion a substance that makes us behave worse than animals?
Go to an A and E at weekend nights. There you see the evidence of the harm alcohol can do.
Alcohol becomes the focus and a priority over connection and people. It’s a drug to which many are addicted.
Well said Ariana – Christmas is a time of much joy and love, but if you are not feeling that then you feel more of the emptiness and loneliness that can drive you to seek medicines or behaviours that can numb you and dull you out. But this always comes with a cost, for when we are not thinking further about the responsibility (or lack of) of our behaviours and choices, then things unfold that only make the situation worse in some way or another. We may if lucky avoid an immediate case of domestic violence or car accident etc, but the onslaught on our own body cannot be avoided though it can be denied or ignored.
As a small child, I was privy to seeing how adults behaved at dinner parties and celebrations which more often than not involved large amounts of alcohol – and I got to see some people vomiting severely after drinking copious amounts of alcohol, behaving in unpleasant ways towards others as well, and most of all I recall the smell – the acrid smell of stale alcohol and old cigarettes that would make my stomach churn. From seeing what it did to so many of the people that I cared about, it was a quick fix for me never really being that keen on alcohol – and this all came about whilst I was not even yet a teenager! When I was 11 years old I spoke to some family members (when they were not drunk anymore) and I shared with them how upsetting it was to see them the way they were when they were drunk and told them the simple truth of how unpleasantly they behaved towards me when in this state. I told them I preferred to hang out with them when they were not drunk. This was actually a very powerful thing to do – for me to express this to them but also for them to get the honest feedback from someone who knew them as normal and also as drunk. And guess what – they actually reduced their drinking significantly after this conversation and never went back to that level of alcohol consumption. Wow – the power of someone expressing something to someone else without judgement or criticism but simply sharing an honesty about how things felt!
If we were to interview the liver or the stomach or the brain around how it feels to have the body consume alcohol, there would be a clear answer of ‘no thank you’…yet the reality is that we over-ride what we know to be the best thing to do, and we do it anyways. So what is it that is really driving the consumption of alcohol, this incessant demand for consuming something that we know will bludgeon us and not acutally support us? There is obviously more to this than we can see straight up – perhaps this need to have alcohol has something to do with the fact that when we bludgeon ourselves, then we dont get to feel the quality or lack of quality that we are living our lives with? Why would you abuse yourself if you felt amazing?
A great question – ‘why would you abuse yourself if you felt amazing?’ This is what needs addressing. When young at parties I felt shy and ‘less than’, so a drink or a cigarette in my hand made me feel more confident – or so I thought. We need to get to the root of why we are attracted to these addictive behaviours that can get out of control in some cases.
The challenge with cutting back on or eliminating alcohol is that there is such a demand for it at this point. And it feels like the demand comes from the fact that many are using alcohol as a medicine to not feel something in their lives. Usually we seek a substance or a medicine to dull out a pain we are feeling – and so it is understandable why this behaviour is so rampant in our society. Hence part of the answer to reducing all the alcohol related violence and car accidents etc lies in our ability to look at life and what is not working for us on a personal level and dealing with that first. And though this is quite simple to approach it is far from easy, especially if we are not convinced that this is an issue.
Many may not want to see the harm alcohol causes let alone deal with it because of the demand for it however there will come a day when we realise alcohol is not the answer. This is not by force or preaching from another but by allowing and giving space for an unfolding and not to have any expectations of what this may look like.
And have we considered how much money is spent each week purchasing alcoholic beverages? It is not uncommon for many to put aside a few hundred dollars each week to spend on alcohol and going out on the weekends for example. Just imagine if this money was actually instead spent on self care for themselves…where would we be as a society then?
It is astonishing the number of activities and vices we go around claiming we ‘enjoy’ or even are ‘good for us’, when you don’t have to look very far to witness how unsupportive they are in truth and at times the trail of devastation they leave behind. At some point we will have to stop and consider what part of us is so committed to live such a lie and what is the gain from such deliberate and systematic self-abuse.
We only every decide to poison our selves because there is an emotion inside us we want to kill, but invariably drinking alcohol or ingesting other substances will never actually do that. When we are empowered to feel, nominate and release the emotions from our bodies that we attempt to smother up with alcohol, our need to dull our senses and poison our bodies vanishes.
Me too Doug. I hate the way we allow our selves to be hood winked into thinking alcohol is okay or even good for us because of our un-resolved emotional needs that leave us believing poisoning our selves is a normal way of life, when in fact it destroys our bodies, drowns out our innate wisdom and bankrupts humanity.
People do struggle when you tell them you don’t drink and can become quite offended by it as if it’s a judgment on them. I used to be one of those people who believed that you couldn’t have a good time unless there was alcohol involved but thankfully those days are far behind me.
I hate that we have created a society in which we apparently need alcohol to relieve ourselves of what is going on. And I hate that we are blind to the fact that alcohol contributes to the mess we are all in and keeps the circle going.
I hate alcohol and what it does to people when they consume it. I understand that everyone has a choice to drink it but I hate the impact it has not just on the person drinking it but on everyone around them. Alcohol is evil and until we reach a place where we can recognise and accept the evil that dwells within alcohol, then alcohol will remain a part of our lives. Alcohol is not the answer to our woes.
Funny you should say this Doug – that excuse-all phrase ‘anything in moderation’ is like the biggest cop out ever and makes no sense. It is surely impossible to justify consuming poison even in moderate amounts.
I came from a big drinking family and having started early stopped drinking alcohol aged 24 when I started my nurse training. It just didn’t make sense to be beginning a career I was really looking forward to and then consuming something that would interfere with my enjoyment of and efficacy in this new job… just for starters think early shifts and being fit to really care for others.
Sometimes people drink so that they are more socially at ease however we do not behave like our authentic selves so really what is the quality of connection we have with others?
‘I realised there were personal, societal and religious reasons for this hate and that they all stemmed from how much I love people and how much I hate the damage alcohol causes to individuals, families, organisations and society itself.’ When we take a step back and look at parts of life like this we can begin to truly get the whole picture of how we have set life up, how it does not work as we have tried to make it be.
It is interesting to observe how the consumption of alcohol, even in moderation, can make it difficult to think or talk straight, or how much concentration has to go into talking and quite often that talking is about nonsense. Also people who you would associate as being level headed and rational turn into someone completely different and find the most banal things hilarious. I simply don’t see the purpose in it.
Agreed Gill and yet we champion it as everything that it is about, saying it is our own freedom to choose but the effect on society is super widespread.
Well said Doug, there are those things in life which arouse such hate but from that we can feel the deeper love that comes with it for the people affected by that which we hate.
We champion the fact that when we drink we are more relaxed with people and feel more confident but what we fail to realise is that that is not our true self and that getting the confidence we so desperately want is not that hard to come by. Confidence is not about kidding ourselves that we are outgoing and loud, it is about knowing who you are and that you are equipped to deal with anything.
Me too Doug, for the me ‘everything in moderation’ is something that I hate as it is a lie we are sold saying it is ok, when we know full well it is not, yet now we have a justifiable reason and excuse to have it or do something.
I agree Gill, especially when it’s the red grape that’s responsible on account of the reversatrol in it. The alcohol isn’t.
It’s an interesting question, if we wouldn’t give a baby alcohol or something as we know it is harming to our bodies then why would we consume it ourselves?
When we realise just how beautiful we really are, the need to poison our selves via any means melts away. Not only do we need more education on just how harmful alcohol is, we need more education on just how amazing we all are, as when this truth hits home it becomes very obvious what heals us and what harms us.
It is the education of how amazing we are that is needed for, as you say Rowena, once we realise that then ‘the need to poison our selves via any means melts away’.
How can we wake up so many times feeling dreadful and regretting our choices from the night before before we start to admit that alcohol is poison to the body?
It’s crazy isn’t it, we have even come to joke about it as if it’s just part of life.
I love purity. Alcohol and purity does not go together very well. People who drank alcohol are not in their innocence anymore but in a way of being that covers all of this up- gives them a false self confidence or emotional openness, e.g. That’s why I hate alcohol.
‘When I used to drink alcohol, I turned into a completely different person – and I hated that person. I became loud, silly, often argumentative and sometimes even sexist.’ If we were to ask people to respond honestly about how drinking alcohol really makes them feel then I would imagine their response would be similar. How deep therefore must be the insecurities that run in a person to make them continue behaving in a way that is so counter to their naturalness and so self-abusive.
The last supper is an interesting study as no one is eating or drinking but everyone is expressing in some way, could it be that expression of any kind is related to being divinely connected, therefore expression is everything when it comes to our evolution!
Many of us who have drunk alcohol have woken up the next morning hating what we did, said or became…and yet we then go and do it all again. Unless we value ourselves then we won’t care if we sell ourselves short.
We need to hate anything that stops us being who we truly are. That’s a very, very long list, but until we start to treasure our true selves then we will not have the purpose to do anything about it.
This time of year (Christmas ) is actually a heavy time for people drinking and as a result there are a lot of disputes within families. It reminds me that alcohol really does not support our bodies or our relationships at all.
As a society until we stop and ask why do we drink, we do we need the crutch, nothing will change.
I’ve always hated alcohol. It took the people I loved and replaced them with beings that said hurtful things and found that funny.
I loved alcohol. It fulfilled a need and I felt the price was worth paying. When the need went, the desire to alcohol went as well and its negative impact was not at all a price worth paying any more.
When people don´t drink, they have to feel the tension of intimacy- how insecure they are with other people and how much they avoid and miss a level of intimacy in their life. It is also interesting what people choose otherwise- when they don´t drink -substitutes like food or sweets are also a perfect medication to numb yourself from that tension.
I hate, how people live in the illusion that alcohol is simply a human pleasure. Because of living in that illusion they are blind to see, what alcohol does energetically to others and themselves. You are actually saying to energies by drinking: come in and rape energetically me and everyone around me. Have you ever felt drained and empty after drinking ?
I find certain conversations quite entertaining when it is apparent how much it offends someone that I don’t drink. But it also teaches me not to hold ideals and beliefs about what’s right and wrong for anyone in any aspect of life or character.
I am only here to reflect what feels true to me, to not waver with it and not to judge what other people do. Deepening observation and the willingness to understand is the key for me to give space to everyone no matter what they are doing.
There is life after alcohol, a great deal of it, to be enjoyed to the hilt with all our faculties switched on and a body full of vitality because it is no longer being poisoned.
I hate alcohol too with the extremely harmful effects it has on humanity as a whole and the unseen damage and suffering it is causing in the world while being tolerated and accepted and celebrated as “normal” part of life that does not come from who we truly are.
“When I used to drink alcohol, I turned into a completely different person”. Ouch, yes I have known this one too – confirmed by the horrible hangover the day after when the body is clearly stating that it has been poisoned and abused.
There are so many cocktails which are served with a burning flame and the idea is you drink it with the flame still going. Why would anyone want to drink a highly flammable toxin, one that is a very effective cleaning agent. It really makes no sense.
It was very clear that one time I went to dinner with some friends and we started to chat and the conversation became deep. Then these friends started drinking it became harder and harder to talk with them, it felt like I had to use a greater effort to speak as there was an energy coming towards me, it was clearly felt. It was draining and exhausting.
“When I used to drink alcohol, I turned into a completely different person”. Been there, got the T-Shirt. How can a substance that is legal and supposedly safe to drink cause such a dramatic shift in personality to the extent that we can become so argumentative, aggressive and violent? If we saw this happen to our children after consuming a drink, would we not ban it from the home?
There are so many things that I hate but all of them come under the one banner and that is that they are purposefully designed to take us away from the truth.
So simply expressed. When I came back to this blog this morning I was feeling how much I hate the Catholic church (I was raised as a Catholic) and I had just been thinking about a time when I had visited St Peter’s in Rome and how this flush of anger and resentment had come up.. it took me by surprise at the time as I found myself stomping around in utter reaction! It was only later that I understood that this reaction was deeply rooted in the recognition of how far from the truth I let Catholicism take me and how far from the truth we live as a society because of its influence.
Me too, I love people and I see so much harm come from drinking alcohol. We think it is a treat and we think it makes us feel better and cope with life better but it doesn’t. It is a pernicious band aid with a profound ripple effect. It has taken me a while to be OK to own this as my choice and not feel embarrassed that I have chosen to ‘go against the grain’.
I can remember the first time I tasted alcohol and how intuitively my body rejected it and I did not like the taste. And then as I grew older I consciously over-rode these feelings in order to fit in to the point where I convinced myself I actually liked it, when I never really did. I never liked alcohol but I certainly needed it for a while.
If we all connected to the love that we are alcohol would not have a such a high place in our lives. We would have a use for it on a functional basis like cleaning, medical use, preserving but we wouldn’t feel the need to put it into our bodies.
While it is scientifically proved that alcohol is a poison for the body, the same science can advise the use of it because of some beneficial effects it would have on some illnesses and diseases.
That there is such a huge demand for alcohol shows how devastated people are nowadays as they use it to numb the misery they feel from the choices they have made.
I wonder if the economics work out for us – do we collect enough taxes on the sale of alcohol to cover all the costs of the violence, prison sentences and sickness that arise as a consequence of consuming it?
I hate alcohol because it is a poison in your body. I have always felt this from my own body since a small child.
Alcohol was readily available at home and considered the norm in our family. Wine was drunk at meal times, when friends/relatives came over, at celebrations etc.
It was even considered a health remedy for anaemia and poor blood circulation in a medical journal.
I hate alcohol because of how it changes your personality and behaviour.
I hate alcohol because it causes domestic violence- so much of this is still kept hidden within closed doors
I hate alcohol because it causes car accidents and deaths of roads which could have been avoided.
Children are very aware of how alcohol changes a person. When my son was younger he literally cried when a dear relative had had a couple of drinks. He could feel how altered this person was and he was very hurt by this. If we were to sit down with children and have an honest conversation with them about alcohol, I think adults would be shocked at what children are witnessing and feeling. The problem is a) we dismiss children and their thoughts as insignificant and b) it wouldn’t even occur to us to do this, so happy are we literally in the poison we have accepted as normal.
“The harm is that alcohol, a substance that is poisonous to the human body and to societies, becomes ‘normal.’ Children see their parents and other adults drink alcohol, so they drink it when they grow up”. This is a great point. I grew up watching my parents drink ‘in moderation’ every day and it never crossed my mind that I would not grow up to drink alcohol. It was just what you do when you grow up and therefore actually something to aspire to. This really is a shame as some off the worst events of my life could have been avoided if alcohol was not the norm.
But it is interesting to consider that you are not allowed by your parents to drink any alcohol when you are a child and only when you mature you are inaugurated to the adult life in which you even should drink alcohol, for instance, to be a ‘real’ man.
Admitting that we actively poison ourselves is an important first step. For it helps us start to see that this is by no means limited to what we drink
Alcohol is a very obvious one, though and may cover our awareness of other, seemingly less harmful acts and substances. Once the interest in alcohol is gone, the other items stand out much more. Very true.
‘Alcohol is a big factor in why men and women are in prison, especially for violence charges. It is estimated that about 80-90% of crime occurs under the influence of alcohol and drugs or is committed to feed an addiction (1)’ This is huge and if true, shows how unwilling we are as a society to get responsible about our choices. As long as we get our individual needs met and our individual drinking patterns satisfactions, we easily can dismiss the fact that we are aiding and abetting a section of society to commit alcohol related crimes.
So true, we look the other way because we, as a society, are unwilling to look at why alcohol is being used in the first place to end up being indicated in the rates of men and women in prison.
The harm alcohol is having on society is devastating from the obvious out plays that happen but what is even more devastating is that we have accepted this as a normal way of being and that this is ok. So when people start to say no to the abuse on every level alcohol delivers it is not something that most want to hear or see. However it is deeply deeply needed. What level of abuse are we prepared to put up with, no one is forcing the alcohol down our throats.
We as a society have normalised Alcohol too much. Especially around Christmas time, the NHS have dedicated team in London to help people who are falling into a coma in the street because of binge drinking.
When I was a baby it was common to give the baby a little brandy or rum in their bottle to make them sleep. We may have moved on from those days (nearly 60 years) but we have not actually gone very far.
When people are under the influence its a roulette wheel – you don’t know who you are going to get, or what kind of mood they will be in. And then the next question of whether they remember anything about it the next day.
Alcohol is one of the most socially accepted and dangerous drugs we have,, I would be interested to know the difference in cost to the NHS, society and otheriwise between alcohol and the various criminalised drugs available. I am not saying criminalised drugs are any better it is just that at least there is an honesty which comes with the harm of crack cocaine for example which seems to be missing with alcohol as we bring alcohol into school settings all the time and yet would everyone be ok if heroin and cocaine were brought into schools, both addictive, both harmful, both poisonous drugs.
I hate alcohol because it is a poison that has been touted to be an essential part of human life and fundamental for having fun. I hate alcohol because it ruins lives, kills people and generates violence and conflict. I hate alcohol because we deviate further from our true nature when we drink it.
I never got alcohol. I never got why it was a fundamental aspect of adult life. I have never got why we have even created a culture that celebrates how cultured you are depending on your knowledge of wine and how you can consume expensive ones. A spilt bottle of expensive wine compared to a bottle of cheap wine still has the same stench to me.
It’s important to detail how we hate behaviours and energies to cement our commitment to no longer tolerate and change.
Yes we all know that our health systems are struggling to cope with the rates of illness and disease and we keep talking about finding more money but meanwhile we are ignoring some rather large elephants in the room – alcohol being one of them – that are causing so much completely preventable harm to health.
I remember seeing a presentation on the dangerous drugs of our time, rating them by the deaths they cause. Things like heroin, cocaine etc were nothing compared to the associated death toll from alcohol and cigarettes which were literally in the hundreds of thousands.
Only a few years back you were considered a loser if you didn’t smoke. Today the same applies if you do not drink. Our social norms change all the time, but only on a surface level – who knows what it will be in 20 years time. Either way, whatever social expectation there is of people to “fit in”, the only maker of whether it is something that truly relaxes and helps truly let go of tension will be the body, because if alcohol really helped us unwind, we would not have the severe consequences of over-consumption that we do.
I would say it is already changing, when I speak to teenagers they seem less interested in alcohol than we were and there are groups of friends that don’t drink. My neighbours daughter at age 23ish had an alcohol free wedding. Whereas when I was at school (26 years ago) there was just one girl who didn’t drink and she was very much cast as an outsider for her choices.
We really need to be looking at why we need to unwind and do not have the tools to do this is in a way that is good for our health and wellbeing. We need to look at why we are getting wound up in our days rather than using something like alcohol as a temporary fix.
I know Viktoria how much that has changed, I guess that comes from the fact that we see the consequences of smoking and perhaps when we really see that with drinking the same will apply.
If we consider the enormous harm caused by alcohol (and smoking cigarettes) should we not also consider the fact that we still permit them as legal activities. If we knew what we know today would we introduce them again? So why continue with what is so clearly harmful in so many ways?
This comes back to supply and demand and the fact that we are willing to put up with who we are not. Alcohol is a huge factor in so much abuse – to ourselves and to each other. And I’ve only come to see this now that I have chosen not to drink because of the effects it has on my body.
I hate the fact that it is abnormal not to choose to poison your body, that we have created a society that actually makes it harder to make a stand against the tide and take care of ourselves on the most basic of levels.
Thanks for your reflections in this blog, Anonymous. I love specially this one: “would you give a baby even a ‘moderate’ amount of alcohol? ” When we connect with a baby, we need to feel the delicacy there is in them, as well as in ourselves, and from that space, alcohol is clearly felt for what it is… it’s literally impossible to taste it and not be harmed. We can theorise whaterver we want around alcohol, but the body never lies. By connecting with our sensitivity, again, everything gets revealed.
We can hate alcohol all we like but as long as we have something to give us that relief we are contributing to the same mess.
Yes great point Michael and it is important to see where we might have stopped something we know is not good for us, but may have replaced it with something else.
I love how this article makes it really clear that it is not about judging anybody but to tell the truth about what a toxic substance as alcohol does to ourselves and others. It hurts to see and feel the impact of it.
Anyway should one choose to drink alcohol he or she can never escape the truth within his/ her body- even if he or she tries hard to delay it. We can never escape the absolute fact that we are divine and made of love.
Alcohol is a classified chemical poison ……………..
Alcohol and its harmful effects are definitely to be hated.
I only started to drink, as I liked that I was more seemingly open and shameless. Which indicates how much I was under tension in life, when I needed a drink to become more loosened up. Healing the root causes, why I was in anxiousness and control in life allowed myself to let go of the alcohol adventures, as they got highlighted in being false and simple escapes. Embracing me and my body was way more joyful than any kind of party or dinner night with alcohol since then.
I know the comment of: Alcohol is not good for you but it depends on in which moderation. It gives this excuse of having the constant relief and distraction, as it is not too harming for the body. What if any slight poison we put in our body has already a huge effect on us? Because we seek the relief and retreat of life so much, we are too blind to acknowledge and to admit that fact.
As long as humanity is not open to see and reflect the truth, they will always seek for substances that offers them relief. You can delay as much as you like to feel truth, but you will never escape it. Fact!
When you hear about tragedies from others, alcohol is almost always involved. Why we don’t take the Absolute harm of alcohol more seriously I don’t know.
Alcohol is dangerous on its own and even more potent when mixed with other things, there needs to be greater warnings about the true harm of alcohol.
How is it that we champion a substance that is costing us a fortune in healthcare worldwide – that alone should tell us something.
Alcohol is a useful disinfectant. Is it also accurate to say “why I hate our need for alcohol”?
Call it what we like, alcohol is an enemy of life.
If alcohol were a person we’d put them in prison for consecutive lifetimes for the wilful damage that they have caused.