June 20, 2011 BLOG

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN

Alcohol kills 2.5 million people worldwide annually. That translates into 125,000 annually in the U.S. To put that in perspective, the biggest killer in our country is heart disease, accounting for 500,000 deaths annually. Surprisingly, alcohol accounts for one-quarter the number that heart disease does. That’s a lot of deaths, a great many preventable.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 of those will die in auto accidents. Many are young men.

It happened again last Friday night. Four young men driving west on Avila Drive toward the beach encountered a deadly curve that the CHP have nicknamed “Screech Owl,” presumably because of the sound of rubber on pavement. It is really two curves:  a tight left hand turn followed by a tight right.

The driver was drunk and going too fast. He started to slide right, over-corrected left, then back right and lost it. The vehicle rolled off the road onto the golf course.

The results: Two dead, one in ICU, and the driver in jail.

Young mens’ brains do not mature until they are twenty-five. One of the slowest to mature is an area in the pre-frontal cortex that is responsible for impulse control, judgment, and decision-making. There is evidence that with chronic alcoholism, it will never develop completely. That is due to alcohol’s inhibition of cholesterol synthesis in the brain. Cholesterol is a critical building block of nerve cell walls and a constituent of myelin which makes up the sheath that covers and insulates nerve processes, axons and dendrites, throughout the brain and nervous system.

And there are people who want to lower the drinking age to eighteen.

They clearly don’t know the facts.

They clearly don’t read the grim stories in the newspaper.

N.B. If you haven’t already seen it, there is a remarkable video on my website. It was produced in Australia in a campaign to reduce deaths from drunk driving. Go to excerpts/videos and click on Australian campaign. Share it with your children and young adult drivers.

jh

I heard a friend share the other night that he had carried his bottom a long time before he finally gave up. I understood exactly what he meant. In the last year of my drinking, I was miserable. I didn't want to drink, but I couldn't help myself. The worst thing of all, when I did drink, it didn't work for me anymore. It just made me depressed. I understand now what was happening. Alcohol chronically decreases your neurons' receptors for dopamine, the feel good neurotransmitter that gives you the alcoholic high. Having less receptors means that even though you might have high levels of dopamine in the synaptic cleft between neurons, without receptors it can't get into the cells and work its magic. The effect is a perceived dopamine deficiency. You feel bad, depressed, like you don't have enough of something you really need. That is true; you don't.

I carried my bottom way too long. A dozen failed attempts to quit but not long enough for my neurons to right themselves. A daily feeling of failure, shame, and self-contempt. It was a terrible time. If it hadn't been for my run-in with the young boy, I might still be carrying it. Shudder the thought.

In the last month I have learned a vast amount more about alcohol, especially about the physiology of addiction. I learned it at the seminar we put on at the Vets' Hall in May and little by little, I'd like to share it with you.

If any of you out there are still carrying your bottoms, but them down. There is a new world of sobriety out there for you and you won't believe the peace and serenity that is waiting.

Peace,

jeff