When I was a sophomore in high school, I enrolled into a drug abuse class. At that time period, I did not realize that alcohol abuse actually was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse, 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 all through the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol treatment and the diverse alcohol rehab centers that are usually available to problem drinkers.
Some of the damaging results correlated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class without a doubt alarmed me. The ruined lives and countless problems experienced by most alcohol addicted people made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. In a word, I did not want to face the wreckage and ruination that alcohol dependent people almost always experience.
Let this sink in 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 ingesting alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What teen wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related problems before he or she becomes twenty-one?
What teenager 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 problems in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after a person has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would a teenager want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that focuses on irresponsible drinking?
These issues were so important that I talked about some of them in class throughout the school year. What was absolutely amazing to me was the number of students who essentially didn’t care about the dangerous results of hazardous drinking that I discussed. It was almost as if they couldn’t be bothered with the truth and how these results can wreck their lives. For the first time in my life I started to understand something that my grandfather used to emphasize throughout my younger years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.
