PART 2
When you buy liquor, you are financially supporting an industry. But you need to know that they are not as much your friends as you might think. As the quotations below indicate, intentionally or unintentionally, they appear to be working to ruin not only you, but your children as well:
"We must not forget that our business is dependent upon the sufferance [ permission] of the public. We are not in a position like the shoe business, clothing business, flour business or the steel business." "The Brewer's Digest, " February 1944 (the journal of the beer-manufacturing industry).
"We believe a teenage moderation program [to get more teenagers drinking] should be adopted with some real strength behind it. We're told this is too 'ticklish.' We don't agree. "—"Spirits," November 1955, page 44 (the magazine of wine and liquor manufacturing executives).
"Beer must compete with coffee, tea, milk, and a whole array of carbonated beverages. The brewing industry has not found a satisfactory answer to the problem of introducing beer to a high percentage of the younger generation that is coming along. This is particularly true of the civilian element, which, after all is the big percentage of the people. "—"The Brewer's Digest," February 1952, page 65 (accompanying this statement was a large picture, filling onefourth of the page, of a child, not over five years of age, playing with a toy beer truck).
"Here's a chance for brewers to cultivate a taste for beer in millions of young men who will eventually constitute the largest beer-consuming section of our population."— "The Brewer's Digest." May, 1941 (speaking about the increasing number of military personnel, on the eve of World War II. As you can see, they were quite patriotic: it is more important that we get our soldiers drunk, than that we win the war).
(Statement made following World War II:) "Beer has come into its own and more people have an appetite for beer today since the war, because our recruits were furnished with plenty of beer!'—"The Brewers Bulletin, " June 13, 1946.
"Show young people how to enjoy liquor." "Train your publicity to catch the eye and develop the interest of the younger generation." "Make youth liquor conscious. "—Stated objectives of the liquor industry at a liquor dealers convention, held in the Stevens Hotel, Chicago, 1935.
"Sociological studies give evidence that more and more teenagers are drinking. . and are drinking greater quantities than ever before. "—Editorial, in "Tavern Topics," the Journal of the Washington State License Beverage Association" June 1954.
"Brewers were among the first to realize that television could play a big part in increasing the consumption of beer, especially in the home, and many of them hopped on the TV bandwagon as quickly as commuters hop on a rush hour subway. .
"In relation to all other types of products, beer is a strongly advertised product, holding a prominent position second to foods—in television advertising. .
"Brewers were quick to jump on the TV sports bandwagon at the very outset. By doing so they were able to dominate TV's most natural entertainment, and came up with good audience ratings without the talent and production costs of dramatic and variety shows.
"Television has offered the brewers a unique advantage. It has opened a vast new market, almost untapped—the American home."—"The Brewer's Digest, September 1950, pages 60-61.
SOME FACTS ABOUT ALCOHOL
Medical research has proven that the taking of alcohol into the body in any form or quantity impairs the judgment, normal restraint, and the performance of skilled movements. This means that it matters not whether it be beer, wine, or hard liquor —it is equally dangerous—and the use of it can equally turn you into an alcoholic.
Ten to twenty-five teaspoons of pure alcohol will cause obvious drunkenness. A bottle of 4% beer (360 c.c.) contains 4 teaspoons of alcohol. Four ounces (120 c.c.) of wine (14% alcohol) contains 4 teaspoons of alcohol. Three ounces of fortified wine (21% alcohol) contains 5 teaspoons of alcohol. Eight teaspoons (32 c.c.) of whisky contains 4 teaspoons of alcohol.
Statistics indicate that one person in every seven that begins drinking ends up as a confirmed alcoholic. The only answer that medical science knows for avoiding the addictive properties of alcohol is total abstinence.
Here is a medical definition of alcohol:
Alcohol, from a medical point of view, is an intoxicating, hypnotic, analgesic, anesthetic, narcotic, poisonous, habit-forming, craving-producing, and addiction-producing drug.
1. Alcohol is intoxicating because drunkenness is created by its use.
2. Alcohol is hypnotic, because it tends to put people to sleep.
3. Alcohol is analgesic, because in certain doses it stops pain.
4. Alcohol is anesthetic, because in higher doses it induces sound sleep so that a person can undergo an operation.
5. Alcohol is a narcotic, because in large doses it stupifies.
6. Alcohol is a depressant, because it depresses (slows down) the central nervous system and a number of body functions.,
7. Alcohol is a poison, because in large doses it will kill a human being, an animal, or a plant that has been exposed to it.
8. Alcohol is habit-forming because with continued use a fixed desire will be created to repeatedly drink it. Alcohol is addiction-producing in that its continued use as a habit cannot easily be set aside.
[Remember- 'intoxicated' means 'poisoned'!]
Here are some problems that alcohol has brought to America: Juvenile Delinquency—From 25-75 percent of juvenile delinquency is directly or indirectly due to alcoholic beverages, according to various reports. Divorce—From 25-75 percent of all divorces are directly or indirectly due to alcohol. Crime-Felonies and misdemeanors are reported to be due to alcohol in at least 50 percent of the cases. Arrests for drunkenness —In a recent year, over 7,000,000 arrests for drunkenness occurred in the United States. It is estimated that less than 10 percent of the people actually drunk that year were arrested.
Economic loss —It is estimated that the economic loss costs America more than $10,000,000,000 yearly.
Sense of values —In the United States there are 537,303 schools and churches, and 582,033 retail liquor stores and saloons. In a recent year, 12,500,000,000 was spent on all religious and educational purposes, whereas 18,250,000,000 was spent on alcoholic beverages.
Alcohol does some things that the liquor ads never mention: It destroys brain cells, fatty tissue, and body heat balance. It seriously damages the nervous system. It lessens disease resistance, hearing, nerve sensitivities, good judgment, and vision. It deadens one's sense of fatigue. It slows physical reactions. It scars liver tissue. It ruins the brain.
Scores of tests reveal the same thing: alcohol always reduces efficiency and safety: When you take 1 ½ shots of whiskey, or 1 ½ bottles of beer, or 1 ½ glasses of wine,—your reaction time is slowed 6 percent. When you take 3 ½ shots of whisky, or 3 ½ bottIes of beer, or 3 ½ glasses of wine, your reaction time is slowed 34 percent. To an automobile driver this would mean that, at a speed of 50 miles per hour, it would require 17 additional feet to bring a car to a stop. But this problem is compounded by the fact that "loaded" drivers are more confident, take more risks, and have far less coordination and good judgment.
In any given year, a drinking driver is generally involved in about one-half of all fatal accidents. Some experts place it as high as 60 percent.
Alcoholic beverages contain ethyl alcohol, which is an anesthetic—not a stimulant. Its effects are inevitable. It undermines power of decision, distorts judgment, impairs eyesight, retards muscular reaction, and increases accidents.
Six out of every ten arrests in the United States are related to alcohol. Two thirds of today's alcoholics began drinking when of high school age. A few years ago one out of every six alcoholics was a woman; now it is one in four. This means over a million women alcoholics. In Los Angeles County, three out of every four applications for divorce or separate maintenance during 1955 resulted because of a liquor problem. More than 40,000 people are killed each year because of a liquor-induced accidents.
The former alcoholic knows that his only safeguard is total abstinence for the rest of his life. He must stay away entirely from liquor in every form. Even to take one gulp will awaken a demon of craving within him.
There is only one answer: leave it totally alone. Alcoholism usually begins with a social drink or two with friends. Sometimes it begins with a "business drink" or two, with a boss or client. It is easy to start, not so easy to stop. The pressures are there to conform, but it takes a man to say "No, I choose not to; thank you."
Case histories of all kinds are to be found in books and magazines. Newspapers run stories on them. But at the heart of them all is the simple fact that it all began with one drink.
If you have never had that first drink; don't take it. If you are having trouble keeping it under control; stop and never again take that "first drink."
You are done with it and you are glad you are done with it, and you thank the God of heaven every day that you are done with it.
At the present time over half the adult population of our nation drink alcoholic beverages. Some eight to nine million of these are known alcoholics. But there are also those who are secret alcoholics. A surprising number of women fall into this category. Not long ago, Harvey Fiske of the National Council on Alcoholism was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "Today there are probably as many women alcoholics as men, and they may be doing more damage and be even farther away from help than men." —Because so many won't admit that they have a real problem.
We cannot solve a problem we deny that we have. No one ever stopped smoking or drinking until he came to the point of admitting that he had a problem and dared not continue any longer.
In 1970, the Rutgers Center for Alcohol Studies made what was probably the largest single study of American drinking practices. A total of 2,746 adult Americans were picked at random and interviewed by a George Washington University research team. Funded by a federal grant of $400,000, the study findings were later placed in a book, "American Drinking Practices." This is what they discovered: Drinkers compose 68 percent of the population, and abstainers (non-drinkers) comprise 32 percent.
The heavy drinkers (12 percent) usually drink nearly every day, but some drink less frequently, taking five or more drinks each time they do.
The moderate drinkers (13 percent) drink from once to several times a month, taking an average of three to four drinks each time.
The light drinkers (28 percent) drink at least once a month, and at each time take one or two drinks.
Infrequent drinkers (15 percent) drink varying amounts less frequently than once a month.
More men drink than women, but the number of drinking women is steadily increasing. Of the men surveyed, 77 percent drink at least occasionally; of the women 60 percent drink. Yet ten years earlier, only 45 percent of the women were drinking.
Classified by nationality groups, 91 percent of the Italian-Americans drink, 80 percent of Russian, Polish, or Baltic origins. Irish immigrants were the highest: 93 percent, with 31 percent heavy drinkers. The Rutgers study also revealed that those who attend church regularly are 50 percent less likely to be heavy drinkers than those who have no church affiliation. Yet there was drinking among church members: At the top of the list were Jews, Episcopalians, and Roman Catholics, in that order.
The highest percentage of drinkers live in the Northeast (79 percent), and the second highest on the Pacific Coast (73 percent). The lowest was found in the Southern States, and the average (about 35 percent) was in the South Central States.
The heaviest drinkers (1) come from families where the parents drank also, (2) their origin is in ethnic groups, such as the Irish, where drinking is quite common, (3) their religion (Roman Catholic, for example) places little or no restraint on drinking, and (4) they live in large cities where heavy drinking is prevalent.
Here are two interesting statements:
Addiction to alcohol is "the number one health problem in the nation."—Dr. Roger O. Egeberg, Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington D.C.
"The provision of adequate manpower and facilities to treat all alcoholics with presently known methods on a one-to-one basis would in itself utilize the full time of every physician and fill every hospital bed in the nation. "—The National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
The Effects of Alcohol on the Body
Alcohol fools people. They think it has done one thing for them when in reality it has accomplished quite the opposite. Drinking some of it, a person imagines that he has become strong, when he is becoming weakened; he thinks he is becoming warmer, when his body is actually becoming colder. It appears that he is being energized by the alcohol, when in reality his coordination, nutrition and strength are being lessened. He thinks that the alcohol is stimulating him, when actually it is depressing his entire physical system.
Alcohol first increases stomach acid secretions, and then slows them down. Then the alcohol irritates the stomach lining, resulting in congestion, inflammation, and ulceration. A chronically-inflamed stomach is the result of regularly using liquor.
Alcohol also develops in alcoholics a disease known as cirrhosis of the liver. Many small areas of it are destroyed and replaced by scar tissue. As the destruction of liver cells continues, the liver tries to make new ones, but scar tissue keeps building up where the dead cells once were. These scar nodules give the liver an appearance of being "hob-nailed."
The damage and scarring reduces proper blood circulation through this, the largest organ inside the body. Impaired circulation to the liver equally affects the stomach, intestines, and spleen, and those organs also suffer.
The back pressure, of blood held back from entering the liver, begins to cause blood plasma to flow out from the peritoneal veins into the abdominal cavity behind the liver. There it accumulates, sometimes in such large quantities that it must be drawn off repeatedly in order to relieve the alcoholic of severe distention and discomfort.
We call this nightmare cirrhosis of the liver. It is progressive, and generally ends in death. Yet it could be entirely avoided. Drinking-liquor was the indirect cause of the problem. And stopping the alcohol was the only real way to solve it.
Drinking alcohol produces warm, flushed skin. The drinker feels warmer because more blood is flowing through the skin vessels. But the blood is being drawn from inside the body, which becomes gradually cooler. Body temperature keeps falling. Some people think that drinking liquor will "warm" them up in cold weather. But this is not really true.
Alcohol lowers resistance to disease (especially pneumonia). Medical reports have dealt with this fact in detail. Here is an example of this: The Cook County Hospital, in Chicago, summarized the death rates among 3,422 cases of pneumonia as follows:
49.87% of them were excessive drinkers; 34.40% were moderate drinkers; 22.45% were occasional drinkers.
Drinking alcohol shortens the life span drastically. The death records of 2,000,000 policyholders in 43 American life insurance companies are summarized for the 20-year period from 1885 to 1905, as follows:
People drinking 2 glasses of beer or 1 of whisky per day—were 18% more likely to die than the average American.
Of those with a past record of heavy drinking, but with present apparent cure—50% higher.
Among those using over 2 glasses of beer or 1 of whisky daily—86% higher.
Alcohol, when it enters the blood stream and is carried to the liver, it begins being slowly converted into carbon dioxide and water. This oxidation is quite slow, amounting to about 2 teaspoons of alcohol an hour. (If it were food, it would be equal to the body using up two cubes of sugar each hour—and that is slow!)
Alcohol is not a food, and cannot be stored in the body. Also it remains in the same form until converted into oxygen and water, so it provides no nourishment of any kind. It aids in neither growth nor repair. It is a useless fluid in the body, as far as help is concerned; it is a dangerous fluid in the body, when all the damage that it does is considered.
It neither builds up nor energizes any part of the body. Instead it depresses the system and causes a vicious addiction that is difficult to break.
Drinking alcohol greatly hinders proper nutrition for the body. Chronic alcoholics are always quite malnourished. This is due to decreased food intake (because they lose their appetite for food), decreased absorption and utilization of the food eaten (because of changes in the liver and digestive tract), and increased food requirements (because liquor-drinking increases body requirements for calories and certain vitamins, especially those of the B complex).
Two malnutrition diseases that alcoholics are most likely to develop are these: Beriberi, with its characteristic damage to the nerves controlling the legs and arms,—or damage to the general circulation, with weakness and enlargement of the heart. Pellagra, with a sore tongue; rash over the hands, ankles and neck; abdominal pain, diarrhea, and serious mental changes.
Alcoholic consumption directly leads to several mental diseases. A study of over 56,000 patients in Massachusetts, resulted in the fact, as stated by Dr. Neil Dayton of Boston, that chronic alcoholism was a prominent cause of one fifth of all admissions to mental hospitals in that state.