sobergirl77

This story breaks my heart. It also reminds me that I could - at age 30 - be just like her if I so much as take another drink.

BackToSquareOne

Anyone know if any studies have actually been done as to the availability of alcohol having an effect on the rate of alcoholism? This is a stupid example but when I was younger I was an owner/operator (drove tractor-trailer cross country) and in some states they sold alcohol eveywhere, even truckstops. I can say for a fact that most everyone was more likely to pick up a few 6 packs when it was so convienent. I can't count the times I stopped for fuel then drank a 6-pack and proceeded to drive partially wasted, this was very common. I vividly remember driving across the nevada and cali deserts while drinking. Alcohol was everywhere in some states and this made it much easier and probably contributed to a lot of accidents.
This may be a poor example but I do wonder how much the ease of availability contributes to the rate of abuse. In my state you can only buy liquor from a state run liquor store. I do think that the ease of availibity does have a direct impact on the overall rate of abuse, from what I have seen this would be hard to argue.

Timebuster

For the grace of my Higher Power, there goes I

Taking5

Not exactly, but I have seen one on the rates of alcoholism in various cultures compared to how long alcohol has been in that culture. For example, the native americans were the most recent culture in the study exposed to distilled alcohol (approx 500 years ago) and they had the highest alcoholism rates. The Chinese, if I recall, had the longest exposure to distilled alcohol (>5000 years) and they had the lowest alcoholism rates.

The conclusion was that the cultures that had been exposed to alcohol the longest had more time to develop "coping" mechanisms for alcoholism, be it darwinian natural selection or societal taboos against getting hammered.

That is all very interesting stuff, but it makes no difference IMHO to us alkies and our recovery.

tommyk

dgillz - thanks for posting and providing the link.

I love reading the different opinions.

And hopefully the young girl's death can remind us all of what sobergirl posted there above.

TheMaster

Yes, I am baffled by the way the article focuses on "cheap" alcohol.

I drank cheap alcohol for years. My guess is she drank night & day, something I just was never physically able to do (not that I wanted to).

The sad fact is she did it to herself, just like we all have done. Only she suffered in the worst way.

TheMaster

I have had both. The only differences are price & taste.

Both get you plastered. Cheap liquor just burns your throat, sometimes.

It's no more of a problem than any other liquor. That's not an AA thing, just common sense gained from drinking for 20 years.

Dee74

We must have vastly different common senses from our respective 20 years then LOL.

I'd reiterate my argument - but you already quoted me.

which leaves only....


LOL
D

RobbyRobot

i re-read the sad article and i saw no passages describing the inherent quality of the wine Stacey drank. comment is made on cut-rate alcohol; yup -- speaking to the cheap $ price point in purchasing the wine. it was store bought corner swill, but it was not home brew. cut-rated here enables more kids to purchase this **** in greater "quantities" then higher prices would allow. quality is not the issue here...

her mother states: "Stacey was now drinking five litres of wine a day and some cider, too. She no longer dressed fashionably, put on weight and didn't eat properly. 'Her stomach was huge and she was very ill,' her mother says."

thats alot of wine, folks. low-grade swill did not kill Stacey. the fvcking daily abuse of the *alcohol* killed her flesh and she died of abdominal bleeding in hospital in the embrace of her loving mom... and her liver was killing her as well...

"cheap alcohol" ??!! -- we need more of a world where kids want to live sober and clean -- we give them more of that happy world -- lots more for frigg sake -- and the abundance of the avalability of "cheap" alcohol will shallow out.

oh yeah, well mebbe not though eh? what the hell am i thinking?! our kids just need to grow up and face the facts that life aint easy and we all have to just get on and do "our best" with what we have....

yeah... i mean thats what we were told when we were kids right..... yup... and that sure worked out good eh.... nice.... before Stacey's generation the problem was less. and after Stacey's generation we will tell those kids what... oh yeah... "suck it up" and do your best?!!

speaking for myself i feel ashamed. "we" failed kids like Stacey. and its not over yet folks, changing the world is not easy... but i fvcking want a better answer for my daughter and her children then "suck it up, it could be worse" -- we need better questions people if we want better answers, methinks...

just venting is all...
RR

Emimily

well. sam died at 19, the night of my 20th bday party. google samantha spady, check out the SAM Spady foundation. she was a good friend. a good drinking buddy, too. she wanted to get a little dog and name it Martini. didn't stop me. google bennett bertoli, he died just a couple months later. another good friend. another good drinking buddy. didn't even slow me down.

cheap liquor is what you drink when you're a kid. it's a joke. boone's farm. mickey's. 40s. nobody enjoys it, it's there to get you f*cked up and that's it. it does the trick. only sometimes, it kills kids. or helps them kill themselves.

rest in peace, stacey and sam and ben and andy and all the other lost souls... there but for the grace of god go i.

Tazman53

Kind of odd...... I do not recall seeing one person mention that she may have died from alcoholism?

That could be a possibilty you know?

I mean Stacey was not the only young person in England that had access to the cheap booze!!!

I bet the majority of kids with access to all that cheap booze drank some of it, I bet a lot of them got drunk off of it!

Why isn't every kid with access to the cheap booze in England drinking 5 bottles of wine daily and dying from alcohol abuse?

Could it be that Stacey was an alcoholic?

What killed Tracy was untreated out of control alcoholism, not cheap booze! The alcohol in Mad Dog is exactly the same as the alcohol in a $500 bottle of wine, there is no difference in the alcohol, the only difference is in everything else in the wine.

Millionares die from alcoholism by drinking expensive booze, winos die the same death the same way drinking Mad Dog, Thunderbird & Wild Irish Rose.

What is very sad about this whole thing is there is no real outrage about a lack of education on alcoholism.

Where is the outrage over the lack of treatment centers in England?

Ananda

changing the world by compasion makes more since to me and seems to work better than changing the world from the attitude of outrage. I get outraged quite often about how our world is...but I have more of an ability to make a difference in my world when I come from the heart of compasion toward ALL the players. compassion not only for the downtrodden but also for those who have put them there. Walk a mile in thier shoes has really helped me to understand compassion toward all.

stone

The British media has a lot of alcohol stories lately, many of which bemoan stronger drinks, bigger wine glasses in pubs, cheap alcohol, lack of awareness, lack of parental control etc.

It seems to be a media fad to report alcohol stories and link the relative cheapness of alcohol to it. Here are some more....

BBC NEWS | Health | Hospital alcohol admissions soar

BBC NEWS | Health | Drinkers 'ignorant' about alcohol

BBC NEWS | Health | Alcohol-related deaths 'rising'

BBC NEWS | Health | Stronger drinks put many at risk

stone

I feel sorry for the girl who died and her family and in a way I am glad that alcohol related stories are now deemed more 'news-worthy', as alcohol causes FAR more damage than all the illegal drugs put together.

Some people dont seem to be aware that it is a drug and have a stupid macho, childish thing about it.

unigirl

hey tazman- here mother does recognise she was an alcoholic and wants awareness raised by showing vids of her daughter in schools.

Tazman53

Unigirl I am glad to hear that, I am also glad that Stone posted up those other links, here in the states there is still a lack of education both in the schools and for the genearl public.

Stone it is the same deal here in the States, there are more problems caused by alcohol then all other drugs combined.

MyPaperAnchor

Wow. Looking at the pic they have of that poor girl in her final days from that link just haunts me. There've been times when I've come off a bender, writhing in physical and mental pain, looked in the mirror and had that same look. Fear.

Thanks for posting this.