|
|
Yes, more drunk driving stories. I find it interesting how public attitudes towards drinking and driving are slowly changing.
It seems that an Oregon man left work and started drinking beers in his car from a cooler as he was driving home. On the way home he managed to get very drunk and slammed into a stopped or slow moving car on the side of the road.
He killed all 4 people in that car but, he himself, was seemingly unharmed. The police came and found the man had 4 prior convictions for driving under the influence of an intoxicant.
After being brought to the hospital the man refused a blood test to determine his blood alcohol count but submitted to one 3 hours later. The test registered a blood alcohol level of 3 times the legal limit of .08.
He later pleaded guilty to 4 counts of first degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 43 years in prison.
So do not drink and drive…..
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
A ‘drunk driver error’ resulted in the arrest of a Van Buren County, Michigan man.
It seems that the drunk driver was heading home around 2 am and started to get sick. So he quickly pulls into the nearest parking lot but misses and ends up on the lawn where he got sick and passed out.
The parking lot and lawn he ended up on contained the local State Police barracks…
They merely walked outside, woke him up and arrested him. His blood alcohol count was twice the legal limit.
Outside of Islamic countries the majority of people in most countries of the world drink alcoholic beverages.
- China’s alcohol consumption has doubled,
- India’s alcohol consumption has increased by 50%,
- In England, 23% boys and 27% girls 15 and 16 years old were drunk three or more times in the past month,
- In Russia, the average male consumes 6 to 7 bottles of vodka per year,
- Of the 100,000 homeless in Japan, 75,000 are alcoholics,
- 10% of all diseases and injuries are a direct result of alcohol consumption,
- Last month 126 million Americans had a least 1 beer, 1 wine or 1 mixed drink,
- 6.2% of eighth grade students, 18.5% of tenth grade students and 30% of twelve grade students have been drunk,
- In one day 250 million is spent at bars, restaurants and liquor stores for alcohol,
- 25% to 30% of all hospital admissions are due directly or indirectly to medical complications from alcohol,
- 50% of all murder victims and 50% of all murderers were drinking at the time of the crime,
- Half of all American adults have or had a close family member who was an alcoholic,
- More than half of the rapes that occur involve alcohol,
- In America, the yearly cost for alcohol abuse and addiction which includes businesses, medical facilities and the judicial system is 184 billion or $638 for every man, woman and child.
Outpatient placement is very important. In the entire process of treating addiction from initial screening for a program, intake, detox, counseling all the way to a sober lifestyle it seems that once the addiction is brought under control the battle has been won.
This is not true…
I had the opportunity to speak to a relapsed addict whose drug of choice was alcohol. He had run the entire gamut from being homeless and drunk to maintaining his own apartment, working and living a sober lifestyle.
In other words everything was in place for this person and he was on a good path until…
Until the only available apartment for him to rent was over a bar. Once he rented the apartment the countdown to relapse had begun. Hearing the noise and activity all day and night from the bar brought back memories of a previous lifestyle and it was a constant, unrelenting push leading to cravings that just had to be satisfied. So he began to go to the bar and drink.
Addiction is not cured once inital treatment is concluded; a sober lifestyle is just that – a way of living, a balancing act over the pit of relapse.
I suggested that after treatment he find a different place to live.
For many of us this is what happens: you drink, you do stupid things, you drink some more, you sleep, you suffer the hangover.
So what is a hangover? The sad truth is that no one understands exactly how and why they are caused.  What contributes to a hangover?
Additives in alcoholic beverages, irritation of the stomach, low blood sugar, dehydration from alcohol and tissue degradation. Or maybe it’s how our body metabolizes alcohol…
Alcohol is viewed by the body as a poison and elimination begins as soon as it is ingested. A small bit of alcohol is exhaled or excreted through sweat, urine and saliva.
But most of the alcohol is oxidized by the liver and excreted through the kidneys and lungs in a 3 step process. First, the alcohol is metabolized into acetalhyde which is extremely toxic to the body and especially the liver. Next it is metabolized into acetic acid and finally into carbon dioxide and water.
Is there a cure for a hangover? No, there isn’t.
Taking acetaminophen for a hangover may cure the headache temporarily but will raise the chances of liver damage. Exercise, coffee, cold showers or drinking fruit juice will not cure one either.
The only cure for a hangover is allowing sufficient time for your body to recover.
Recently a speaker for AA came to speak and he told us his story…
I’ve heard a lot of tragic stories but something about his story ’struck a chord’ in me because I could identify with it; he accomplished what he set out to do by speaking to us, he made people think.
From here on in I’ll refer to him as John. John’s story began with a childhood of mental and physical abuse from alcoholic parents. After years of neglect he finally quit school and to celebrate went on a week long binge. When he woke he was not sure how much time had passed because he stopped remembering what happened on about the second day.
He woke up in a side alley dirty and covered with bruises with no money or wallet. And the first thing he thought was how good a time he must have had…
John continued drinking and held a series of low-paying, short-term jobs to support his habit. He knew deep down that this was not a good life but drowned that feeling in alcohol. Over time he became more and more unhappy and realized he needed to do something about it.
So he borrowed money from several friends and relatives and with the tidy sum of $1000 he hopped on the first bus he could and eventually ended up across the US in California.
This was a new experience, a new life and a new beginning so once off the bus John went to the nearest bar to think a little and celebrate. He quickly hooked up with some local women he found at the bar who helped him spend his money…
So for the next week he and his new friends drank alcohol and smoked crack until his money ran out.
All of a sudden John found himself in a strange place with no friends and no money so he lived the life of the homeless.
He learned how to eat from garbage cans – which cans were good and at what times they were loaded. He collected bottles and returned them to buy cheap wine.
John kept his belongings in a grocery cart from which he had ripped off the tag with the identifying store’s name so the cart would not be taken away, he slept on the street, looked for ways to make money and drank.
This went on for 4 years at which time John had decided that this was the course of his life…he was destined to be homeless and live like he was now and until he died and it wasn’t a terrible life.
One day a stranger came around and passed out free food in exchange for a short conversation. This stranger was a member of a non-profit organization which had a homeless outreach program. The stranger was an AA member and had also been homeless at one time and drinking. Now his job was to help the homeless get a step up in life.
He talked to John often until a tenuous bond was formed. Eventually John entered AA and became a member of that same non-profit agency which gave him the help he needed. Now John is the stranger seen handing out food to the homeless.
Upon reflecting about his homeless existence, John said that the scariest thing was that he grew to accept it so easily that this was his life and it was really ‘ok’.
And that is the thought that touched me so deeply…if you are taking drugs and your life is shit…it is NOT ‘ok’. And it is never too late to change.
In this age of addiction we tend to forget the origins of some of our legal drugs like alcohol and, more specifically, beer. Beer was not always consumed for it’s alcohol…well, not always consumed only for it’s alcohol content, I should say.
 It became so popular in Europe in the past centuries mainly because those who drank beer tended to live longer…
Let me explain this radical statement…
At one point in my life I brewed my own beer and I made it from scratch meaning I ground the malted barley myself, mashed it in hot water, sparged, boiled and fermented. And it came out great. I even taught a class on how to brew beer…
I learned that as the yeast eats the natural sugars during fermentation and excrete alcohol, the yeast will eventually die and sink to the bottom of the fermenter.
Once fermentation is complete and the half-finished beer is transferred to bottles or to kegs, some of this yeast sediment is also transferred and when the beer is drunk, so is the sediment.
My point is that this sediment is loaded with trace minerals such as selenium and B vitamins so drinking unfiltered beer is actually nutritious to some extent.
Beer was made exactly like this for several hundred years and became ingrained in European culture because in those times of malnourishment and famine, beer would provide calories and vitamins unobtainable elsewhere in the diet. Therefore those that drank beer tended to live longer because they received better nourishment on average.
Now, beer is mass produced and quick-aged with chemicals like ether and all yeast sediment is filtered out so a beer now contains nothing but empty calories and alcohol (which is diluted with water to form lite beers).
FAS is an acronym for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; a name for alcohol related birth defects.
 The toxic effects of alcohol on a growing fetus has been documented since the late 1960’s and results in anything from obvious physical abnormalities to behavioral problems.
At first, researchers blamed malnutrition on these defects in a fetus and not alcohol.
Pictured here are some common FAS characteristics although not all of these characteristics may be present in FAS.
There is no test to determine a diagnosis of FAS so at birth only the most severe cases are diagnosed.
FAS is divided into 5 categories from gross defects to no apparent defect; the first 3 include facial deformities and the last 2 do not include facial defects but do include central nervous system problems.
Such a diagnosis must meet the following criteria:
- facial deformities – as in the picture,
- problems with the heart and limbs - may not show,
- retarded growth – pre- and post-natal including head and brain size, height and weight,
- central nervous system problems – problems with the senses, balance, intelligence.
It appears that alcohol use by a pregnant mother will kill cells and rewire the brain of the fetus.
Interesting acronym…so what is it?
The CAGE-AID is a questionnaire to determine the likelihood and the severity of a drug or alcohol problem. It consists of 4 basic questions and a positive answer to just 1 question is an indicator of the likelihood of a problem.
Let me stress the word ‘likelihood’. There are many screening tools such as this and none are infallible meaning that they could be wrong. But when several screening tools such as this are used together and all of them pretty much point to a substance abuse problem…then there probably is a substance abuse problem.
CAGE is an acronym pointing to each of the 4 questions; ‘C’ for ‘Cut down’, ‘A’ for ‘Annoyed’, ‘G’ for ‘Guilty’ and ‘E’ for ‘Eye-opener’.
The questions are:
- Have you ever attempted to Cut down on your alcohol or other drug use?
- Has anyone ever Annoyed you or gotten on your nerves by telling you to cut down or stop drinking or using drugs?
- Have you ever felt Guilty about your drinking or drug use?
- Have you ever felt the need for an Eye-opener or awakened wanting a drink or another drug?
Just one positive answer indicates the need for further assessment. The CAGE-AID is a simple but effective tool and easily integrated into an intake counseling session.
Addiction is more than a moral choice. Addicts do not choose to use and cannot choose to stop by themselves. They are not ‘bad’ people, they are simply addicted people.
Up until the mid part of the twentieth century, addiction was a moral choice. If you were addicted you were ‘bad’ and you simply had not yet made the decision to stop.
Next came various theories of addiction encompassing environmental influences alone or combined with heredity as well as physiological reasons involving brain chemistry changes – all attempting to explain addiction.
And with the explanations came the treatment options; many of which were only marginally successful.
And out of all the treatment options the one with the most success and the one that has been around the longest is ‘alcoholics anonymous’.
Addicted people are just regular people with addictions of varying degrees; they are neither ‘bad’ nor genetically deficient. They are simply people who cannot stop without help.
|
|
Recent Comments