Katie09

Of course not. I have no idea what would give you that impression. My point is my addiction was from the get go. And don't tell me my view is incomplete when you don't even know me.

Some people could TRY to become alcoholics yet it wouldn't take. It's a combination of genetic propensity and bio/social/psychological factors.

Katie09

Wow! Schedule 1, hah? That is something. Nicotine (what makes cigarettes addictive) is a powerful drug. Nonetheless, it can be conquered (although not right now by me). I did quit for 15 years so know it can be done. Whose "fault" is it for smoking? Mine and mine alone. No one raises that cigarette to my lips and inhales but me - and I am addicted. Oh, and ETA, considering that smoking kills four times as many people annually as does drinking, I am all in favor of broader regulatory powers.

happyguy

I will support its prohibition given its many negative effects on the family and productivity. Prohibition is the BEST solution since non-availability means that there will be no demand.

Katie09

This is so not true. We had all of that moonshine and bootlegging going on in the prohibition period. People just found a way to get around it.

Boleo

A lot of thought, preparation and effort went into the Prohibition era and it failed anyway.

Legal non-availability quickly turned into ill-legal availability from the boot-legger 24X7 for anyone any age.

Al Capone was the richest man on earth.

Speak-easies were were found right in the middle of residential neighborhoods.

There was no "closing time" or Sunday restriction.

Cheap liquor could be purchased at high-volume discounts.

You did not need any proof of age ID just cash.

McGowdog

Let me just ask you if you have any concept of what it would be like to be a social or moderate drinker? I do. They can enjoy a glass of red wine with this meal, or a white wine with that one... a beer or two during the football game... maybe a Manhattan or two after work to calm down and settle the nerves before dinner. They can go to a restaurant and drink a beer and a half. When the waitress comes to take the next drink order, they hadn't finished the first one yet. And they let the waitress take the half-full beer!

If the world was full of these people, would there be a need for prohibition? If you could use mind control to stop drinking, would there be a need for prohibition? If I could just don't drink and go to meetings, would there be a need for prohibition? Put the plug in the jug?

I have a mind that tells me that it's cool. I can enjoy and control my drinking. I have absolutely no reason to believe that I'm gonna NOT drink like a gentleman this time. It's legal, it's fun, I see others taking it with impunity. So watch me. The Great Obsession of every alcoholic.

So what was that about choice? If choice was operative, then there would have never ever been a need for Alcoholics Anonymous.

I could just choose not to drink. For anybody who drank like me, how did that work for you?

collinsmi

For most people that drink, alcohol is a positive thing. Why should they be denied simply because we've run amok?

spittake

I'm new and bored.

Pick up a third-grader's history textbook, and you'll find out what happened. They didn't repeal Prohibition because it wasn't having the intended positive outcomes (it was), they repealed it because it threw society into chaos, for reasons that are very intriguing and worth researching if you don't already know.

I'm going to throw myself under the bus here, and take up for Katie09. It is my understanding that all addiction is progressive. Neurologically, it is a transformation of the very functioning of your brain, and it happens over a period of time. It requires the repeated satiating of your addictive urge for the change to become fixed such that you are then quite incapable of resisting without some external assistance. Your brain has been rewired.

That doesn't happen overnight. As the Big Book says (for you thumpers), many alcoholics started out as mere problem drinkers, or "hard drinkers." That's another way of saying it's progressive. Early on in your drinking, before the brain has been transformed, you can make the decision to abstain. You can choose whether or not to continue on the road to true addiction.

As Katie09 said, there are doubtlessly plenty of reasons why you didn't; ignorance of the addictive process would not be least of them.

Btw, I'm six months free of alcohol, and counting, and of the myriad substances I have put into me, I consider alcohol to have been the most debilitating and volatile. I guess I just have that disposition.

mistycshore

Me too. I can see some social value in alcohol, whether or not the value outweighs the liability. I see no social value in tobacco and think it might be a good thing if cigarettes were additive and flavoring free. Without those goodies a smoker would become keenly aware of how rough and nasty tobacco really tastes (and, yes, I'm a smoker).

McGowdog

Then just choose not to drink and have a good life.

If mind control works for you, do it. If rational thought or processes work for you, do it. If swearing off forever (with and without a solemn oath) works for you, do it. If taking more physical exercise works for you, do it. "We could increase the list ad infinitum." BB page 43.

Oh yeah? Which 3rd grade book is that one in? Can you prove this? I'm an electrical engineer, so I'd like to know specifically how this is so and what it means for the alcoholic of the hopeless variety. And I agree with you about "some" alcoholics... that think they could have quit in time... if they'd have only known. It's in the book;

"Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking. But the difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while there is yet time." Then they give the example of the young guy who quit for 25 years, retired at 55 successfully, drank again after he pulled his "slippers" () out, and died in 4 years.

So yeah. If I could be a Nostradamus and say, "On June 6th, 2012, don't eat the ham sandwich", then that would be great.

Go tell a social drinker who is controlling and enjoying their drinking to stop. They'll say, "Why?"

I was gone by 10 years old! There's no way you were gonna stop me. Nobody could. Choice? The Big Book would be a mere four words if that were true.

JJB

I do not for one moment think alcohol will ever be prohibited but i like this question-it tickles my brain!

When I used to drink i would sometimes drive but when i drove I would be more careful than when i hadn't been drinking so i would drive slower etc.
I'm sure that even drunk i drove better than certain others when they haven't been drinking.
However some people when they've been drinking don't react like this-they drive very fast and dangerously.
For this reason it is illegal to drive when you've been drinking-not because we all drive more dangerously but because of the behaviour of some it is a risk to life.
So the argument that alcohol doesn't affect everyone in the same way doesn't stand here. It has an effect on some(?) people which either kills them or other people (not necessarily in a car)
How many deaths (not in road accidents) are due to alcohol?

McGowdog

Alcohol impares judgment. That's the thing that tells you you're a good driver. What you describe about your drinking is the way I felt when I drove while poking smot. It made me nervous and paranoid, so I slowed down. With booze, I felt A-ok. My friends even told me I drove perfectly when drinking. It got kinda scary when I asked them who drove home last night and they said I did. It got real scary when I found out I couldn't turn back the hands of time AFTER I'd wrecked the car.

How many deaths from alcohol? IDK. How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?

DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE EVER PLEASE!

spittake

I cannot prove this, but ever since the development and implementation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), those wacky research scientists have been busy amassing all kinds of convincing evidence that is blowing open an array of those elusive mysteries of the mind. I won't post the links because that would be too time-consuming and prolific, but google "fMRI" and "addiction" or whatever neurological process piques you, and you just might be fascinated.
So most of the founding members believe that they could have stopped early on. I have read the BB, and I think it is an incredible milestone in the understanding of alcoholism, and I understand the sacred regard it elicits, but it is an anecdotal understanding formulated 80 years ago. It is not unreasonable to consider that we might progress in our understanding all these years and technological advancements later.

Back to the subject of the OP, freya said laws that aim to "protect people from themselves" are futile. I disagree. There are entire sections of the legal code in this vein (one could argue that all law is an attempt to do just that), and they are very effective. Freya's citation of seatbelt and helmet laws are actually pristine examples.
I fervently agree. All of the reasons for the crackdown on tobacco can be applied to alcohol, and then some. Alcohol contributes to cancer (according to cancer.org, it causes it), it's addictive, kids are peer-pressured to start early, AND nobody ever smoked a cigarette, blacked out, got into their car, and killed an entire family.

nolaspiral

If you were a 'victim' of legalization, at claimed age, options were available. Were dop legal, the mony saved (not to mention the lessened burden on the courts) would have afforded you at least a modicum of care.

Are we a culture that stands by the idea of , "victim of disease," or do we stand by the basics that keep out country going, despite the jingoism and terror-pimp?

What, I'm a jerk for asking?

nolaspiral

I'm running on a disabled KB. Letter, "E," among other keys doesn't do what I need it to.

mistycshore

Maybe better than people who were texting and driving? I say this because I recently saw interview with a young woman who made that exact statement about her own habit of texting and driving. It's scary.

JJB

yes it's scary and i hope you don't think I'm trying to vindicate drunk driving!

i wonder how many other things we mess up in our lives at the same time -we can't just not drive a car we also don't know when to pull out of an argument

Alcohol aggravates all problems!

mikefreak

Prohibition wouldn't work. If people want the almighty "buzz" badly enough, they will fine SOME way to attain it..........The goverment couldn't afford to lose the taxes!!!

JJB

Of course it wouldn't work
But has alcohol ever been banned anywhere for medical reasons rather than religious ones?
I remember people saying smoking bans in public places would never work and look at us now!

Boleo

I used to smoke and drink.

I would never have broken the law to get cigarettes.

I frequently broke the law to get liquor or home while drunk.